Please turn in your Bibles this morning to Matthew chapter 18. Matthew 18, please. Matthew 18 takes us today to one of the great demonstrations of our hope being in the Lord, our faith entirely in Him, our expectations being what He said He would do. Beloved, it stabilizes us, it secures us, it gives us necessary foundational stability to be able. to forgive, to be harmed and hurt by others, and yet not count a wrong suffered. It enables us to love as we've been called to love, and that is quite a heavy lift. Last time we talked about the problem of judgment in the church. Two or three gathered in my name to establish a matter in judgment in Matthew 18. We talked about the process of removing someone that has to be removed from the assembly. Jesus talks about it in the synagogue context in Matthew 18. Read about the same thing in 1 Corinthians chapter five. And we don't shy away from this instruction. We embrace it because it helps define what the church is. The church is not a place that you have the right to come to. That's not what it is. It's, I'm sorry, it's not a public building you have the right to come to because it's public and you can come. That's not what the church is. Americans may think that's what a church is, but it's not. We welcome people who we don't know to come join us. Visitors, feel very welcome, please. But that's not what the church is. The church is the pillar and ground of the truth. Church is a household of the faith. The church is a collection of believers that are walking worthy of our calling, and being the church is your right as a believer, being the church, but that right comes with responsibilities and expectations. And we talked about that last time in removing the leaven of sin. Lifestyle, personal sin, especially of a sexual nature, removing it from the assembly. And do y'all remember why you do that in 1 Corinthians 5? Do you remember why you remove someone given to a lifestyle of fornication? Of any sort of fornication, that's sex between two people that are, a man and a woman that are not married, or two people that are not married, man and woman. Any kind of fornication as lifestyle is separate, it's segregated from the body of Christ and its expression. Do you remember why you do that? Two reasons why you do that. The first is for the sanctification of the body so that it can be holy or set apart to God and that the leaven of sin and that corruption not leaven the entire group. It's the church family's witness and it's sanctification. That's the first reason. But there's a second reason. Paul says, I have determined to deliver such a one over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh so that he will be saved in the coming of our Savior, the day of the Lord Jesus. The other reason besides the church being sanctified is the sanctification of this brother or sister that is caught in this lifestyle fornication. There, it's a restorative act to segregate them. And that's shocking, but that's the obvious and inescapable exegetical conclusion of 1 Corinthians 5. And we don't like it in our culture because we know better than God and his word. But the culture can go to hell, it is going to go to hell. That's just how it is. God is God and there is no other. And his word is clear and sufficient And we're arrogant if we don't embrace it on this account. We have to manage ourselves. We have to manage our church family in this way. And so church discipline is the topic that it's been called. It is the removal of a believer that's acting like an unbeliever, especially in lifestyle fornication. It isn't only restricted to fornication in 1 Corinthians 5, but it is for the sanctification of the church and the restoration of the brother that is walking as an unbeliever. The brother, the Christian, the born-again believer who's walking in carnality is an unbeliever. Your Bible, 1 Corinthians 5 might call it so-called brother. It's actually one called brother. There's no so-called. It's a brother. It's a Christian walking like a Corinthian. And we're supposed to make this judgment, and it's shocking and unacceptable. And some of you who are with me are like, yeah, that's really bad, and you're gonna really be challenged when we do it. when we as a church family have to say, okay, these are the facts of the case that our brother's making this decision, and we have to segregate, we have to separate from him. We do it, we do it with fear and trembling, we do it, we don't want to do it, it's surgery. Nobody wants to cut. Somebody has to, sometimes it's required. And that's what we're talking about last hour. We are under obligation from God, and men, we do what we're called to do. We submit to the revelation of God and obey him. Well, that's good, that's all. Some of you are like, yes, remove the fornicators. Others are still reeling from, what is he actually talking about? And it's because you're just not familiar with the Bible very much. And others are probably more like me about this, that it's never something you wanna do, and it's surgery, you have to. But it happens in context. Matthew 18 talking about removing someone that has harmed the family, and the family deciding together to remove them. He'll be to you as a Gentile and tax collector. It's followed immediately with a longer section on what we really wanna see. We don't want to render judgments that remove people. We wanna see people restored and advanced and grow. We want everybody, all the little woolies, to get their full coat of wool so that the landowner, the boss, the owner of the flock can get all the crop, all the fruit that he wants out of his flock. We wanna see every one of us be spiritually healthy and growing and maturing and being what God wants us to be in our sexual practice and all our practices. And we wanna be sanctified. And that brings us to what happens that Peter thinks to ask Jesus about that launches us on a long parable about forgiveness. I wanna remind you of the flow. The disciples started this discourse of Matthew 18 with the question, which one of us is the greatest? Jesus said, one of these little kids is the greatest. You gotta become like one of these little kids to even enter the kingdom. They're like, oh, come on, Jesus. This is gonna be one of those lessons about being a Christian. This is gonna be one of those discipleship things about how it's not about us, it's about him. It's about you, Lord, and about being like a little child, humble and listening and receiving what we are told in childlike faith, yeah. And then he switches ever so subtly to saying you've got to receive these and not cause them to stumble. So the disciples take on that humility and then they're fit to minister and receive and bring along such little children and not cause them to stumble because there's a great discipline and great spiritual carnage if you want to cause the little ones to stumble. And he does this whole discussion of stumbling blocks because the disciple-maker is gonna remove stumbling blocks and help avoid them, and that's the problem of disciple-making is when people stumble, when they are distracted from the Lord. But then, what will these disciple-makers who are like little children in their faith and their humility, who receive the little ones, who don't cause them to stumble, what will they be like? They'll be like that one shepherd, that shepherd that leaves the one sheep, sorry, that leaves the 99 sheep to go get the one. They'll prioritize helping The sheep that's gone astray. See, it's all a flow in Matthew 18. So you have the 99 and the one. And then the idea of correction. Correction and removal. We don't want to remove if a brother sins against you. Take him, his fault, in private. Convict him, or convince, or however you say that. Bring that correction in private, and if he hears you, you've won your brother. If he doesn't hear you, bring two or three witnesses for that Deuteronomy 19 witnessing, that conviction on two or three witnesses. And then if he doesn't hear you, you tell it to the church. If he won't hear the church, then he becomes to you like a Gentile and tax collector. And it's all part of this setting these men up in discipling to be leaders and makers of more disciples. This is the answer to the question, the greatest in the kingdom. See, we're in a mission. We're building up to 10 chapters from now in Matthew 28, Him sending them on their international mission. So now we come to forgiveness in Matthew 18. And this topic, if you are familiar with this, is a challenging topic in the Gospels. It's like forgiveness is so important to God that He threatens you with things that we don't think He can threaten you with. Like you've been forgiven, but if you don't forgive, you won't be forgiven. That kind of thought. And we'll talk about that some today. But let's go through verse by verse in Matthew 18. He says, and I will forgive him. Future tense is through here. How many times will it happen? And this is one of the uses of the future tense. How many times will this happen? It's kind of like should or if this were to happen, how many times? We just had your brother sins against you, you go to him in private, show it to him, and then he hears you, you win him over. How many times do I have to go through this process where I tell him, you've done this? And he says, you're right, I'm sorry. That's the context, see how it all fits together? How many times do I win my brother? Peter's got suggestions, up to seven times. How about seven times, Lord? I mean, that's the perfect number, isn't it? That's how many days that you created and all things, and seven days, rested on the seventh day, like, let's go with a week. You like sevens. Well, he does like sevens, but it isn't sevens. As you know, Jesus multiplies it. Jesus said to him, I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to 70 times seven. Now the scholarship, well, out there they'll say, I'd like to bring out some color, some technicolor from the original if I can. This is like a, it's a weird adverb. It's an adverb, it's weird. But it's 70 times is the literal translation of this. And it's been taken by most scholars today, they'll say that this means 77 times. 77 times. But we tend to say, well, let's take it literally 70 times, and then he says hepta, he says seven. So it's probably 490 times. But the reason that he said 70 times seven, or 77, whichever way it's to be understood in this weird idiom that we don't have a lot of examples of in Greek, the reason it doesn't matter is because he's saying as many times as it's necessary. If somebody does the same thing to you 77 times, they might as well have done it to you 490 times. And Jesus says, yeah, you keep on forgiving, you keep hitting the forgive button. but Lord on 491, not hitting the button, right? No, it's saying we are gonna forgive. The rationale Jesus is gonna make is a theological rationale, and if you don't wanna be a theologian, that's an arrogance on your part. I'll tell you why. Pastor Dave, you're a theologian, I'm not a theologian. If you don't wanna know God, if you don't wanna think God's thoughts, if you don't wanna think about things the way God thinks about them, that's an arrogance on your part because God is speaking, you're supposed to think about it, and you're saying, no, I'm not gonna think about what he's saying. That's what a theologian does. We think theologically. The theology that Jesus insists on is think about what you've been forgiven, think about what you've been forgiven, and then measure that against what you're being asked to forgive. And you'll never, ever fulfill what you've already been forgiven. You'll never match Jesus and what he's forgiven you. You'll never measure in your forgiveness of others up to what the Father has already forgiven you in an instant when you first trusted in Christ. And that infinite forgiveness of the infinite transgression of our little paltry wickedness against God's infinite righteousness and glory, that forgiveness of that rift, of that breach, is so massive and so magnificent. This is the idea, this is the theology, that the forgiveness we've received is so massive. that we should never think for a second that I've been wronged so very deeply that it's even bigger than the forgiveness I've been given. See, we don't think from the cross. We don't think biblically, we don't think of Christ as he is or what our salvation means. And we wanna never leave the shadow of the cross and think about what it means that he has saved me and in this instance forgiven me of my sins. He says, I don't say up to seven times, but 70 times seven. He just takes Peter's number and says, just keep holding the button down. You're never going to forgive more than you've been forgiven is the theology. Understand the theology. You'll never forgive more than you've been forgiven. And God who has forgiven you has expectations that you would keep that into account, you would think about that. So if you live a day where you're not thinking of your forgiveness, if you're living a day where you're not gracious because of the grace that's been shed on you, you're not living in the reality that God's calling you to. And that's the challenge. of Matthew 18 and forgiveness. And it runs counter to our feelings. I feel hurt. And I'm going to have to be, they're going to have to make amends. Well, they said they were sorry. They brought it to you. They owned it. They heard you. You've won your brother. Forgiveness, release. I want to see some satisfaction here. And then God says, well, hey, would you like me to say that to you? Would you like me to say I want to see some satisfaction? Let's toast you just a little bit over the lake of fire, just a little. Just a little marshmallow toasting. Or do you want to actually enjoy the forgiveness I've given you? That's the idea through the passage. Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be likened to a human king, an anthropobasile, a human king who wanted to settle matters with his slaves. Now your Bible might say servants, but that kind of weakens what the word means because we don't think of it this way. We think of servant as somebody that is paid a lower wage for domestic work. But this word means that the person is in a contractual arrangement that amounts to a loss of self-determination. A lot of syllables there. They're owned by the person. They've bought them. Whether it's an indenture, it's still ownership. You don't have self-determination to decide where you live, where you sleep, where you eat, or what work you do. And your productivity belongs to the other person. That's the servitude that we're talking about. So the word that I think better translates this throughout the Bible really, doulos, is a slave for English speakers today. And it is not racial. There's no racial component to slavery. It's the human race that does this. So he tells those that he owns, The human king wants to settle matters with those that he owns. And is that pretty tight in this parable to us? Are you owned? Does somebody own you, and are you happy about that? I'm nobody's property. Well, Jesus bought you with the blood of the cross. Are you owned? Have you been bought from the slave market of sin? The truth is that somebody owns you regardless. Whether Christ is your savior or not, you are owned. You're either dead in your transgression and sins, or Jesus bought you with his blood and owns you. It's the most wonderful shackles. It's infinitely valuable to me. There's no precious metal that you could describe these shackles made of that would, possibly calculate their value that I am owned by my Savior, but I am. That's called being regenerate or born again and redeemed, bought out of the slave market of sin. He wanted to settle matters with those that he owned, with his slaves. Now when he began to settle accounts, This is so fun, I do some Bible calculator time. He began to settle his accounts. One was brought to him who owned 10,000 talents. And here in English, we all read and we don't know, it's 2,000 years ago, we all kind of blink our eyes and we say, oh, 10,000 talents, that must be a lot or something. That means something, that must be a measure. This is the largest weight you could measure money in in the first century. It's the largest weight. The various talents, as a weight measure, they range between 62 and 84 pounds in the standard system. So they say about 75 pounds is what you're thinking of when you talk about a talent. 75 pounds of something, gold or silver, silver being the most common medium of exchange. And I'm not sure whether it would have been a gold talent or a silver talent. I don't know. My suspicion is that it would be a gold talent. But we know a little bit from the archaeology about what that means in today's dollars. 10,000 talents. This is fun right here, see this word murion, murion, M-U-R-I-O-N. This is from the word myriad, means 10,000. 10,000 talanton, look at y'all, y'all can read Greek, T-A-L-A, that's an N, T-A-L-A-N-T, talent. It's really not that hard. Give me 10 minutes, you'll learn the Greek alphabet. Give me two weeks, you can learn the Hebrew alphabet. Hebrew's harder. All right. One was brought to who owed 10,000 talents. So let's calculate what he owes. What he owes in today's dollars, okay? All right, Bauer, Donker, Arndt, Gingrich is the lexicon of record for Greek. They say 6,000 drachmas or denarii. A denarius or a drachma are these measures of money, like dollars. And the old idea of the denarii is it's a day's work. Like a day laborer gets a dollar for a day. That's kind of the measure. They said the Tyrian talent, Tyre is in Phoenicia, it's on the coast, and we have enough archeology to say their talent is 6,000 drachmas. which would be 6,000 days work. That's one talent. So now we have a multiplier in the way Jesus tells the story. I love Jesus, obviously, but I love his exaggerations. I love his hyperbole. I mean, he's hyperbolic here with what he said. Let's see how hyperbolic. 6,000 denarii per talent times 10,000 talents is 60 million denarii. And I know that because I checked it on the calculator. But I also learned that you take all the zeros and you just add them to the end. So 60,000, I'm sorry, 6,000 denarii per talent with 10,000 talents, the multiplier takes you to 60 million days work for a day laborer. That's minimum wage. That's what he owes. Why is Jesus saying he owes almost an infinite sum? 60,000, 60 million days work time divided by 365 days per year is 164,000 years. And I verified this, others have said it's probably close to like 200,000 years for a day laborer's work. Well, it's actually, and the math that we were able to do in mid 2010s with the resources I'm looking at, because the inflation, 164,000 or so years of labor. Well, that's a long time for that day laborer. He better invest or something to be able to pay this back. He can't pay it back. Well, we could put that in dollars. Today's dollars, they say, one resource said that about $8 per denarius times 60 million denarii is $480 million. which is like one half of a musk, like it's a .5 billion dollars. I think musk should probably become like a measure of money. Now, this used to sound like a lot more money than it is today, because we're in the trillions in our debt, and we're getting where we can't service our, we're pretty close to not servicing the interest on our debt, I think, closer than we think or hear about. But half a billion dollars is what this guy owes, no big deal. Well, that's a lot of money. 164,000 years work for a day laborer. So what you're supposed to do is stick your chin out and be like, I'll pay it. I'll pay it. No, you're supposed to beg for mercy. You're supposed to say, I mean to. And that's what the man does. He humbles himself before his master and he begs for mercy. But because he did not have the means to repay, the master ordered that he be sold along with his wife and his children and all which he had to be repaid. Well, so in payment for the debt that you owe, everything that you have, including your person and your children, will be used to make up the debt. And I suspect it would probably not amount to 16, thousand years of labor, much less 164,000 years of work for a day laborer. But that's okay, I mean it's math, we did the math. You owe this much? How did you get in that kind of debt and who does that? Who gets in that kind of debt? But notice the fool, because in Proverbs that's a fool, a person in that kind of debt, any kind of debt is foolish. Well the person in debt in Proverbs is a fool, but Jesus is telling us all that we're this guy that's in this infinite debt. It really humbles you. This passage really breaks you down. I can't really think so super highly of myself. I have to think highly of God's grace and then parlay that grace to others. And that's what Jesus is teaching. All which he had, he sent to be repaid. And so in verse 26, therefore, after falling down, the slave prostrated himself before him saying, Lord, be patient with me in all To you, I will repay, literally, all that I owe. All, ponta soi apodoso. All to you, I will repay. Be patient. You have a character thing. I've got an obligation. You have the necessary character to let me try to work my way out of this. Well, that's just ridiculous, right? He's gonna, I'm gonna pay you back. What, did you bet a billion dollars on a bad horse or something? What are you doing? How do you get a half billion dollars in debt? You should have seen the other guy. I mean, this is ridiculous. All right. What a scoundrel to be in such debt. And what an interesting request that you tell the master, be patient with me, have some compassion, and I'll do what I can to repay. Of course he can't repay, but he says he will, he wants to. Well, being in a helpless condition, as you and I are, and our sin and loss and separated from God, He paid the debt. He just canceled it. And that's the gospel. So move with compassion. Splanchnizomai. Splanchnizo. I like to bring this one out. Splanchnon is the Greek word for intestines. And your Bible will sometimes translate it heart. We know better now than some English translations that the heart and the intestines are different. Sometimes it'll call it your compassion or your affections, because the Bible uses physical body parts to describe immaterial things and feelings. And so the feelings are often described as the guts, as the intestines, because there's a close connection between your mood and how it goes with your intestines. That's kind of the idea. So he's moved with compassion, bowels of compassion, okay? And so he was moved with compassion, the master, the kurios, all through here, which usually we translate lord, but slaves and masters, so same master, same word, same idea. The master, lord of that slave, released him, Apoluo, he released him because he was in prison till he paid everything, right? He was gonna be held on the auction block and whatever meager fee could be raised for his measly hide would be applied to his debt and wouldn't touch it. Wouldn't even probably touch the significant digits of whatever that, you know, we're not even touching the debt. But he released him, and the debt, the debt, he forgave him. He forgave. Turns out apoluo and afiemi, two words here, two verbs here used for what the master does, he released him from his confinement, and then he forgave the debt. Afiemi means to release. He had this certificate of debt against him and he canceled it. He tore it up. You don't owe me now. That's the idea that Jesus teaches for us to grasp about forgiveness. That's the concept of forgiveness. The concept is not the emotional damage or pain I feel from what you've said or done to me is no longer damaging. It no longer hurts me. That's not what forgiveness means, but in our therapeutic sort of, you know, nerf padded culture, we want it to be all about how we feel. It doesn't say he felt forgiveness. It says he felt compassion for him, but he did a math thing. He tore up the debt and he canceled the bill. That's the picture of forgiveness. What was the bill that the man had racked up? It was his debt. It was his transgression. It was what he owed the master. How does the master just cancel it? He eats it. He takes the debt on himself. I just don't have a half a billion dollars that I did have before, and I'm willing because of my compassion for you. That is the portrait of God the Father in sending his son to die for you, to love you. That's what it means that I'm saved, is that I had an infinite debt I could never repay, and God was patient with me, and He felt compassion on me, and He canceled that debt. And what did I do? I trusted in Jesus as my Savior. I came to God, I called on the Lord, I said, save me. and he saved me. It's what he did. It's the grace of God. You are recipients of an infinite forgiveness. So what is your role now as one who's in this household with God? What's your role? What's the policy of the household? Compassion and forgiveness like you've been forgiven. He released him and forgave the debt. The thing that was forgiven was the transgression that the man had against his master, and the master disregards what he owes. Think about how that applies in your life with the people that you need to forgive. Think about the people in your life that you should forgive because they have transgressed, because they have hurt, because they owe you a debt. What should be your attitude about that debt? Think about your own debt. Think about what's already been done for you is the idea. That's the theology. Think about your salvation, and it helps you release that debt. And it can be challenging because sometimes there's real pain here. There's real suffering. There's a real reason for me to feel like not being forgiving. But it doesn't say feel forgiving. It says release the debt. You cancel that debt. That's the idea. It's neat that the Lord used a debt method to talk about forgiveness of transgressions. The topic really isn't that when someone owes you money, you forgive it. It's not really the topic. It's the way he teaches you forgiveness when people have wronged you. How many times do I have to forgive my brother? Seven times? No, this is your brother owes you and you release it. Powerful. Now after going out, that slave found one of his fellow slaves who owed him 100 denarii. Three months work, 100 denarii, 100 days work. So, less. 100 denarii, we said a drogma or denarius was $8. And today's, if you call it a day's work, the number gets higher, doesn't it? Because we get more than $8 a day at the lowest level, but whatever. They say $8 is a drogma. He owes him $800. Oh, have I ever got you? I've got you right where I want you. You owe me $800. And he's sitting there with a canceled debt of half a billion dollars. That's the picture, right? And it doesn't come out to us because we don't think in terms of talents and denarii. 100 denarii. And he seized him and began, in the imperfect, in the aggressive imperfect, began to choke him, saying, pay me back what you owe. This is this word we talked about last hour that we translate obligation, ofelo. It's a verb, ofelo, O-P-H-E-I-L-O, and it means obligation or debt. When God says you owe, Romans chapter 13, owe nothing to anyone except to love them. But love, that's the obligation that we're placed under. And God places husbands, as we saw first hour, under the obligation of self-sacrificially loving our wives as Christ loved the church. It's our obligation. It's not our compulsive feeling of affection, it's our obligation to look for God's best for the other person and act on it self-sacrificially. That's that Christian love piece in Christian marriage. But that's this word to owe, pay me back what debt you owe. So I'm going to get satisfaction for this transgression that you have against me. You are in the red with me $800, and I'm gonna choke you until you pay back what you owe. Therefore, his fellow slave, soon do loss, S-U-N-D-O-U-L-O-S, this little affix means with. fellow. So, a lot of Greek words they'll throw soon on the front. It means, where fellow airs with Christ. Same thing happens in Romans chapter 8. This is a fellow slave. They're of their peers. They're both in the same boat, right? His fellow slave fell down at his feet and began to implore him, saying, Be patient, same thing, makrothumeo, have patience or be long-suffering with me, and I will pay you back. I will pay back to you. Now, I wanna go back to this idea of the fellow slave, the sundoulos. There are two categories of people in the story. There's the Lord of the Master, and then there's the slave, and then the fellow slave at the same level. Do you see how this works? The way you treat other people is at the peer level. They're humans that are all in the same need of forgiveness. and they wrong each other. But the thing between you and God when you go vertical and think about the debt that's, this is what we forget. We all think that we're just in dealing with the soon-do-loy. We're just dealing with the same people and they're the people in front of me, that's all I can see, that's the only relationship that matters is they wronged me and I'm gonna get satisfaction. And we fail to look up and say, oh yeah, billions, nevermind. we let it go because we reconcile who we are in Christ. It's that vertical perspective. It's that change, that shift from thinking about what I deserve from this person to what I don't get that I deserve from God and his wrath. And that's the shift. That's the attitude that Jesus is calling. It's very simple. But the fellow slave fell down and begged, please, Be patient and I'll pay you back. The same thing that the first slave that's holding him accountable, the first slave said before. He said, be patient with me, master, and I'll pay you back. What's interesting is the little debt that the fellow slave owes, the 800 denarii, he could pay that back. Over time, he could pay that back. It's a pretty good-sized debt, three months' pay, maybe, but you can pay that back, right? You have to budget and scrounge and save and all that, but yeah, that's what you, but the other one is an impossible debt. And that's the difference. The sins that you've wronged each other with are not impossible debts, I think. Think about it. You've done wrong, you've wronged yourself, you've wronged others, others have wronged themselves, they've wronged you. Those things are in the realm of sinners sinning against sinners. But what you cannot do is get back the offense to God's righteousness that our sin is. But Christ can. Christ has done it at the cross, exhausting the wrath of God for our sin. So in verse 30, but he was not willing. And that is the topic. at issue in every case. What's wrong with these people? They're not willing. What's wrong with this guy? He won't choose. Why? Because it's his choice to make and he makes the wrong one. Why do we make the choices that we make? The word is thello, T-H-E-L-L-O. The verb means to make a choice or to have a desire. And the desire is the peace that Jesus will correct us with. I don't want to forgive this person because of the pain that I feel. I don't wanna forgive because after all, they're going to do X, Y, or Z and do it again or get away with it. My brother's already done this to me 14 times and now you're telling me I have to forgive him a 15th time. I don't say 15 times, remember 490 times. The reason that we're struggling is that we're not desiring to forgive. And he's not willing or desiring because he's looking at the wrong thing. And this is what Jesus will do for us. He changes our perspective. Yeah, it's bad what they did. He's not saying that the guy doesn't owe a debt. He's saying that it's not as important as the debt that's been forgiven you. And it's also not as important to the master that you're serving that you be forgiving. It's also not as important that you get paid back than that you forgive because you've already been forgiven. So the master has expectations for those that he's purchased. He's not willing, and he went and threw him into prison, until he should repay what was owed. But his fellow slaves, what do you think the word for fellow slaves is? Sundulas, the peers are all like, this is wrong. This is what happens in church. This is what's going on with groups of humans. Somebody wrongs someone else, we just had it in Matthew 18, the previous paragraph. Someone wrongs someone else, eventually the church has to make an assessment. But we're not doing it without desiring to forgive, it's just this has to be addressed. So you're, see it's not, there's not a tension here. The question Peter asked my brother, Repents, how many times must I forgive him? As many times as it requires. The man asked for patience. He asked, I'll pay you back. The guy's unwilling. So his fellow slaves saw what had happened and they were greatly grieved. Lupeo. They were grieved sfodra a lot, greatly grieved. And they went and reported to their own master all that had happened. And it's interesting, this doesn't come out to you, but to their own reflexive pronoun that belongs to their master. Because the fellow slaves all belong to the same master. See how tight the parallel is? The parable is very tight. that it's the same master that they all owe or belong to, and so their appeal is now to him for what's happening. This isn't right that this man is being railroaded after the great forgiveness that the master gave. So if God is willing to deign to come down to us and forgive us with the infinite forgiveness of the cross, then he expects for us to forgive horizontally one another as we own what we need to own. Then his master summoned him and said to him, evil slave, dule ponere, not pornere, that's different, ponere. This word is, ponere is not a place to overpay for fast food. It is wicked. Poneros is wicked, not paneros, poneros. Evil slave, all, that I forgave you, all the debt, I forgave you, I affie me to you, I let go, I release the debt. I forgave you because you implored me. So there's a cause and effect. I forgave you because you asked for the forgiveness, and I did forgive, and you won't think of that. And that's the fundamental principle that you wanna go back to when people hurt you. is that the transgression of God's righteousness is much bigger than this hurt of my feelings. This will solve the problem of holding grudges and poisoning yourself with bitterness. It'll also solve the problem of putting people in boxes that they're irredeemables. One erstwhile purported head of state that didn't make it called her political opponents a basket of deplorables. And one in the same vein of her then said that the political opponents were garbage. Wow. but we can forgive that, but they're gonna struggle with forgiveness because they've made these boxes, these categories that they put people in and they can't get out of the category. Remember, I've said this before, it doesn't matter political persuasion or national entity or any of the things that we divide on, the two divisions of people for a lot of us are category A, they have hurt me, and category B, they haven't hurt me. And the have hurt me are untouchables, they're lepers. That person hurt me. And that's the problem of forgiveness. Now forgive, remember forgive doesn't mean that I don't hurt. It means that I don't hold the debt. I let it go. It's a release. And there's a couple things happening. The person doesn't have to repay on the one hand, you've forgiven, you've released. But the second thing is, you don't have to hang on to that. That debt will poison you. That certificate of debt is a cause for bitterness, and it makes this stupid category the person you can't get out of, and nobody is Jesus but Jesus. The truth is that we're all in one category. We're all fellow slaves. We're all in the same horizontal problem at our level of being sinful and selfish and Sometimes we're carnal, and believers, we're supposed to walk by the Spirit and be spiritual, and we fall, and we step on each other and hurt each other, and love covers a multitude of sins. So Jesus is saying, the lightning strike of your forgiveness of your sins is the repayment, is the canceling of a billion dollars. and the 80 bucks that your friend owes you, you're gonna be able to let that go for the billion that you've already been forgiven. That's the idea. All that debt I forgave you, I released you, that debt that you owed, because you requested, you implored or exhorted me to forgive you. Was it not necessary also? Was it not necessary also for you to have mercy? This word mercy is a verb and we have to, in English, have mercy. We have to say have with the noun mercy. They just say mercy. You were given mercy. on your fellow slave. It wasn't necessary for you to have mercy on your fellow slave just as I also had mercy on you. Verse 33 makes you a theologian. You need to think every single day about your so great salvation. And you need to think about the grace of God which has amounted to mercy to you that you don't get the flames, you get the crown. You don't get the lake of fire. You get the rewards at the judgment seat of Christ and you inherit the kingdom with Christ as his fellow heir. You don't get what you deserve. You and I get what Jesus deserves. Jesus at the cross didn't get what he deserved. He was taking what we deserve on himself. And that fact is the biggest fact. That fact is the defining feature of your personal identity. if you understand who Christ is. For me to live is Christ and to die is gain. And Jesus is showing you this. You keep looking to me. You keep looking at what I've done for you and you'll be able to be gracious. And sometimes it takes a minute for us to think this through. Sometimes it takes a little bit of time in meditation and reflection to get where we're feeling along with what we believe to be true and that's a challenge for us. I believe the world we live in is designed to distract our attention from these things with all kinds of visual and otherwise stimulation to get us distracted away from our so great salvation so we're not thinking in terms of the grace that we've received. And we're absurd like this fool, this outhouse lawyer who says, you owe me this money and I'm gonna choke you out until you give it. Really? You need to be like your Father who has forgiven you. And you need to be gracious in extending grace. And listen, we're in the context of holding people accountable in Matthew 18. We're in the context of sometimes people loving people is correcting them. We're not saying that we're gracious to the point of 1 Corinthians 5 where we say nothing about something that's actually wrong. There's a balance here. We are gracious people who have expectations. and God has graciously given us the expectations, and we need to walk according to those expectations and make corrections as necessary, but always from this perspective of the grace of God. You need to become a grace theologian that recognizes what Jesus has accomplished for you at the cross. Well, this gets bad. It really takes a dark turn. The master, the kurios, was angry, and he gave him to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed to him. Thus also my Father in heaven will do to you if each of you does not forgive his brothers from your hearts, not until, their sins. Just their sins. Sorry. If you do not forgive his brothers from your hearts their sins, and you say, Okay, we just added a condition to eternal life. I have to believe in Christ and receive the grace gift of eternal life, Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, and then I also have to forgive in case someone ever sins against me, because if I don't, then I won't go to heaven. That's the Arminian interpretation of this passage, and I reject it. Another effort has been proposed that the debt was canceled, so he owes the debt of forgiveness, because you can't re-institute a debt that's already been canceled. Well, I believe your debt has been canceled. Another interpretation has been that God throws the person into the prison until they pay their debt, is that you're in prison, and the pronouns kind of are ambiguous, so you're in prison until the one that owes you pays his debt. to you. So you'll be in this prison of your own bitterness until the other person pays his debt. And I believe this. In Matthew chapter 6 we have the same emphasis in the Lord's Prayer. He said all the things he said in the Lord's Prayer and then he gives an excursus on forgiveness. The forgiveness that you want to enjoy, a fellowship with your God, walking with Him hand in hand through this life, which is your birthright and the new birth, it comes with expectations. And one of the expectations is the forgiveness that you've received, and you can't lose, is extended to others. And there is another kind of forgiveness, beloved. There's another kind of forgiveness besides the billions that you owe. There is fellowship forgiveness where God forgives us of our sins when we confess them. God forgives us our sins when we confess. The man says, I owe you this. Please have mercy on me and I'll pay you back. This is the forgiveness of confession that is for believers, and it is for fellowship with God. You will not enjoy fellowship if you're unforgiving. You say, oh, no, no, no, he's talking about them going to the lake of fire. He never says the lake of fire, he says you're in prison until you pay your debt, you pay it all back. You at least owe the debt of forgiveness to the other person. And I just want you to understand, God is holding us accountable to be forgiving. It comes with strings attached. You are so great salvation. The strings are not that you go to heaven if you stay the course. That's settled. You have eternal life, and eternal life means it's forever. It's by God's grace, not your works. It's not the faithfulness of your faith that saves you. It's the faithfulness of God, and that's always been the case. And that's what faith actually means if you go back from the Old Testament and see how the idea of faith comes into the New Testament. It's always a recognition of God's faithfulness. That's what it means. So what are we saying? We're saying that to walk with God in a relationship called fellowship with Him, you're gonna have to adopt the grace attitude that comes with what's been done for you. And now you've been told, now we've been taught what grace means and what responsibilities it carries. Do we feel the obligation of grace? Do we feel that grace, having been extended, carries with it the expectation that it will be further extended from us? Do we become exponents of God's grace that we received to others? Or do we stop that pipeline? Do we stop the parlay from God through us to others and pretend that we're a reservoir rather than a conduit of God's blessing? Are you gonna be part of God's agenda, or is it all about you? Are you living your life from the shadow of the cross, or have you lost sight of the cross because after all, uh, I'm saved? See, are you gonna walk with him and enjoy the fellowship that he offers, which is your birthright, which you forfeit through personal sin, including unforgiveness? Or are you gonna extend that grace and grow in to the role God has called you to? Challenge. the challenge of forgiveness and grace. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the riches of your grace to us, and that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. Thank you that we're saved by grace through faith, and that not of ourselves, the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. But Father, you've saved us for works that you prepared before and that we'd walk in. Some of those works include forgiveness, that we would trust you and reckon what we've already been forgiven and extend to others. And I pray for Preston City Bible Church, Father, that we'd be forgiving and gracious, that we would understand Peter's sentiment, his concern, but then we would reckon it. from the perspective of the cross that we've been forgiven an infinite debt so that we can forgive those that sin against us as exponents of your grace. Father, make us useful to you as we grow in the grace and knowledge of our Savior, even in what he taught here. In Christ's name we pray, amen.