This past year, I listened to an interview between two men, Sean Ryan and Chad Robichaux. Sean Ryan is an independent media specialist and Chad Robichaux is a veteran and does a lot of work with foreign affairs and some important national things and international things. Chad is a Christian. Early on in this interview, Sean was asking Chad about his upbringing. And Chad, growing up in Louisiana, detailed the really horrific childhood existence that he had. And it was horrific because of the violent abuse that his father put him and his siblings and his mother through for their entire childhood. And I mean it. If you did not have a belief in the depravity of human nature, you wouldn't believe the details. Sean, the interviewer, was rightly horrified by what Chad was saying. But Chad's childhood ended, he moved away, and ended up establishing a pretty solid career for himself, an impressive career for himself in law enforcement and in the Marines. And during this time, however, Chad himself became a very hardened sinner. He became a very cruel man. It's that saying, hurt people, hurt people, right? And he, though not physically abusive, was absolutely verbally and emotionally assaulting towards his own wife and children, and even betrayed his own wife by cheating on her. As God would have it, the grace of God hunted Chad down one day. Over a season of just many prayers and much hard-heartedness, God started to break through and smash the hard heart of Chad, and Chad found forgiveness in the cross of Christ and in Jesus. And not only that, but his own wife and children forgave him. And their marriage was restored and his family was restored to him and reconciled to him. And he was literally a new creation, a born-again one, a new man. Tenderhearted. Living for the Lord. But during this new season, this season of freedom and new life, he gets a call one day. from a social worker or a medical worker, I'm forgetting. And this medical worker says, Chad, you need to come and help your father. He's dying and no one else wants to deal with him. He has burned every bridge. He's treated everyone in his life with cruelty. No one else is coming to help him out. Would you come and help him? And Chad was thinking that since maybe as a preteen or a teenager, that that was the last time he was ever going to see his father again. He didn't ever think he was going to see his father again, nor did he care or wish to. But, reluctantly, he went to his father to go care for him in the last season of his life. And it was in this last season of his life, as Chad was tenderly caring for his father, that his father, according to Chad, found forgiveness and faith in Jesus Christ. Chad said in these moments, and Chad found him wallowing in the bed that he had made, a bed of filth and loneliness. And he said that his father would cry out to him and plead with Chad, saying, I love you, and I'm sorry. I love you, and I'm sorry. And just in a pitiful condition, I love you, and I'm sorry. And Chad said, I chose to forgive him. Now, I tell you that story because of what happened next. What happened next was Sean, the interviewer, kind of gets excited. Because at this point, I don't believe Sean is a Christian. Sean says, wait a second, let me stop you right there. I need you to explain some things. How did you do that? How did you forgive your father? How was that possible? And he said these exact words. Well, let me try. They may not be exact, but I'm going to try and quote them to you as precisely as he can. He said, I really struggle with forgiveness, Chad. I mean, I forgive, he said, I mean, I refuse to forgive people for a lot less than what your father did to you. The things that I refuse to forgive people over are minuscule compared to what you went through. And Chad said, okay, let me just first tell you, it's not me, it's Christ in me. But he said, let me tell you about this. I was in a season of grace in my life where I had found forgiveness from God himself in Jesus Christ. And during that time, I had also learned that my wife had been praying for me that she would be able to look upon me like Christ looked upon me from the cross. And God heard her prayer and answered it. And she forgave me, and my kids forgave me, and God forgave me. And they forgave me even though I was the one who had hurt them the most. And so then he asked the question, how then could I not forgive the one who hurt me the most? And I think that is such and other worldly existence, isn't it? That is the heart of a Christian. That readiness, that availableness to say, how could I not? Forgiveness. It is not an easy thing to talk about. It's not an easy thing to think about. But forgiveness is that heart that God wants us to have. And I will tell you this, as your pastor, one of my prayers often, one of my most, I would say, the prayer that I send up to God with the most volume is just this, that we would be tenderhearted and forgiving towards one another. Brother to brother, sister to sister. Jesus wants us to live with that with that extreme awareness that we are completely in the family of God. We are in the fold of God through one way and one way only. If any of us are in the church, if any of us are in Christ, if any of us are in the kingdom of God, there's only one reason you ever got there. And it is this God's mercy and forgiveness for you, isn't it? That's it. And so we must be ready and available to offer that forgiveness. We can't do it the same way as God did because he sent forth his only son who shed perfect blood, but we would be ready and available to offer forgiveness to others. We should be so intoxicated, so breathing in the air of forgiveness that God surrounds us with that when we exhale, it's just that's the natural, you could say supernatural, but the natural existence of the Christian. Because here's the thing, and God knows this, as people who have that indwelling sin nature, you are incredibly gifted. I'll tell you what one of your incredible capabilities are. You have this incredible giftedness, this incredible capability to be offended. And to, not just that, but to remember every detail about it. A lot of you, maybe not a lot of you, but just some of you, and even myself, I'll say, I can forget my keys on any day, any moment. I can forget what I had for dinner. I can forget all sorts of things. I can forget what my wife said to me. But I'll tell you something, when it comes to being offended, it's like you can remember every detail about it. That bitterness sets in and our minds and our hearts are great at keeping these indexes, these rolodexes of just these catalogs of ways we've been bothered and offended and embittered by others. And we can pull them off the shelf at any moment to try and feel out that soreness and to make us feel justified in why we're bothered and cranky. And Jesus says, no, this is not the way, brother to brother, sister to sister, we should be operating in the church. No, if you have been forgiven by God, then you also need to be forgiving. And so, that really is the main thing, the thing that I want to bring to your attention today. It's just a very simple statement. Like your Father in heaven, this is the point of today's sermon, like your Father in heaven, you must be forgiving. You must be forgiving. Now. Before I get into this passage. before I start walking down the details of the nuts and bolts, I want to give a definition of forgiveness. And keep in mind, Jesus has this to say because Peter brings this up in regards to brothers in the church, sisters in the church, what happens in the family of God. After Jesus has just talked about the church discipline process, now Peter is going to ask, wait a second, suppose a brother sins against me, how often do I forgive him? Now, this isn't to say we're to withhold forgiveness for an unbelieving world, but what Jesus is focusing on is that forgiveness that we have to offer as neighbors, one to another. And yes, ultimately it does impact how we view those who sin against us in the world and even in a broader sense. But, let me give a definition of forgiveness. Let me focus in on this definition of forgiveness here for you. And I'm pulling this right out of Jeremiah 31-34. In Jeremiah 31, God promises that He will make a new covenant with His people. Not like the old one that they had broken, but a new covenant that He will make, and it will be in the age of the Messiah that comes. And in this covenant, this covenant is supposed to be, this covenant is to be the covenant where God will write his law on our hearts, where he will put his spirit within us. And then ultimately, finally, the clear defining characteristic of this covenant is that he will forgive their iniquity. Jeremiah 31, 34. And he will remember their sin No, what more? I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin. No more. It's these words when Jesus, when Jesus breaks bread with his disciples at the last supper that he brings up, he says this cup. Right is the new covenant of or in my blood, which is poured out for many for the what? forgiveness of sins Okay, this is the new covenant the new covenant. I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sins no more and so What is forgiveness? Now, I think if I ask you what is forgiveness, could you define forgiveness? People would a lot of people would say things that forgiveness does and forgiveness does a number of things. But forgiveness is if I could define it for you. Forgiveness is a promise not to remember sin. It is a pledge that you will not remember sin. It isn't a pledge that you're going to forget. OK, this is something that's a little tricky in the minds of the forgiveness teachings. Forgive and forget. Forgetfulness is a passive thing. It's something that happens. You get forgetful. To remember, to not remember, is to say, I am not going to bring this up. This is never going to be an issue between me and you who have offended me again. When I forgive you, I give a promise to you that this sin which you have committed is no longer an issue between us, I release you from it, and our relationship is as it was before you committed this sin. Okay? We're going back. And by going back, you can now go forward. Right? But this promise is three ways, and I've put them down for you in this outline. And this is where the promise gets a little difficult. You make the promise. I'm not going to remember the sin. I'm not going to count that against my brother. I'm not going to bring that up before your face. Right. You do it. There's three things that you're pledging. Number one, the obvious one, I will not remember when you offer forgiveness, you're saying I will not remember this sin against you, right? I'm not going to remember this sin against you anymore. This isn't an issue between me and you, brother. This isn't an issue between me and you, sister. I forgive you. I forgive you. That's it. So it doesn't come up again. You don't say, oh, you know, let me bring this back up later on when it's convenient or when the fight and the heat of the battle and the argument comes up. You say, oh, remember when you did that? You're always doing that. And then the other, the offender says, but you forgave me for that. And now you're in a pickle because you've already broken your promise that you were going to forget that. You were going to not forget it. You were going to not remember it. Okay, number two. Number two, I will not remember this sin with others. Right. You're saying I pledge to not remember your sin. That means I'm not going to bring it up with other people. I'm not going to talk about. You know, how you came and confessed your sins, and how I forgave you because I was just so filled up with the Spirit, and you were so pitiful, and I'm going to go share that with everybody else. That's not necessarily what you do. It's not what you do at all. This is an extremely important point when we talk about forgiveness. When we talk about not bringing up with others, you hear all sorts of violations of this principle, right? People will say things like, oh, I can forgive someone for what they did to me, but I can't forgive them for what they did to my mom, or what they did to my siblings, or what they did to my children. I can't forgive them for that. And what are you doing? You're bringing that up before other people to show how righteous you are, how self-righteous you are. I can forgive this, but let me display this attitude of protection and righteousness before others by saying, I can forgive, but I can't forgive because, you know, they hurt someone else. But there's all sorts of ways. That's just one example. The third one is this. This one might put the hardest spin on this definition of forgiveness. So number one, I won't remember this sin against you. Number two, I will not remember this sin with others. And number three, I will not remember this sin before myself. That one's the one other people can't see and call you on, right? As you could say, I forgive you. I'm not bringing this up with others. But then you're one day alone with your thoughts, and that person comes to your mind, and oh, there's that bitterness that sets in. You get alone with your thoughts on that walk, on that drive in the car, you're stuck in traffic, and you just start thinking. You get alone with your thoughts, you're in the shower, you're on the golf course, wherever it is, and automatically you just start thinking, well, there you go. You've broken your promise. You see why forgiveness is such a godly thing. You see why it's such an amazing thing that when we can truly forgive. We can truly forgive. It is nothing but the Spirit of God. It is Christ in you that makes this whole thing possible. I will not remember this sin against you. I will not remember the sin with others. I will not remember this sin before myself. This is why the Bible talks so much about your thought life, taking every thought captive. If anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. Whatever is noble, whatever is true, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, think about these things. Because when we're left alone to let Satan in our flesh run our thought life, you know that one thing he loves to put in there is bitterness. It is bitterness. So let's get into this passage, the nuts and bolts of this passage. It's kicked off by Peter, he says this, he says, how often, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him as many as seven times? What a what a great question. Let me start by saying this. The first thing I want you to know based on these verses is this. Forgiveness is limitless. You could say forgiveness is abounding. You could say forgiveness is uncountable. Forgiveness is limitless. Peter asked this question, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Now, if you remember last week, I preached on the process of church discipline. And I think Peter's kind of hung up on the first step of church discipline. You know, Jesus says if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. This is 1815. If he listens to you, you've gained your brother, right? So Peter's like, okay, I did this thing, you know, my brother offended me. I rebuked him. He listened to me. I gained him back. OK, but what if this keeps happening, Jesus? What if? It always comes to this first step and and he repents and I forgive him. How many times do we got to do this? Of course, this would work with all the steps, but I think with Peter, he's like, okay, I could see this going right a few times, but how many times? How many times, Jesus? Seven times? And seven would be a really good guess. A little historical note for you, the rabbis and the Pharisees and the scribes were going around teaching all the people that when it comes to forgiveness, you offer it three times, After the third time, no forgiveness. It's only condemnation. OK, so that was a regular teaching that Peter would have heard. And Peter likely had heard Jesus say your righteousness needs to exceed that of the Pharisees and the scribes. So maybe Peter's like, well, I'll double that. Seven's like the perfect number. Is it seven? Jesus, seven times. And Jesus' answer is so wonderful. My Bible says 77 times. Jesus says not seven times, I tell you, but 77 times. Your Bible might say 70 times seven times, which is a lot more, 490 or 77. The Greek is actually a little ambiguous, whether you multiply it or you just take it as 77. Why does Jesus say this, this way? Well, I'll take you to a different verse in Scripture. It's actually Genesis 4, verse 24, I believe. And in that passage, Lamech is singing a song about vengeance. And he talks about how Cain, his grandfather, avenged himself sevenfold, but he will avenge himself 77-fold. What is this? Cain and Lamech, these are those who sided with Satan, and their lives became embittered and became punitive, and their lives were all about exacting punishment and vengeance on people. And Jesus is saying here 77 times, you forgive 77 times. It's like, no, you need to be the opposite of Cain and Lamech. You need to be different altogether. You need to be forgiving that much. But here's the thing with with this Statement that Jesus makes is Jesus isn't saying there's actually a number to forgiveness, right? He's not saying oh, yeah, it's seven or it's 77 is 490 Jesus is saying the opposite. He's saying there is no number. You can't count it. It's limitless It's a bounding whenever you need to offer forgiveness offer forgiveness Don't count it just get going with it because When it comes to withholding forgiveness, Jesus is throwing out the number altogether. If you forgave someone seven times, I think you should know Jesus would be like, wow, that's pretty good. But the reason this is in our Scriptures at all is because you know what your problem is when it comes to forgiveness? When it comes to you who are not willing to forgive? is your problem is you haven't even gotten to one yet. That's the problem. Why care about seven? Why care about three? You haven't even gotten to one yet. When I talk with people, when I counsel people, and almost in every instance of counseling, at some point there is an issue of forgiveness and bitterness there. It doesn't matter what it is, it could be marriage, it could be trauma, it could be abuse, whatever it is, at some point forgiveness comes up. And this is always the point. This is always the point. It's not like, oh, I'm willing to do it. I'm willing to do it a little bit, or I'm willing to start it. No, it's I could never do that. I can't do that. Or you don't know how bad it was. Or I'm just going to set this person free, and they're just going to do whatever they want, run off with it. Listen, the problem is you haven't counted to one yet. They haven't even started. And Jesus is saying forgiveness is uncountable. It's limitless. It's it's it is unquantifiable. Absolutely. I mean, just think about your own life. Do you know how many sins you sin when you just do one sin? This is something interesting to think about. One sin, you gotta double that. Because every sin is a sin of something you either failed to do, or you knew, or you didn't do the right thing, right? It's a sin of omission or commission, right? You committed a sin, or you forgot to do the right thing. So that's two. But then James says, if you ever violate any aspect of the law, you violate the whole law. So that's 20 sins right there, two times 20, or two times sin, that's 20 right there. Think about how many times you sin in a day. How many times is that? Right? I mean, we would not want to keep adding these up, right? I hope you don't want to keep adding these up. You multiply that over a number of years. And then not just that, but you take all of God's people and you think about all those sins. And God forgives those sins. Think about that. And not just that. It's not just that when he was on the cross, he forgave sin and that was final and that was it. Yes, that was the expression, the sacrifice that removes sin as far as the East is from the West. But he applies that even still now. What does 1 John 1 9 say? If you confess your sins, he is what? Faithful and just to forgive you and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. So you keep on going and you find out this forgiveness is limitless. Jesus says, stop counting and start forgiving. That's what it means. Number two, forgiveness is obvious. Forgiveness is obvious. That might seem like a weird word to use, but I want to talk about the parable here. This parable is a not-so-obvious parable. It is so extreme in every way. This parable goes to the extremes. A master wants to settle accounts with his servants. And by the way, this is a story. This is not a real kingdom. This is not a real kingdom. This master wants to settle accounts with his servants. One servant owes 10,000 talents. 10,000 talents. And I've put a description of what these talents mean, the weights and measurements of these talents in your outline here. Owes 10,000 talents. That is extreme. That's an amount of money, it just seems so exaggerated. But what happens with that debt? Extreme forgiveness is what happens. The Master forgives the whole thing. But then also you look at an extremely small amount of debt in the fellow servant that owes money to the wicked servant. It's extremely small in comparison. You have this extreme pity, but then also you have this extreme cruelty. The pity is to forgive the debt, the master to the servant, and then you have the extreme cruelty, the servant to the fellow servant. It's all, everything is so extreme and exaggerated. And why is this? The whole point is to show that because the because the wicked servant who had the massive debt was so extremely forgiven, so exaggeratedly pitied, that it would be obvious that when faced with someone who was just like him and owing a tiny amount, He would be so quick and willing to forgive. It's so obvious. It's so obvious that the servants who are on looking this whole situation, they are what's called greatly distressed. They are pained because of what they see. It should have been so simple. It should have been obvious. It should have been a no-brainer. In other words, God asked that question right here, verse 33, and should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant? As I mentioned in the story that I told you at the beginning, Chad says, how could I not? It's not because that question is unanswerable. It's just that any answer to that question is absolutely stupid and hypocritical. Amen? How could I not? That's what I mean by forgiveness is a no-brainer. Look, look at just I'll just look at some of these details with you. The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. This king is not. Let me put it to you this way, this king is not God, but he represents God. Jesus does things with less than ideal characters to talk about kingdom truth in his parables. For example, Jesus says, Jesus uses the parable of the wicked judge. Do you remember this? Or the parable of the persistent widow who pleads with a crooked and unjust judge to get something she needs for her life. And Jesus says if the unjust judge is willing to answer her request, think about how much willing or how willing your Father in Heaven is to answer your request. He also talks about, Jesus does this a number of times, and this master is not a representative, is not a full or, I should say, it's not a full or picture of the perfect character of God. One reason we know this is because he says he ordered that the man be sold with his wife and children into slavery, and that's actually contrary to scripture. The Bible, the Old Testament especially the law of God says that you are not to sell one another into slavery because of debt. So this would be Jesus is saying, think about this. If a if this would be a pagan king, if a pagan king can have mercy like this, think about your heavenly father having mercy on you. Think about the father in heaven having mercy. But let's look at this talents. Let's look at the talents. Let's look at the the debt that is owed. This first servant owes 10,000 talents. And you can try and figure that out, calculate it out. And that's what I did for you in your outline here, what that means. Let me just tell you this, that 10,000 talents is a blow your mind's worth amount of money, y'all. That's the best way to put it. I read a passage out of the histories here, Josephus, who was a contemporary of the apostles. He said that all of Palestine, the tax revenue for all of Palestine came in short of 8,000 talents. So you're talking, this isn't, 10,000 talents is more than all the tax revenue of a small nation. You're talking a huge amount of money. It's an exaggeration. I mean, the only way this could even be possible is if huge embezzlement was going on. And maybe that's what happened, or maybe that's what Jesus wants us to think about. But a talent, 75 pounds of silver, 10,000 talents, 750,000 pounds of silver. One single talent equals 6,000 denarii or 20 years wages. So 10,000 talents equals 200 years, 200,000 years wages or 60 million days wages. It's a lot. It's a lot. And so what does he do? He falls on his face, this wicked servant, he falls on his face, pleads and even makes this this ridiculous promise, I'll pay it all back. No, you can't pay it all back. And the master says, You're forgiven of your debt. I'll let it go. I'll let it go. And you would think with this fresh on the mind, he would be so soft hearted and tender hearted. But as soon as he leaves the chamber of his master, he says, I'm going to be the master now. I'm going to settle accounts. And he finds the one who has a debt against him. And as you're reading, you're thinking, okay, this is a no-brainer. He's just been forgiven of worlds of debt and sin. And so He comes up, and what happens? The most unexpected thing in the world. It's not even like, hey, when are you going to pay me back? What does He do? He seizes him. He grabs him by the throat and chokes him saying, pay what you owe. If that's not a picture of bitterness and exactness. That is. It's meant to show you Jesus is being expressive here. It's meant to show you what your heart is like before God when you are unforgiving. Pay what you owe. Pay what you owe. The man had a debt of 100 denarii. Now, it is a real debt. If someone owed me 100 denarii, that would be a hard thing to forgive. I mean, you just think about this. Here's some of the details on a denarii, a fraction of a pound of silver, a day's wage. So 100 denarii equals about a fourth of a year's wages. Today that could be something like $20,000, $15,000, $10,000, right? It's not a small, it's not an insignificant loan for sure. But compared to the 10,000 talents, look at this, I put it down here, this detail. It's 1,600,000th of 10,000 towns. I read that it'd be like looking at the distance between Hebron and the sun, the middle of the sun. What's that in mileage? What is that in mileage? We don't know. I don't know what it is. But then think about this, the distance between Hebron and Washington, D.C. That's the that is it's a real distance, but come on compared to that compare the distance between Hebron and the Sun It's nothing it's nothing It should have been a no-brainer. It was obvious what? What the forgiveness that the forgiveness should have been offered And the reason this shocks us, right, this shocks us, is just as I said, Jesus wants you to see and feel like, man, He really blew it. He really had the opportunity to demonstrate how much freedom, how much love, how much forgiveness, how much mercy, how much pity this wicked servant, how much pity He had just been offered in the Master. He had an opportunity to give that out to a fellow servant. fellow. It's not even a subservient. It's not even an inferior. The word is a fellow servant. And he would not. He would not. So it looks absolutely ridiculous. It looks ridiculous. And it greatly distresses the other fellow servants. So forgiveness is Limitless forgiveness is obvious. It is obvious that when we are forgiven much, we forgive much. When the record of wrongs has been canceled and put aside because of the cross of Christ, what does 1 Corinthians 13 teach us? Love keeps no what? Record of wrongs. It's obvious. And number three, finally, let me close this out by saying forgiveness is mandatory. You could say forgiveness is required. Forgiveness is required. Why do I say this? Because as this closes out, we have some very, very disturbing and very, very intense language here. Then his master summoned him and said to him, you wicked servant. This is verse 32. Yeah, I forgave you 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, you could say torturers, some of your Bible say torturers, and that's probably the more correct word until he should pay all his debt. So my heavenly father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. And there's all sorts of interpretations on these final verses. Is God saying, is the Bible now presenting a case for the Catholic doctrine of purgatory, right? Now you've got to be in the jail until you're purified of all the sin? Well, I don't think that's it. Is God saying that now God is going to just punish you and you're going to have just simply a broken relationship with God, but you can keep on limping through this life if you don't forgive? But I don't think that's what Jesus is saying either. I think what Jesus is saying is, again, something obvious. What is it that Jesus constantly wants you to remember about life in the Kingdom of God? About living for Jesus? Do you know what it is? A tree is known by its what? Fruit. A tree is known by its fruit. That forgiveness fruit that's hanging low on the branches for people to pick off and for you to offer, that's heavy on the vine, that shows that you come from a really good tree. That you're a really good tree. That you have really good roots. Those roots being Christ Jesus Himself. If we don't forgive, if you don't forgive, if your life is absorbed in vengeance and punishment and bitterness and just wanting to bring up the sins of the past or against others all the time, and that's all you focus on, then the question before you is, do you really know the cross of Christ? Do you know the mercy of God? Have you in fact been forgiven? when that blessed woman was washing His feet in Simon the Pharisee's house, who made them His own, and who shed His blood so that you could be forgiven. And that mountain of debt that you owed, that you could never climb, against God's mercy, God picked it up and threw it into the depths of the sea. He says, I remove your sin as far as the east is from the west. I remember your sin no more. That's the best scenario. You need to run to the cross. But the worst scenario is if you proclaim to have a relationship with Christ, if you confess and take up His name on your lips, but you do not forgive, and you are not forgiving your brothers and your sisters who have sinned against you, and you are withholding that and constantly bringing these sins up. Jesus has very, very strong and severe words in this parable, but also, think about what He says in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus says, many will say to Me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not do many works in Your name? Did we not prophesy in Your name? Did we not do all this wonderful stuff in Your name? And what will Jesus say? He's going to say, depart from me, for I never knew you. Because it's this place where we stand is reserved for those who do the will of my Father who is in heaven. And what is the will of the Father who is in heaven? That you would, what? Forgive. Forgive. You can claim the name of Christ. You can preach the sermons. You can serve on every committee. You can do all this stuff. But if you are not forgiving your brothers and sisters out of your heart, Take heed. Hear the warning of Jesus Christ. Heaven, the kingdom of heaven, is not a place where you shall dwell. That should be rightly terrifying. Go to God. Examine yourself. See if there is any wicked way or unjust thought within you. When I preach this sermon, I know there are names that come to mind. Reconciliations that need to take place. Have you done them? Do not delay. Do not delay. Do not delay. You need help with this stuff? Call on me. We'll read Scripture together. We'll try and understand the will of God and forgiveness, the nature of forgiveness. But if you're sitting there saying, I could never, people, soften your heart. Ask for the Spirit of God to reveal to you the worth of the cross of Christ so that you could see the mercy of God given to you. As I mentioned, it's below your mind's worth amount of money that this Master forgave. And the amount of sin that God forgives is even more than that. Go to God. Plead His mercy. And rest assured that your sins, though they are many, are forgiven in Him. And then be ready and available to walk in the light of that freedom. And when you are jostled and jolted and pricked and persecuted and assaulted or whatever it is, slandered, that because you've been so filled up with the mercy of God, When that happens, what would spill out of you would be mercy for others. Be merciful as your Father who is in heaven is merciful. Amen.