I want you to remember that you're forgiven and that we as Christians
Have Christ living in us. Okay, so we want to make sure that other people see that because when we
Are known for forgiveness. That means that we show other people who Jesus is
Now what we're gonna do I have something for you
So that'll help you remember some of this. Okay?
Yes, so we're gonna pray first and then you can get one of these and then you're gonna go back to your seat, okay
So need everybody sit up. Thank you. We pray everybody fold your hands
Dear God, thank you
For sending your son
To die for us and to forgive us
Help us
To show other people
Who you are
By forgiving them just like you do
In your name we pray amen
Draw me close to you, never let me go
I'm laying all down again
To hear you say that I'm your friend
You are my desire
No one else will do
Cause nothing else can take your place
To feel the warmth of your embrace
Help you find your way
Bring me back to you
You're all I want
You're all I've ever needed
You're all I want
Now we know you are here
Draw me close to you
Never let me go
I'm laying all down again
To hear you say that I'm your friend
You are my desire
No one else will do
Cause nothing else can take your place
To feel the warmth of your embrace
Help you find your way
Bring me back to you
You're all I want
You're all I've ever needed
You're all I want
Now we know you are here
You're all I want
You're all I've ever needed
You're all I want
Now we know you are here
Now we know you are here
Now we know you are here
Matthew 18 verses 21 to 35
In the name of Jesus, dear Christian friends
What makes Christianity different from all the other religions of the world?
The answer is very simple
Jesus
Only Christianity has a savior for our sins
All the other religious systems of the world
Require that you work your way into forgiveness
Or you earn your forgiveness by doing something
But Christianity teaches us that God loved us so much
That he sent his son into this world
To live among us
To suffer and die for all of our sins
Saint Paul told Timothy
There is one God and one mediator between God and men
The man Christ Jesus
Who gave himself as a ransom for all men
The testimony given in the proper time
Or as Paul told the Corinthians
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us
So that in him we become the righteousness of God
A savior from sin, Jesus Christ
That's what makes Christianity different from all the other religions of the world
What's a trademark?
You saw some examples of the trademark during the children's message
With the Nike and McDonald's and that
Well, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office
A trademark is, quote
Any word, name, symbol, device or any combination
Used or intended to be used
To identify and distinguish the goods or services of one seller or provider
From those of others
As we look at our gospel lesson today
You might say that our trademark as Christians
Is that we forgive as Christ has forgiven us
Our trademark is forgiven and forgiving
The obvious lesson of our text is that
There is no limit to how often we should forgive other people
If we follow Jesus
God expects us to be ready to forgive people when they hurt us
This expectation is quite a challenge for us
Because we're very prone to wanting a double standard
When it comes to forgiveness
We're more than willing to point out to other people
That they need to forgive somebody
You should forgive so and so we say
But when it comes to us it's a whole different story
We don't want to forgive the people that hurt us
It's not in our nature to do it
You have to forgive but I don't
That's a double standard
In the first verse of our text today
Peter asks the question
Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me?
It's such a human question
We feel that there has to be a limit as to how many times
We have to forgive somebody
After all, if we keep forgiving people
They'll keep hurting us
And if they keep hurting us
That's abuse
So how many times?
Peter then adds a possibility
Up to seven times
A very gracious answer on his part
For the rabbis of that day
Taught that you had to forgive three times
And so he doubles it and adds one more for good measure
And comes up with that perfect number of God
Seven
I can almost see the other disciples
Nodding their approval
At Peter's suggestion
And then Jesus knocks them off their feet
When he says
I tell you not seven times
But seventy-seven times
Or seventy times seven
Some translations say
You see, there's a disagreement among translators
As to how to translate that number in Greek
It could be seventy plus seven
Or seventy times seven
Whichever it is
It's way bigger than Peter imagined
I remember many years ago
Seeing a skit entitled
490 and Pow
It was a couple who was pretending to be married
And every once in a while
The wife would do something that
Kind of hurt him and
He would smile at her and he'd say
That's okay honey, I forgive you
And he'd turn around and go to a blackboard
And make a mark
And they'd go on
And when he got the 490 slashes on the blackboard
490 times he had forgiven his wife
He let her have it
That's not what Jesus meant here
Forgiveness is not some kind of record book
Where we keep a tally on our forgiveness
Once we understand that
Seven is the perfect number of God
And ten is the number of completeness
Then we begin to understand that
Jesus is telling Peter
His disciples
And all of us
That we are always
To be forgiving people
That we are to forgive without ceasing
Without end
Now if that's God's standard
We often come up short
Because in our sinful nature
We want to limit our forgiveness
We like to have that double standard
When it comes to forgiveness
And so we keep coming up with
Different ways in which we can get around
Or water down
Or weasel out of
Or modify the absolute words
That Jesus spoke
Sometimes we'll say
Okay
I'll forgive you this time
But don't expect me to forget it in the future
We like that luxury
Of keeping that little grudge
In our heart
Because it allows us to only partially
Forgive the person who has hurt us
There's a scene in a movie
Called Nobody's Fool
From many years ago
In which there was a man
Played by Paul Newman
Who was known as Scully
Or as Sully
And he was about 60 years old
And always lived in the same town
And one day his parents died
And he inherited their house
He never moved in
He just left it there
You see
It was in that house that his father
Had beaten him as a child
And so every day
He would drive by the house
And slowly watch it fall apart
One day
He took a friend over to the house
The friend happened to be a builder
And as they're looking around
He says, Sully
You could have saved this place
You could have fixed it up a little bit and rented it
You could have sold it
And put it in your pocket
Instead you tried to stick it to your old man
What's it been?
30 years? 35?
You still keep and score?
Well here's the good news
You won
For 30 some years
The man had not forgiven his father
For 30 some years
He had carried a grudge
And what did it get him?
A whole lot of heartache
And a run down broken old house
And you know what?
It didn't hurt his father one bit
Because his father was dead
It only hurt him
And his inability to forgive
You know another way that we limit forgiveness
Is by expecting forgiveness
From other people
But not to give it
To other people
That's the essence of our
The parable that Jesus tells
In our text today
The parable of the unforgiving servant
The king calls in
All of his servants
And he wants to settle their accounts
And we're told that one man
Comes in, one servant
And he has a debt of 10,000 talents
Now 10,000 talents
Is 10 times
The gross product
Of Galilee, Samaria
And Judea combined
It's hard for us to get an accurate
Figure of this in our mind
But let's try
A talent was approximately
75 pounds of silver
Now this last Tuesday
Silver was trading at
66 dollars an ounce
That means that
One talent would be worth
79,200 dollars
The man owed the king
10,000 talents
So let's just say
792 million dollars
Is what he owed him
The king says pay up
I can't pay that
And he begs
For forgiveness
And amazingly
The servant's master took pity on him
Cancelled the debt
And let him go
Now with such a tremendous gift
You would expect the man to be so
Grateful that he would be considered
Of other people under him
But not in this parable
He goes out
And he finds one of his own servants
Who owes him a debt of
100 denarii
Now denarius
Was the common coin
That was used to pay a person
After one day's worth of work
So if we take
8 hours of work times
15 dollars an hour
We get to a denarii
At about 120 bucks
He owed 100 of them
So about 12,000 dollars
Now
There's nothing
Compared to
792 million dollars
That servant begs for mercy
Says I'll pay it off
And he has no mercy on him
He throws him in prison
Until the debt could be paid off
The servant who had been forgiven
792 million dollars
Couldn't forgive 12,000
That's the double standard
That we humans often have
When it comes to forgiveness
When it comes to living
For Jesus Christ
We tell our children
We should not curse
But every once in a while
Cuss words come out of our mouths
We take our kids to Sunday school
Drop them off and then go back home
In order to watch the game
Or go to the store
We wring our hands over
The problems of drugs
In our society
But we're addicted to
Tobacco or alcohol
Or food even
We condemn politicians
For always slinging mud
At their opponents
On the TV commercials
But we're pretty quick
To share some juicy gossip
With our friends
We tell our kids
That don't steal anything
We share our experiences with others
So they don't have to pay
We tell our kids to
Forgive their friends
When they hurt them