“Shouldn’t You Have Had Mercy?” | Matthew 18:21-35

Show Notes

Episode 723: 
In this episode, we dive into a thought-provoking discussion centered around the theme of forgiveness, inspired by a powerful parable from Matthew 18. We introduce our main topic by referencing a poignant statement from Jesus: "Shouldn't you have had mercy?" This leads us into the parable of the unforgiving servant, where a king forgives a servant a massive debt, only for that servant to turn around and refuse to forgive a much smaller debt owed to him.

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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Good morning, good morning. We talk the whole night through. Good morning. Good morning to you and you and you, yes, yes, good morning everybody. We are the Bible guys man. Welcome you here to our. New become almost a Wednesday tradition. Yeah, usually coming to the middle. Of the week, July Wednesday. But everyone's going everyone, I'll throw a curveball. In right sneaking in on Tuesday, although I'm. Not sure I've ever done on a Monday. Maybe once, Yeah, good Monday, Good Monday. Yeah maybe maybe. Well, I'll tell you what our Monday intro is rough, so so maybe the next Monday we can use a good one. We're just gonna next Monday, we just comes. We're sorry, We're We're so sorry. Well, hey, Jeff, before we dive into what Jesus would say on his own podcast, okay, which, by the way, today's comment is, shouldn't you have had mercy? That's gonna be good. Be sure that I should have had mercy? We should, well, Desira should have had mercy because she instead decided to come up with a a brand new challenge, and this, this to me, is one of the worst things we've worst. Not worse as an idea, it's a great idea, it's just worse an application because I'm not very good at accents. And I just want to caution you about accents. You're going to get canceled if you choose the wrong accent today. What what why? Because of appropriation and all this, Like, you better pick something, something that's appropriate for you. Hey, you could do an Italian accent. Wait a minute, you could do any accent appropriately. Okay, I mean it's what you say. Yes, it's what you say saying. Yeah, be careful, so be careful, careful, careful. This is called the Accents Challenge. Pick a random accent or character type and have a conversation with that voice. Bonus points for staying in character. I can't do it. I can't do it either. I'm really bad at this. And by the way, you would think I'm pretty good at it, but I'm really not. You know what one you can do is you can do the Godfather. The Godfather. Give him an off we can't refuse. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Hey, I'm good at a vampire accent iv you bite. How about that one? I used to be able to do Donald Duck. We'll try it. I don't know if I can do it anymore. I try it anyway. Donald Duck's terrible. I can't do Donald Duck. I can't do it. What other one? So my brother Jim, he spends he goes the Watermark Church in Texas and he has a ministry with those who come from India. Right, so so he always uh stands at the door and he welcomes people in the Indian accent. So he says, he said, he's uh. She says to me all the time on the phone, and he goes, welcome to my home. Can I help you please? So there's one. Yeah, Yeah, I do a lot of work in India, and uh, the Indian accent tickles me. The English Indian accent just tickles me so funny. It's great when I think my my accent is funny. Like if I if I say a word that they'll repeat my word over and over again, yeah and try to sound and then they always sound like John Wayne. Yeah when they're trying to when they're trying to copy you American accent, Wayne Partner. I'm not very good, but I've always loved like Scotty from from Star Trek. He's like, I've given her all, she's got captain. Yeah there, you know you're good at When he says he's copies of movie phrases you got. He's like, he's like, we are Vikings, We're strong and true and brave. Okay, I'm gonna to do this. Suggest great movie accent. Uh huh yeah yeah, suggest great movie lines. I don't really know, amazing accents. Let's do that and see what it says. Okay, here we go. What's it going to read it for you? No? No, no, you're gonna have to say him. Oh okay, let me see. Uh oh yeah. Oh the first one just is Bond, James Bond. And that's the Sean Connery James Bond. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, how about I'll be back. Oh here's one, there's one. This is This is a next this would be a Cuban Cuban accent, which is Spanish. Right, say hello to my little friend. Right, those are awesome. Uh well, I we want to say that one. Uh okay, well this is mel Gibson. That's Scottish. They may take our lives. But they'll never take our freedom. Oh, this is a New York accent, Robert Daniel, you're talking to me, You talking to me? There you go, Houston, we. Have a problem. That's actually not even in the movie. It's in the movie, but it's actually wasn't a real quote. By the way, Oh, the Princess Bride inconceivable. He's got the list though, untheevable and conceivable. There there you go. I do not think that means what do you think it means? My name is Yeah, yeah, that's right. You give my father but to die. There you go. This was awesome. Yeah, that's all we needed to do. Well, so we took her suggestion, yes, and made it so much better. Hey, by the way, did you did you notice listeners that Jeff has not given one? I said, my name is in Nego Montoya. Just now that little mumble. All right, say it again. That's the best one I have. My name is in Lego Montoya. That was not for that accent at all, Sure was it was. It was the standard America. My name is Montoria, you killed my father, prepared to die? That was not sure. That was a Michigan accent. That's a that's the standard American accent. That's what they say. Okay, do you know that, right is the standard. We're coming. We're coming to the end of our time for the segment, but I want you to do at least something because you're not technically done. I just did know you didn't you said my name is Montoya. Uh but that's all folks, porky pig. Okay, that's that's more of an invitation than than it is. An accent. That's all I got. But okay, that's funny. See, I think that if you used to do Donald Duck, well, you could probably do it, said Donald Duck. Yeah, I don't think I can. Huh, I don't think I can. Yeah, that's it. That's that's about it for me too. All right, that's funny stuff. I loved it, Chris, thank you. I loved it. Yeah. I think we should do that every few weeks, but not not include me in it. Just everything. We've run out of everything that I can do, so we shouldn't come back to that segment. Let that segment die. Let it die well. I mean, I don't have any any other thing other than like I mean, if you want me to do movie quotes, you. Can do Jack Nicholson, h. Johnny, you do terminator a baby? Yeah, there's a lot of them. Okay. Anyways, all right, so hey we're moving on. And speaking of moving on, you know what you want to know? Who else moved on? The king with his. Judgment from his servants. He's just moving on. He's just moving on. Okay, that's what he's doing. So today's statement is shouldn't you have had mercy? Yes, that's what Jesus. And it's a story about a king who forgives a servant, who doesn't forgive his servant. So the series that we're in on the podcast is what if Jesus had a podcast? Yes, And so we're just taking famous statements that Jesus made and we're just running through them for the next six weeks or so. And the six weeks yeah, yeah, or however long it lasts, I don't know, but yeah. So here we are in Matthew chapter eighteen, and I think Matthew app chapter eighteen. The verses just before this are incredibly important for Christians and coming out of and he's dealing with in those verses from about Matthew eighteen fifteen through Matthew eighteen nineteen, He teaches how to treat believers that you're having trouble with if somebody offends you something like that, or if you offend somebody else, how do you make peace between two Christians? Right? Then he pivots, he says. Then Peter came to him and asked the Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? This is in verse twenty one seven times. Should I forgive people seven times if they sin against me? No, not seven times, Jesus replied, but seventy times seven. Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. In the process, one of his debtors was brought in, who had owed him millions of dollars and he couldn't pay, so his master ordered that he'd be sold, along with his wife, his children, everything he owned to pay the debt. But the man fell down before his master and begged him, please be patient with me, and I will pay it all. Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt. But when the man left, the king he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment. His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. Be patient with me, and I will pay it, he pleaded, But his creditor wouldn't wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full. When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. And then the King called in the man he had forgiven and said, you, evil servant, I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn't you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had on mercy on you? And then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt. That's what my heavenly father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart. Oooh, yeah, there's a what there's a warning. I don't like that one. Let's go find another one. Lets we don't like it. Yeah, And the question is what does that mean, right, Like, what does that mean he'll do that to us? Yeah, if we don't forgive others, so on surface on the surface level, people might say, well, that means he's not going to forgive you of your sins and get you into heaven, right right, Because if you didn't forgive somebody else, then he's not going to forgive you. So if you have unforgiveness in your heart, that means you can't go to heaven. I think it's the torture side of things that this isn't a heaven and hell thing, right, It's just you're going to be tortured in your life, right right mister, which, by the way, can I tell a story? Of course, let me tell a story along these nights. So I'm not gonna say any names, but I'm currently. To quote iron Man. I will allow it. You will allow it. Thank you, thank you. I'm one of my roles in the global work that I work with. Sometimes I kind of get put into a diplomacy kind of a role where I'm trying to You can imagine when you're working with hundreds of thousands of people, even though they're good people. All of them are sinners. All of us are sinners. Sure, so tension happens, natural tension happens. So every once in a while, one of my jobs is to try to make peace between good people that are just having troubles. So there's a situation that I have worked with in the past where a guy got offended and I think, as I've dug into it, rightfully, so perhaps and the guy he was offended by was also rightly offended. Then it begins to ask, you know, how it is, I'm offended by something you said, and then you're offended by my reaction, and so now we're both offended, and then it just escalates. Next thing, you know, I take another dig at you, you take a dig at me. It goes back and forth. Next thing you know, I'm talking to my friends, You're talking to your friends, and it just spreads. Yeah, the Book of Proverbs says, without wood, the fire goes out. I think you've just described most relationships. Yeah, right, right, right. The Bible says without wood, the fire goes out. And it's the same way with gossip, right, And so we just keep throwing fuel on the fire and it just keeps getting so it just kept getting worse and worse worse. Next thing, you know, these two guys are pretty famous, and both of their reputations are being drug through about one worse than the other, the guy who refused to let it go. One guy tried to let it go, he tried to walk away from it, kept getting pulled back into it. The other guy refused to let it go, and bitterness began to take over his life, and he literally lost everything everything in his life. It's like his wife and his kids. His wife left. Only one of his kids will talk to him. He's lost his job, he's lost everything. I was sitting talking with him and he told me, he said, the only thing I have is my books. Wow. And so when I was talking about would you sit down, would you sit down and have a conversation or reconciliation, we begin talking and I'm crying because I see he's so hurt, he's just broken hearted. I talked about forgiveness in my life and different things, and that's where freedom comes from. And I took him through Matthew eighteen. The verses rate before this, Jesus says, if somebody offends you go to them privately, and if you can't then take two or three people with you as witnesses and do it, and then if not, then you have to take it to the whole church, right. And I said, why don't we go, and would you go with me and we'll sit down with these people make peace, because I said, I've already talked to the other one and he wants peace. So he finally he's like, yes, I'll do that. I'll go and work. And I said, what's driving you to it? I said, because you used to say you wanted me to fire this other person. And he said, my life is so broken. I don't even want my enemies to have to live my life. Right. He said, I would rather lay down this fight and make peace than to see anybody else live the life I'm living these last three years. And man, it broke my heart. I started crying with him. We prayed together. It was amazing. This is the torture I think God's saying. This guy refused to let it come to an end. He refused it, and so you know what's happened. He literally tore his life down. He tore it down, and he's just suffering. And his only path back is the path down which he came, He's got to come back to this personal connection this forgiveness. And forgiveness is not saying what you did to me doesn't matter. Forgiveness is saying I no longer have to prosecute it. The fact that he needed to get revenge is what made him tear down his own life right right, And that's what I believe this application is. This is not a heaven and hell thing. If you have a hard time for giving somebody else, God's not going to take you to heaven. That's not what he's saying. But he is saying you are going to be tortured in your life by your lack of forgiveness. It's going to ruin your life, not the other person's. Matter of fact, the other guy has gone on to extreme success. And you know they were almost equals, and it's not that one took advantage of the other. They just refused to quit fighting. Finally, the one guy did kind of quit fighting, but he kept throwing fuel on the fire with a little bit of gossip, and the other one kept trying to ruin the other guy's life. And he's the one that's miserable right now. That's what I believe Jesus is talking about there. Wow. You know, we always promote good study Bibles, and a lot of times they'll have you know, these really great pieces of information on the side margins. And so it says what was the cultural rationale behind debtors' prisons? Oh, and it says the imprisonment of debtors served both as a punishment for dishonesty and a warning to others. Sometimes debtors performed forced labor to replay their creditors, as found in Second King Chapter four. Other times they were thrown into prison and their property confiscated. The threat of imprisonment was also used to compel debtors to acknowledge openly any hidden property that they possessed, so this would be used to pay off their debts. So that's you know, that's pretty motivating. Yeah. And you know what, nobody has the right to borrow. There's no automatic right to borrow, but there are there were in that day severe consequences to borrowing and not keeping your commitments right. And they were hoping you'd sell off your land. They were hoping you'd sell off your family's resources to pay it. If not, then they're going to keep tightening the screws until the family pays it off, right, that's what would happen, or you'd have to work it off over years. Yeah, and and so this is a really great thing. I remember one of my family members called me and said to me, I'm having a hard time forgiving you know, this other person in my family, and I'm very close to both of them and U. And one of the things that I said is, well, do you do you think that you're not perfect? Like in this interaction that you've had, you did wrong things? Also, you know, don't you think that you can forgive them? Because yeah, you're right. He's like, I can't believe this person did that. I would never do that. And I said, you're right, you would never do that. But guess what that person would never do what you did. What you did. That's that's exactly. We had the same conversation. And I was like, I was like, so, so it's like, so we try to measure ourselves by ourselves and compare ourselves among ourselves. The Bible says that's not wise forris Corinthians. So it's it's it's one of those things where and they says, oh, I just can't believe I would never do that. I'm like, you're right. I said, you're strong in this area and you would never do that, but you did do this. And so later on, you know, we get down with the conversation and I got a phone call the next day and he called me up and said, you're right. He goes. I got on my knees at night and said, you're right. I didn't realize I had just as much in my life to forgive for. And he said, so I just got on my knees and said, God, forgive me for doing this. I should have done it. And that was forty years ago. Well, one of these guys in my story, you know, the one, he's in prison. He's sitting in a prison he made, he built it right, and he's miserable, and he wants out. And finally, now that pain he's paid the price so long. Now he wants out. He's willing to do whatever it takes to get out of this, this prison he's created. The other guy, though, I talked with him and he had a little bit of trouble with this, and I said, God expects us to forgive because we've been forgiven. Now, if God hasn't forgiven you for more than what this guy's offense is against you. Then hey, I think maybe God lets you off the hook. Yeah, you're superior in every way. And he just got a big smile in his face. He said, of course, I've been forgiven for far more than this. I said, then that's why Jesus said, then shouldn't you also forgive? Right? Right? Shouldn't you also forgive? The measurement is not by whether we would have done a thing. The measurement is by whether or not God has already forgiven us, because He's forgiven us for far more than what anybody has offended us for right, at least not an accumulative level, if not by in a severity level. Right. And so I just I think that maybe the greatest thing that our listeners can hear today is if you that bitterness will always grow. The Bible calls it a rude of bitterness? Were you at my house when I was? Oh? No, I was so in my backyard I have. There's woods behind my house, and somebody a number of years ago planted some grape vines back there, but then moved, and so these grape vines just went wild. Begin So now they're faral vines. They're not managed. They've grown to the tops of the trees, and they're killing trees in the woods, right, So they grow up in What happens is grape leaves are big and tree leaves are small, and so they climb. They used because they don't have the ability to go up grow up by themselves. They had to climb up the very tree that eventually they killed. They get up to the top. This little root, it's not very big compared to the tree. The trees this big, and the root is, you know, just three inches around or whatever two inches around, grows all the way to the top, spreads a canopy over the entire tree, grows all these big leaves, and in two or three years kills that tree, one of the trees in the backyard. Thank goodness, I caught it. One of the trees in the backyard. Grew up to the top. It grabbed the top and began pulling it and broke the top of the tree off. These vines, it's just vines, right. The Bible says that bitterness is like a root like that that grows up and kills everything else. Jesus says a lack of forgiveness is like a prison you create and you're going to be tortured in it. So the only freedom, the key to freedom, is realizing you've already been forgiven, right, and so if you've been forgiven by God, shouldn't you also forgive others? And when you forgive, it's not saying it's okay, it's just saying it's God's business, not my business to manage this now to bring judgment on. Yeah. Yeah, you know a few things that I always want to mention whenever we talk about forgiveness, that usually we preach, and you know what Jesus supports as well, is that number one forgiveness is for you, it's not for the other person. So we say, oh, you're the one in the prison, right, You're the one in the prison, and it's the key for you to get out. Right. So they say, oh, well, that person doesn't deserve to be forgiven, right, I'm not going to forgive that person. They don't deserve my mercy, They don't deserve my forgiveness. You're right, they may not right, but that's that. But you're not giving it for them. You're giving it for you. Because being angry and bitter at somebody is like drinking poison and expecting them to die. Right, right, that's because it's hurting you, which is why Jesus says it's not an option you must forgive. He doesn't give an option. He does give options for reconciliation. It's not a command, it's a goal. Right. But but forgiveness is not an option you must forgive. And then another thing that we always say is that forgiveness is not an emotional decision as much as it is a logical decision. Right, So, like you're not supposed to forgive and then all of a sudden feel better towards this person because just like you said, it doesn't make it okay. You know, you can't forgive necessarily and forget all the time. It's not like you're going to immediately have a reconcile relationship or restored relationship. But what you're doing is you're deciding that God's going to be the judge. I'm not going to be the judge. You're deciding they don't owe me anything anymore. Right, because forgiveness an offense, is a debt debtor relationship, and you're saying, let God pay the debts. Jesus paid the debts on the cross. It's enough to pay for everything, so let God satisfy the offense. Right, And so it's a it's just a thing that we have to understand. If you have bitterness towards somebody and you have unforgiveness towards somebody, God does not give us an option not to forgive. And he says, hey, you've been forgiven for way more. You should forgive. But the benefit is you're the one that's going to get better. You're gonna get out of your own prison, just like this man, the prison you've created. Right, that's great, that's so good. All right, Well, hey, that is our time, so hopefully we will see you tomorrow on the Bible. Guys,