Welcome to the Willow Ridge Sermons podcast. This is
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Well, good morning. That's good. If you
have your bibles, and I hope you do, I want to invite you to join
me in Matthew, chapter 18.
As you turn there, I, wanna share something else with you guys that
we're really excited about. for a
pretty good season of time now, one of the things we've been praying about is
staff and leadership is how to better connect
with different, groups or demographics within
the context of our church. And one of those, groups that we've
been really praying about is our young adults. And so
we're kinda defining, that, I'm sorry, for,
like, 18 to 24 year olds as they come out
of the student ministry, into the world of
college, career, military,
or that space. And maybe you were there and I
was definitely there of none of those three, because I have
no clue, what I want to do or what
God has for me. And so we are intentionally, as
a church, starting to target that group with
a new discipleship ministry
opportunity. excited to share with you guys, Josh Nix is going
to be coming alongside us and leading in that
capacity. And so after the service is over with, not
only will Aaron and I be back in the back for first time guests,
but if you are an 18 to 24 year old, or if
you are the parent grandparent friend of an 18 to
24 year old, and you'd like to speak with us about
what that ministry looks like, we'd love to talk to you about
that. I know Josh has already got on the docket. Just kind of get
together with this group several times over the course of the
summer just to hang out and do some stuff. And
so here's what I know. He shared with me this morning
on Monday, July 8, he's going to
get together with that group, take them
bowling, take them, out to dinner. it's
free. Josh is going to pay for that. So
we're excited about that. It is free. Josh didn't know
that he's going to pay for it, but now he's going to pay for it, right? and so we want to
encourage you guys to be a part of that and go out that wonderful time and
just build, the beautiful bond of fellowship and
community, with that. And so Josh and I will be
back in the back if you want to get connected, if you got any questions.
We would love for you to answer that.
Well, as we continue on in our summer series
this morning, we're going to be looking at the parable of
the unforgiving servante.
And so I want to start, though, by looking at the verses
right before that which will lead into
Jesus telling this parable. So,
verse 21 of Matthew 18 says this.
Then Peter came up and said to him,
lord, how often will my brother
sin against me? And I forgive him
as many as seven times.
And Jesus said to him, I do
not say to you seven times, but
77 times. Let's pause there
for a minute. This is that, culmination point that we've been talking
about with all of our parables of what sparks Jesus in
these moments, to do the teaching on the parable that he
does. Right before this, Jesus had been
speaking to the discipleships about unity.
And so, Peter, maybe from
sincerity, but probably nothing,
ask Jesus a question.
He says, jesus, how many times should I
forgive my brother?
Now, not necessarily the brother related
brother, but a brother in faith, a
friend, how often should I do this?
Should they have sinned against me, lord,
should I do this? Up to seven times. And I kind of
picture in my, mind, Peter's saying that
a little bit with, like, his chest stuck out a little bit,
like seven times.
Here's seven. Seems generous, right? I don't know if
you've ever been hurt or wounded by someone. I would
likely think that you have, because you've lived and you
know, what that walks through and, you know, the difficulty
when you're in a relationship and someone hurts you and hurts
you and hurts you. And so Peter
says seven, right?
The rabbis during the time, many of them
would teach that once, you'd forgiven someone three
times, you are no longer bound to forgive
them anymore. So Peter
takes what would have been
customary, doubles it,
and then adds one to it. Pretty good.
Pretty good. Probably like what people
would have looked at for him and thought, man, that guy's
gracious, he's generous,
he's kind. He's setting a
standard beyond the culture of the norm.
But then Jesus answers. Now, if you're reading
along in your Bible, you might have got a different, different
number than what I read. And my
translation says 77 times. Other
translations say 70 times
seven. Either
way, here's the big idea leading into
this parable that Jesus is going to teach on
when we talk about forgiveness. Number one,
we, as his people, as his followers, are commanded to
forgive. It's not a suggestion. It's
not an idea. It's not a strategy,
it's not a tactic, but
an obedience to the Lord and surrender to him in our
life. That you and I, as followers of
Jesus, are commanded to
forgive. Number two
is your forgiveness should be
sacrificial. Whether you're saying
77 times or 70 times
seven. here's the thought that we want to
get. It's sacrificial. It's over
and over and over and over and over
again. They hurt me. I forgive. They
hurt me. I forgive. I forgive. I forgive. I forgive. I forgive.
They hurt me in the past. I haven't seen them since.
I forgive. I forgive. I forgive. I forgive. I forgive.
The number that Jesus is looking at is not a
magical number. It's over and over
and over again.
the third that we're going to see is
forgiveness doesn't keep
records.
I think what we're looking at here
is honestly, like, who's
going to keep track? Like,
imagine, like, we used to
go to six flags growing up,
and going to six flags in Atlanta. We would go
through and we would get, like, paper tickets. Like I know now, like, you can
scan phones and, like, you can do things like that. but for a
younger generation, younger than me, like, there used to be that time
that you had paper. And I'll never forget, one time we were
driving to, I was driving, I was
16 years old. We were driving to six flags
for the day with my family. My parents were going to let me drive on the
interstate. I was driving my mom's
suv, and I thought
that it would be great if going 70
miles an hour down I 20, headed toward Atlanta, that I
rolled the windows down. So
I rolled the windows down. What I did
not know, and probably I was 16, I wouldn't have put this much
thought into it even if I did know. but all four of our family
tickets were placed in the
visor right above
me. And as I rolled my
window down, my dad yells, no.
And out the
window goes, tickets. So we pulled over
my dad's like, I got the side of the road, bo,
you get the median right.
We never found them. We never found
them. Did we go? Yep. My dad was kind
and gracious and good, but I heard
about it the whole way there
and the whole way back. We could have gone
for two days. Yeah, we could have. But, you know,
I didn't drive anymore that day, but they
used to do something when you would leave and you came in, there was a person that would take your ticket,
and then there was a person with a clicker and then
people clicking as people came in, clicking as people came out.
What Jesus is saying is, we're not a person
that lives with a clicker, that we sit
there and go, well, you know what? They've done this to me. I forgive them.
Click. I forgive them. Click. I forgive
them. Click. I forgive them. Click.
We do it over and over again that we're commanded
to and that doesn't keep records.
And so Jesus has this moment of this
interaction with Peter,
and then what Jesus is going to do
brilliantly is leverage this into a
parable where the topic of
forgiveness is strong
through. We're going to look at that, but there's
more to it.
So let's look at verse 23.
Jesus begins and he says, therefore, the kingdom
of heaven may be
compared to a king who
wished to settle accounts with his
servants. Let's pause there.
This parable. We'll look at the topic of
forgiveness. But as Jesus
sets the stage for the
parable, I feel like sometimes
we take these teachings of Jesus and we just want to kind of turn
these into, like Doctor
Phil, be a better
guy, object
lessons. And
Jesus is going to teach on forgiveness. But there's more than
that. He's going to paint the picture
and describe the kingdom of heaven.
Therefore, the kingdom of heaven may
be compared to a king who wished to settle
accounts with his servants. So
I'm going to talk about Jesus. Jesus is going to talk about
forgiveness, but within the concept of what he's going to
talk, he's going to paint a
picture of this kingdom
and paint the picture of those in the kingdom.
And we can speak for weeks discussing
exactly the kingdom of heaven. But for the sake of our
time, for the sake of this passage, for the sake of this parable,
which, look at this, the kingdom of heaven
is the rule of eternal sovereign
God over all the
universe. But when we narrow
this down, specifically what we're connecting today,
the kingdom of heaven is a spiritual
rule over the hearts and the lives of those
who willingly submit to God's
authority. And so Jesus is going to paint
this picture for this moment in this room. Lord,
isn't seven enough? Isn't seven
enough?
Well, Peter, let me tell you about the kingdom of heaven. Let
me tell you and paint a picture of what this
is like. So let's read, we're going to read the entirety
of the parable 24 through 35.
When he began to settle,
one was brought to him who owed him 10,000
talents. And since he could not
repay, his master ordered him to be
sold with his wife. And
children and all that he had in payment to be
made. So the servant fell on his
knees, imploring him, have patience with
me, and I will pay you everything.
And out of pity for him, the master of that servant
released him and forgave him the debt.
But when that same servant went out, he found
one of his fellow servants, who owed him 100
Daenerys. And seizing him, he began to choke him,
saying, pay what you owe. So his fellow
servant fell down and pleaded with him, have
patience with me, and I will repay you.
And he refused and went and put him in prison until he should
pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had
taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and
reported to their master all that had taken place.
And then his master summoned him and said to him,
you wicked servant, 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 his anger, his masters
delivered him to the jailers
until he should pay all his debt. And
then Jesus gives us some commentary.
These are Jesus words. These are
true. So also my
heavenly father will do to every one of you
if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.
We got a parable of two debts.
It says, master kingdom, depending
on. What's your translation? The first
debt is between a king and a servant. The servant
owed the king, the Bible tells us 10,000 talents. Now, this
debt is hard to fully cover, to
understand, to convert, for us to truly
understand. But on the low end, they think the
10,000 talents in today's economy
would be about $12 million.
It's on the low end. On
the high end, 1 billion.
So we could argue. We could take an average. But I think
here's the point. This debt is too
great for this man to pay
12 million, 1 billion.
Now, if you're like, nah, that ain't bad, like,
let's have a conversation, all right? Like,
I'd like to know some things,
right? This debt's too great for this
man to pay. And I think this is
interesting. He doesn't seek
forgiveness. Look,
he seeks patience
so that he could have time to
repay. Now, I wonder, have you ever wondered how this
guy got into this situation? Like, Jesus leaves the space open
for us. Was it gambling? Was it foolish investments? Was it bad
business practice? Was it foolish spending? Was it wildlife? We don't
know. It could be a little bit of
all. It could be a mix up of what was
there. It could be one more. So than the other,
we don't know. But what we know is
the servant is, accountable for
the debt that is there. And so
he makes this appeal
for the depth of his debt.
Let me make it right.
Have patience with
me. Here's,
what I want us to see. As we look at forgiveness,
as we look at our relationship with God.
As you stand before the king,
as you stand before God, you and I,
we had a sin debt that is greater than a billion.
We had a sin debt that was so great that
if given eternity, you and I, we could never
repay it. And
when we think this, when we think, I don't need
God's forgiveness, but what I need is just
patience so that I can take what I wronged and
make it right. What you and I do is we fight
a battle that's impossible to win.
We've accrued a, debt
that we are incapable of
paying. And so what does the king
do? Out of pity,
out of looking back last week
at, the parable that we looked at
with the Samaritan, what we
see is out of pity, out of
compassion, he forgives the
debt. He forgives the
king. The good,
gracious, kind
king forgives the
debt. Scripture says he
releases him. He says, you're no longer
held, bound by,
limited by, restrained
to, tied to this debt.
That's your fault that you created, that you owned.
I'm going to release you from it.
And then he forgives the debt. He
doesn't just forgive him, he
forgives the debt. Which means he says this,
that the debt is canceled.
The debt is taken care of. The debt is
paid. And this is how God forgives
us in Christ when
we are saved. Your debt,
your sin has been created.
It's incapable for you. And God has paid it in
full, past, present and future. The
debt that you created, you are not bound to. You're not known
by. You didn't have to work to pay it off. And that gives us
reason, that gives us hope, that gives us a perspective of
life to celebrate. The king of kings and the
Lord of lordsness. Every dark
area of our behavior, of our thoughts,
of our words, of our deeds, of our actions.
And he forgives us. And he forgives us fully. And it's why we
have a song to sing. It's why there's joy that
fills us. Because of who he is and what he has
done for us. And in this
parable, this servant
receives forgiveness from a debt
that he can never repay. And he's
released. But there's two
debts. There's two debts.
The next debt is servant to servant.
The new servant, the servant who has been forgiven goes
out and what does he do? Does he
celebrate? Does he go and tell
everyone how merciful the king
is? Does he go and does he volunteer his time?
Does he go and give things away? No. What does he
do? The Bible, lets say, immediately.
Immediately. What he does is he goes and he finds
someone who owes him money. And
he doesn't go to them and say, hey, man, this is what happened to me.
So high five to you, like done. Don't
worry about it. I got this. No, no. Instead
he attacks him.
He attacks him physically and
demands that he'd be repaid. And what he is
owed is 100 deneri now. 100 deneri
to be thought of a hundred days, days wages.
So in a South Carolina economy, Google this. This is what
economists are saying right now here in our
beautiful, wonderfully, extremely
hot state of South Carolina.
In our economy, this would be about
19,500.
Now it's 19,500. A lot
of money. Yes. If you said
no again, like, let's have a conversation afterwards,
right? That's a lot of money,
but it ain't 12 million.
Like when we look at, within the context of what is
happening here,
12,019,500.
So the servant who owes the
19,500,
he asks for the same thing that the other
servant asked for.
Patience. Patience. Let's look
at this practically. You choose option
a or option b.
Option A is you owe
someone something, some
entity, $12 million.
Can you repay that? No.
Option B, you owe someone
$19,500.02.
Things. Number one, you didn't do the Dave Ramsey plan.
Right. Number two,
can you repay that? Yes. Are you excited about
repaying that? Not really. What do you need? You need
some time, you need some work, you need some opportunities. And within that, like
this is something that you can do.
But instead, as he begs for patience,
what happens is he has him thrown in prison.
12 million forgiven,
19,500 not
forgiven. As
deep as we look at this in
forgiveness, as we look at that as
how we've sinned against God and how we've
sinned against one another and how, how we've
been hurt by the sins of others,
as deep as you and I have been hurt and
offended by others, it pales in
comparison to how you and I have hurt
and offended God. No
comparison. There's nothing
that can be done. There's no
lines that we could draw
from time to time.
I like to share my pet peeves. I've
shared this pet peeve before I'll share this pet peeve
again. When I'm driving,
I can't stand when
someone cuts me off. When someone
cuts me off, I gotta
pray, lord, let me
walk or drive in your
goodness and grace, right? Help
me think positive things. Maybe they're
headed to an appointment. Maybe they're headed to the
hospital. Maybe they're, may they
not be headed to a tee time, right? Like, this
is where we're at. I can't stand to
be cut off. The other day, I'm driving down highway
six, heading into downtown Lexington,
and I hit what has become a problem.
An intersection. The intersection right there in front
of ala. And I'm
kind of daydreaming as I'm driving. I'll be honest
with you. I'm in the right hand lane.
I've got to go all the way downtown,
and I realize that I've got to get over
into the left lane, and I've got
a choice to make. Do I hit my
brakes? Do I slow
down? Or do I just kind of
go, well, I just
kind of went and I
cut someone off. And
in that moment,
that person, through things that
were very evident to me at the time, was,
angry with me. They
were not hiding their feelings. They weren't
praying. Like, I'm reading lips. Like,
there's all kind of things that are going
on in that moment. And I just, like, bo,
just, just stare. Just go forward. Like, this is awkward.
Please let them not be going to where I'm
going in this point. And
I've got to apologize. Witness to
not get punched in the nose. Right?
Here's my point. Here's my point. Silly illustration.
But here's my point. I
can't stand the thing that I
do to people, or I'm sorry that people do to
me, even though from time to
time I do it to others.
When we look at the character and the nature of who God
is, God
forgives, and he's
never, not one time,
sinned against anyone. But
yet you and I, withhold forgiveness,
and we sin against one another all the time.
M all the time.
But do you know what they did to me? Well,
what have you done to them?
Or even greater, do you know
what we've done to him?
And the weight of that?
And he's never done that
to us. He's
never sinned.
But yet you and I, who fall short
so often, are incapable
of forgiving the other.
So the king gets news. Like, even
other people are like, this is crazy. And he
responds, king's told about what happens. And
immediately he summons the servant,
and he says, I forgave you.
Forgave you greatly. I
forgave you at a depth like this. But you,
you cannot forgive minimally.
And now remember this. This isn't just a
picture. This is not a five step
parable of what it looks
like to walk through a process
of forgiveness. This
is a parable where Jesus says,
therefore, the
kingdom of heaven may
be compared to this
situation where God's
people, who are forgiven and
commanded to forgive and commanded to
forgive all and commanded to forgive freely
and commanded to give graciously and commanded to
forgive extravagantly, and
commanded forgive sacrificially, because
that's what we receive,
but yet we stay in line. But you don't
understand. It's not just you. It's
me. It's me all the time.
But you don't know my story.
But you don't know how hard it is
to forgive.
But Jesus does. But
jesus does. And
he calls us to a
life. He calls
us to a relationship
with him that's based in
forgiveness. And he gives us the
power of the Holy Spirit.
To live in a way that
he understands is
weighted. That he
understands is difficult.
But here's what I found with us. Here's
what I found with me. Here's what I found with
you. We want
the life of the kingdom.
We want the blessing. We want the
joy. We want the peace.
We want the happiness. We
want the life of the kingdom.
But we do not want the death that
the kingdom requires.
Jesus died. Jesus
died to make a way for
you and I. But in
this, you and I, are
called to die.
Matthew 16
24 25.
Then jesus told his disciples,
if anyone. If
anyone would come after
me, let him
deny himself,
take up, his cross, and
follow me.
For m whoever would save his life
will lose it. But whoever
loses his life for my
sake will find it.
It's a call
into a relationship with
him. It's a call
to understand the power and the work
of his death and what he's done. But
it is a call
to die for self.
I remember when I got saved.
June 1,
2002.
I remember when I was raised in church. If you don't know that I was.
There wasn't a point in time.
I went to VBS. I went to church camp. I went to
rastaine. I did all the things that, like, Southern
Baptist kids did in the eighties.
I was familiar with felt boards and, like, saltine
crackers before we had goldfish, right?
I had a belief and
a knowledge of Jesus.
I knew who he was,
but what I needed to be
different was my
response to him.
What I needed. What I
needed was
surrender. You see, you and I, in our
relationship with Jesus, if we look at these, we get these
illustrations of the king. Of the
king. I've never
lived under a king.
I've never. I've lived my whole life in
the United States of America. I've
lived in a democracy, a
democracy of equality and unity.
A, democracy where men and women have
struggled. A time where men and women
were not treated great, where men and women have given
their lives for others. But in the
democracy, what, we have
in this is freedom.
My freedom, my choice. I
decide. And we think that this
is. This is what we live in. And so
these are what these things are. So we take things like
scripture, and I think, we wouldn't say this,
but we feel this, and we definitely live this
way. Oftentimes, as we take this and we
say, all right, I know it's king Jesus, but
we're just gonna be president Jesus for a little bit.
And I'm going to kind of navigate through what I want to vote
yes on. What I want to vote no on what's going to apply to
me, what's not going to apply to me. But what we
see in this is the kingdom of
God. The kingdom of heaven is not a
democracy, but it's a monarchy.
It's a king, and it's his
rule, and it's his reign, and
it's what he's determined, and it's who he is. And he's
benevolent, and he is good, and he is
righteous, and he is in mercy. And when we come in,
we're like man. I want the benefit of the
king, but I want to live the life the way that I choose.
Jesus, I don't
know that that
can work together.
if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, tape
up his cross and follow me. For
whoever would save his life will lose it. But every who loses
his life for my sake will find it. Paul writes
in Galatians 220,
I have been crucified with Christ.
It is no longer I, who live, but
Christ, who lives in me and the
life I, ah, now live in
the flesh. I live by
faith in the Son of God
who loved me and gave
himself for me.
When we talk about salvation,
we talk about that our eternity
has been set, our
eternity has been sealed.
And then somewhere along the way,
bad teaching or
unwillingness to surrender,
we've come with the idea
that that means that my eternity
is set, but I can live how
I want to live today.
I want to read that verse again. Galatians 220.
For I have been crucified with Christ.
It is no longer I who live,
but Christ, Christ,
who lives in me,
in the life I live. I now live in
the flesh. I live by faith in the son
of God who loved
me and who gave himself up for me.
The beautiful thing of what we've been seeing over, these last several
weeks with the parables is Jesus is
drawing us in. And as we look at his
words, we understand the picture that he's
painting. And what he's showing us is this.
This is the beauty of what it looks like
to have a heart of compassion.
Why? Because we were dead on the
side of the road, and God
saw us. And what we
received was his compassion. That
we stood before a king
and that we did not get what we deserved.
We did not get the
wrath that was due to us.
Instead, we got forgiveness.
And as those who have been shown
compassion, as
those who have been shown
mercy for those who have been
shown for forgiveness,
go and do
likewise to live for the
kingdom, to live for the name of
Jesus, and to live
boldly where he's placed us.
Would you pray for me, God? I thank you so
much, Lord, for this opportunity, Lord, that we could be
here. I thank you for your word,
Lord. I thank you for the power of your word. I
thank you for its fullness, its
completeness. Every
word written true.
Every word written powerful.
God, I pray right now,
Lord. Because, Lord, I know there are so
many people in here.
They believe. They know,
or they're just like me, just like I
was. And I know the things of God.
I know the teachings of God. I believe in them.
I believe them to be true.
But there's a lack. There's an
unwillingness to surrender.
There's an unwillingness to come before the
kingdom,
to bend our knee, to
bow our head and say, it's not
just enough to believe in the king,
it's a surrender to the king. It's
a death to myself so that I can
live and live not just in
eternity, but so that
I can live in the power, in the
presence of God every single day,
to share light in a dark world,
to know what it means to be blessed, to
forgive, to show
compassion, to love,
to speak hope, not to people
who just deserve it, who we deem
deserve it, but to everyone,
to choose love, to choose compassion,
because that's been given to us. So, God, help
me.
Help m me, Lord, in my
life,
help me deny myself,
help me take up my cross,
or to help me follow you
more tomorrow than
today.
Gotta pray for our church.
Pray for those that are here.
I want to pray that we would respond
likewise, God,
if there is anyone here,
man, woman or child,
maybe this whole concept of Jesus is completely new to
them. Maybe they've never heard
before. Maybe they've
heard before and haven't
responded to you. God, I pray that
today will be the day of their salvation.
Today will be the day that they put their faith, hope,
trust in Christ. Today will be the day that
they seek forgiveness. Today will be the day
that they surrender their life. Today would
be the day that they take up their cross and they
follow you,
jesus m. Have your way
as king, king of
kings and Lord of Lords,
send your name we pray. Amen.
Thanks again for listening and be sure to check back next
week for another episode. In the meantime, you
can visit us@willowridgechurch.org or by
searching for Willowridge Church on Facebook, Instagram
and Twitter.