165 - Forgiveness Math (23 Sept 2023)

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there anything here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages.

Welcome to More Than Ink. Okay, let's say someone sins against you. Are you supposed to forgive them? Well, that's what Jesus said.

Yeah, but what if they do it over and over and over? You wonder, where can I draw the line? Yeah, but is there a line? Let's find out what Jesus had to say. Okay, today on More Than Ink. Well, this is More Than Ink and across the table from me is the lovely Dorothy. And across the table from me is the handsome Jim. Ooh, here we go. Well, we're glad you're with us today. We are walking our way through the Gospel of Matthew, and we're actually coming to the end of Jesus' Galilee tour.

He's going to head south pretty soon here, but he's got a little teaching reserve for us, and we're going to look at it today. But why don't you catch us up to where we are, what happened last time we were reading in Matthew. There's a lot of heavy stuff in chapter 18. If you remember, clear back to the beginning of the chapter, the disciples had come to him and said, well, who's the greatest? And he grabs a child and begins talking about humbling yourself, right? And then a little while later, he leads on to not causing one of these little ones to stumble. And then he talks about the necessity of running into stumbling blocks in this broken world. The inevitability of it. The inevitability of it. We are not going to be able to avoid it.

It's going to happen. And don't you, as my followers, walk into behavior that leads another to ruin. And he leads them into forgiveness of personal offense or forgiveness of offense.

Going after your brother for his restoration. And that's what came right before this. And he had told them, where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am. So we're still on the whole topic of being offended or sinned against. We are still on the topic of being sinned against and forgiveness. And Peter clearly understood that.

Because in verse 21, which is where we're starting today in chapter 18, 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? Let's just stop there for a second. That's an interesting thing because... Well, I don't say seven times, but 77 times. Everybody knows that.

Everyone knows that, yeah. But Peter's proposition when he says that, he could have just said, how often should I forgive? End of question.

And then go on. But by offering the seven, he's actually going a little over the top here. Because what I hadn't realized was the rabbis had always taught that three times is your max. And you should never forgive on the fourth offense. Never. Never. And they pull it somewhere out of the book of Amos. I forget exactly how it works.

But I remember this. So when Peter's saying, how many times should I do it? He's thinking, well, I'll go beyond what's required. I'll go the complete number. I won't go three. I'll go seven. Is seven enough? Surely seven's a lot right there. So he's really going big when he even proposes that.

And he thought he's gone as big as he needs to. And Jesus says, nope, seven's not even enough. Completely complete. Right? Because that idea of seven being the whole thing. Right. The complete picture.

And Jesus says, oh, you don't even know how complete complete is. Seventy times seven. Seventy times seven. Which is, you know, that's a lot of offense.

Multiplying your multiplication. Yeah. And you know what I didn't realize until I looked at this just a little while ago is the fact that Jesus is using a picture from Genesis 4. Remember Cain and Abel? Cain's the bad guy, you know, because he murders Abel. Well, there's a part in Genesis 4 that talks about the generations of sin that's going to come from Cain.

The generations. And he actually talks about, it's his great, great, great, great, great grandson, Lamech, which I think is actually five generations later. And he says, now catch this, he says, because of what Cain, the bad that Cain has done and the judgment he's going to get, it says, if Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech, five generations later, is seventy times sevenfold. So it's his way of saying, if Cain, you know, if Cain reaped the whirlwind of judgment, you know, five generations later, it's seventy times seven. It's even that much worse. He's actually spawned a huge society of people that have been infected by his sin.

Yeah, and actually Lamech is the seventh generation from Adam. Yes, exactly. Where the sin began.

Where it began. So that's the picture. Yeah, yeah. Oh, isn't that interesting? He uses that phrase, seven for Cain, seventy times seven. So when Jesus quotes that right here, they would recognize this and say, well, you know, how much sin, a Cain level of sin to forgive? No, a Lamech level.

Lamech level. That's what he's saying. That's pretty interesting.

I never put that together before. Yeah, it's exactly that phrasing. That's very interesting, but that rings true to me. Yeah, it does. Yeah, it really does.

It really does. So, okay, so let's read on because here comes the parable now because Jesus begins by saying, therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared, right? That's the way he began all those kingdom parables. To illustrate this seventy times seven, just to give you an idea how impossible this is.

Right. So the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents, and since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold with his wife and children and all that he had and 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, pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. Let's pause there for a minute. Yeah, it's a big deal. How big a debt? It's a big deal here. This is a big deal.

Yeah, well, you know, ten thousand talents is valued in the millions. Yeah, this is a debt this guy would have had no hope of repaying. No way. No way. Even if he begs a little more time, there is no way he's going to pay this back. That's why I kind of laugh when you read that one verse because he says, you know, he says, have patience with me and I'll pay you everything.

I'll pay you everything. No stinking way. That's never going to happen. You can't live long enough to repay everything. I think even when Jesus told this parable, the disciples probably chuckled a little bit like, yeah, fat chance that's never going to happen even with a little time.

No way. So remember Jesus predicated this by saying this is like the kingdom of heaven. So we've got a king and we've got a guy who owes him more than can ever be repaid by his own life efforts. Deep, deep debt. Deep, deep debt. And it's even, you know, even what the loner is asking, you know, to have this man and his family put into slavery.

I mean, that's not even going to make a dent in the debt. But that would be what you would do, you know. And sometimes we lose sight of the fact that this is the king's servant so he belonged to the king already. That's right.

Everything he had and was belonged to the king. That's right. Yeah. So basically what he's saying is that as my servant, I'm going to sell you off to someone else who will buy you and I'll just take whatever they pay for you and I'll call at the end of it. I mean, it's still just barely scratching the debt. I mean, it's just a huge thing.

It's an impossible thing. But it says out of pity for him, the master of the servant released him and forgave him the debt. Wow. So the kingdom is like a king who forgives immeasurable debt, not because the guy begs, but because the king himself is good. That's right.

Out of pity for him. He doesn't say the debt didn't matter or that it didn't exist. Right. Right.

Okay. It's an act of mercy, just to be clear. And it's interesting that when you get a feeling for how big the debt is, you get a feeling for how big the mercy is.

It's a gigantic forgiveness. That's a pretty direct equation. And those go together.

Those go together. So scene two in the story. Scene two. Verse 28. When that same servant went out, he just got his freedom, just got his release. He went out and he found one of his fellow servants who owed him 100 denarii 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 pay you.

He refused and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. Okay. Stop there. That's scene two. Okay.

What a different scene. Using the same praise, have patience with me and I'll pay you, but then again, the result is wholly different. And he puts him in prison. Right. And until he can pay the debt.

Well, if he's in prison, he has no way of earning money to pay the debt. Right. Right. But the 100 denarii is a puny amount. Puny.

A denarii is a day of work. Yeah. So a couple months labor.

Couple months of work. It's a doable thing actually is what it is. He could do it, but it doesn't even compare. It's not even a blip on a measure of what the previous debt was. No. And you know, some people who have mathematics syndromes look at this and they wonder about the ratio between these two sums of money. Oh, uh-huh. 600,000 to one. Oh. Yeah.

600,000 to one. So, you know, Jesus doesn't say anything about the motives of this guy. That's kind of beyond the reach of the parable.

He's just setting up the comparison. Right. And again, this is a parable, so these aren't real people, but they indicate a reality. Right. So the one guy is forgiven an impossible sum to pay back and the other guy is persecuted for a sum that he could have paid back.

Right. And the other thing is the first sum is forgiven by a king to a servant. These men are equal. They're co-laborers. They're co-laborers. They're fellow servants.

Neither one of them has any authority over the other. And when Jesus tells the story, the ferocity of this guy, the ferocity, he seizes him and begins to choke him. So he's like, pay me back, pay me back. And you can see this in the movie.

He's just throttling this guy. That's a good word to use actually. In what movie? Have you seen this movie? No, the movie of the gospels. The movie is playing in your head.

Yeah. I see him with his hands around his neck and just his head's wobbling back and forth as he's saying, pay me what you owe me. I mean, it's fierce.

It's fierce. So different from the calm patient mercy with the king. So here comes scene three, verse 31. 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. 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 anger, his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt. So, and here's Jesus's conclusion, so also my heavenly father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. Ouch. Yes. It's a poignant answer to how many times should we forgive? Right.

Like, well, forever. That's what he's trying to say. And it is interesting that his coworkers are the ones that sort of blow the whistle on him because they see this wretched attitude and it offends them as well. It's just, they were greatly distressed. That word is just gigantic in here. They looked at that and said, that is just not right.

And isn't it interesting that his co-laborers, his co-servants are the ones who recognize the injustice of the sin. Right. They recognize the misbehavior and the inappropriate response. Yeah. And where do they go with it? To the master.

Yep, yep, yep. And even when we see this parable, I mean, we're human beings, we look at this and say, this is just wrong. Someone who's received that much mercy, that much forgiveness, who's received so much from a debt that was just immensely impossible to pay back. I mean, your heart should be grateful. You shouldn't be going around throttling other people for the little sums that they owe you.

It's just totally wrong. If you have received that much mercy, then the natural course of your heart is to give mercy to others. Right. That's the natural connection.

And when that connection isn't made, there's something very wicked going on inside of you. That's sin. That's why he calls them a wicked servant. Well, and it demonstrates that you really have not understood, you have not grasped the weight of what has been forgiven you. Right.

You cannot complete that transaction by then extending a comparatively small forgiveness to someone. You know, Jesus actually had already said this way back in Matthew 6 when he was at the Sermon on the Mount. That's right.

We've heard this before. When they asked him, Lord, teach us to pray, or he was commenting on praying. And part of the pattern prayer in Matthew 6 is in verse 12, forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.

There it is. And then he comes around to the end of the prayer a couple of verses later in verse 14 of Matthew 6. He says, for if you forgive men their transgressions for your heavenly... If you forgive men for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

But if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive you. Whoa. Well, that sounds pretty conditional. Yeah, it's what I call the great reciprocity function, which is if you want to be given mercy, you better be giving mercy. That's right. And it's a natural course of the heart to give mercy when you receive mercy. But if you take the mercy you've received and you don't understand the value of it, you don't understand how immense the debt was, and hence how immense the mercy is, then you won't make the connection to forgive others as well. Well, and you know, remember we've been talking over the last couple of weeks of how Jesus said, you know, if you want to follow me, deny yourself. Right. Take up your cross and follow me. And nowhere is that more applicable as when someone offends you.

Don't be setting your mind on man's interest or on self-interest, but on God's interest. Yes. You know, to jump back into the parable in Matthew 18, this king expects of his servants that they will mimic his character. Right. That they will do as he has done to them. Well, they serve the king. They reflect the king's household. That's right. They reflect his values.

They reflect his character and his ways. Right, right. So we as people who have been forgiven by God should be masterful in terms of bringing forgiveness to others. I mean, because it's been so much we've been forgiven of.

Yeah. So, you know, Paul in Ephesians 4 32, after this long list of things about not being angry and about the words that come out of your mouth, in Ephesians 4 32, he says, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Just as. Well, how has God forgiven us?

Just as. Because he's merciful, he's given us out of his own free will, out of his love, out of his purposes for us. Right, right. To redeem us. Yeah, because, you know, when this guy throttled the other guy, in a way what he was saying is that I'm righteous and you're not.

Right. And I'm going to exact that out of you. But when we all realize that we're not righteous, that we have been forgiven so much, then when someone exhibits that kind of sin against us, we say, well, you know, there but for the grace of God go I. I've been saved from that and you can be too. And so you let that go. I mean, you know how to forgive because you've been forgiven so much.

You get it. There's another, there's a place in James where he says the same thing. Now, his language is a little more complicated, but listen to this carefully because now that you know that we're talking about giving mercy when you've received mercy, he says, for judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy and mercy triumphs over judgment. So what he's saying is that, you know, judgment is without mercy. It's just going to be the rule of the law to the one who has shown no mercy. And it's a context where James is talking about this vague thing he calls the law of liberty.

But that's what he's talking about. There is a law that states what righteousness is all about. But righteousness and sin is something that's real and from God's perspective, he has shown us mercy.

And so there's a law of liberty around that. So if God has shown you mercy and you have not shown mercy, well, it's without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. And in fact, that's what happens with the king here. That's what happens in the parable, isn't it? When he demonstrates no mercy, his judgment is without any mercy at all. That's right.

Yeah. Because, you know, it's pretty blatant in the story, in the parable. In anger, the master delivers him over to the jailers until he should pay all his debt. Well, you know, in a couple of the other translations of this, it doesn't say jailers. It says torturers. Torturers. I know. Right? I know.

The ones who hold you in bondage. Well, in reality, unforgiveness itself holds us in bondage, doesn't it? It does. Yeah, it does.

It's attached to our own self-interest. Yeah. Yeah. Because we nurture that kind of retribution.

That kind of, you know, I want to strike back kind of stuff. Right. So that, you know, maybe we should just spend a minute or two talking about what does it actually mean to forgive?

Yeah, that's a good question. Because I think sometimes we think, oh, I'll just pretend it didn't happen. That's not forgiveness. No.

Or when someone says, you know, reflexively, oh, that's okay. No, it actually wasn't okay. It wasn't okay.

No. That's right. Forgiveness does not say it didn't happen, and it doesn't say what happened wasn't wrong. It doesn't diminish the wrong.

The wrong is real. That's true. The issue is how you're going to deal with the real sin that's been visited on you. Right.

What's your response? And the reality is that we can't adequately deal with someone else's sin. Only God can. So when we forgive, we release the necessity of expecting payback from the person who hurt us.

Because we want some kind of equalization. Right. But we let go of our right to exact it. And like Jesus did, we entrust our souls to a faithful creator. That's what Peter says in 1 Peter 2, 23. Trust God to put it right. Yeah, and that's at the center of that very harsh phrase that vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.

Right. And it sounds pretty harsh, but all he's saying is that when it comes down to justice, justice in the face of sin that has been suffered on you, we're going to let God settle that score. We're going to let God take care of that. It's not going to be my vengeance. It's not going to be my hobby horse I get on to make this person feel as bad as I feel that they've made me feel.

Because we are not capable of acting ever, I don't think. Only free of self-interest. No, nor objectivity. No.

And what if it's an inadvertent slam? What if it wasn't meant on purpose and then you persecute this person or you harbor notions of persecuting the rest of your life? What a horrible thing that's done to you.

Well, and isn't it the book of Hebrews that talks about how when we harbor unforgiveness that it yields this root of bitterness that contaminates many. Yeah. Right? It just kind of escalates.

Yeah. And I hear people who do successfully forgive talk about the fact that it takes a huge weight off their shoulders. It's like been a burden their entire life to seek this justice and when they finally let go of that, they're free of that. It doesn't control them. It doesn't dominate their thinking.

It doesn't dominate their fantasies. And it doesn't mean that that person did no wrong or that it didn't matter. Doesn't mean that at all.

It just means it's something that you are not adequate to carry that burden. So release it to God, let go of it, and stop expecting the person who hurt you to make it up to you. Yeah.

But don't we normally think that to forgive someone is to diminish what they've done? Right. And it's not the fact. I mean, it's real.

That is not the case at all in God's forgiveness of us, because what did it cost Him? Exactly. Right? Yeah. Exactly.

The value of the life of the Son of God in the flesh. Right. Uncalculable.

Incalculable. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why in the original scene when the king has this gigantic debt, the cost of that forgiveness is immense.

I mean, he's not saying, oh, that's okay. I don't need the money. No. It's a real loss. And so when we talk about the forgiveness of God, we're talking about a forgiveness that costs an immense amount in the blood of Christ. And that's the immense amount that you could never pay back yourself, even though with all the patients in the world, you couldn't pay that back. Nobody forgives you that debt immensely. So one aspect of harboring unforgiveness for us is that it gives Satan a place to build opposition to God in our lives.

Right. And I came across today where Paul, in the beginning of 2 Corinthians, is talking about forgiving someone in the body who had wounded everyone. So if we wanna read with me in 2 Corinthians 2, verses 10 and 11, this is kind of the end of his argument, but I'll just pick it up right here at the end. Verse 10, but whom you forgive anything, I forgive also for indeed what I have forgiven if I've forgiven anything. I did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ in order that no advantage be taken of us by Satan, for we're not ignorant of his schemes.

Right. How does Satan take advantage of us when we harbor unforgiveness? Well, he grows in us this bitterness that doesn't go away, that tortures us, that causes us to be angry, and then we bury it deeper, and then it springs out and gets all over everybody. Sometimes we have no idea why we're so angry or why we're so bitter, but it all roots back to that single unforgiven thing that we have not let go of.

We've just sucked that bitter little root. It's a great example in that thing that I just wrote about Cain in Genesis 4. There's that anger and hatred from Cain that contaminates all those generations past him, 70 times seven. So Satan can use it to contaminate a lot of people with that bitterness, and we know people like this. We know people who are just so concentrated on their hate because of the offense that they're contaminating everybody. But there's another side effect though, and it's not really a side effect, it's central because when you're offended, you feel like you're the pure righteous one and they're the pure sinner. Well, you're not a pure righteous one, however, you will visit that offense so often that you'll build yourself up in your own mind, and the last thing you need to do as a believer in Jesus, the last thing you need to do is to build yourself up as self-righteous, and offenses push you that direction. Well boy, then we're right back there where Jesus is saying to Peter, get behind me Satan. Get behind me.

Right? You are a stumbling block, you are setting your mind on God's interests, you're building yourself up. And you're building yourself up. Let me just close with this because we need to be more like God and not like selfish people. He says in Luke 6 35, love your enemies, do good, lend, expecting nothing in return and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the most high, for he's kind to the ungrateful and he's kind to the evil, so be merciful, even as your father is merciful. You need to be like God and not like a selfish, self-righteous person. And to the degree that we are merciful, we are demonstrating that we have understood and grasped for ourselves the depth of the mercy of God. And that's what characterizes Christians probably more than anything else, a humility about the fact that a gigantic debt has been paid on my behalf, that I could never ever hope to pay on my own, and I continue to be amazed as every year goes by that God has still paid the price for my debt. Wow.

That's so central. Well, look, we're running out of time. Next time as we go into chapter 19, it's going to say that he's going to go away from Galilee, Jesus is going away from Galilee, and he's going to enter the region of Judea far in the south. And this is the beginning of tremendous persecution and horrors, and as he gets down there, he'll be confronted instantly by Pharisees who want to argue and test him, and this confrontation between the people who hate him and his mission as the son of God will continue to proceed until he's crucified. And so that's where we start to next week when we go into chapter 9.

So read ahead a little bit. Chapter 19. 19. Did I say 19?

Yeah. And we'll see exactly that kind of maelstrom of hate that he's going to step right into willingly, willingly, and he's going to die for the very people that are persecuted. So come back with us next time as we go into chapter 19, read ahead if you want, and we'll look at Jesus doing what he did for us. So I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy. And we'll see you next time on More Than Ink. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org. And while you're there, take a moment to drop us a note. Remember, the Bible is God's love letter to you. Pick it up and read it for yourself, and you will discover that the words printed there are indeed more than ink. I forget what I'm supposed to say. This has been a production of Main Street Church of Rhythm City.