I’ve had a few requests to share my sermon from this morning on Exodus 14:19-end and Matthew 18:21-end. The audio is available via the link. The sermon starts at approx. 5:50min in. Audio of sermon here
It was a huge storm. A ferocious wind was blowing so hard that the water in front of us was driven back. Waves were roaring, the sound drowned out any other noise. A wall of blazing fire, blocking the way of the army bearing down behind. Terrifying. An almighty show of power from the almighty and sovereign God. The Israelites may have been God’s people, and God was fighting for them, but I
have no doubt that this unfathomable experience terrified them as much as the Egyptians on the other side of the cloud, which to them looked like an impenetrable wall of darkness.
Equally unfathomable, and almost unimaginable was the debt that the first slave owed in the parable we’ve just heard. 10000 talents was a debt equal to 1000x the then annual revenue of Galilee, Judea, Samaria and neighbouring Idumea combined. Barely comprehensible as a sum of money, impossible to repay, literally a lifetime of debt.
Very often when we read this parable, the focus turns to the incredibly difficult and costly demand asked of each disciple – that we forgive our brother or sister from our heart, or not receive the forgiveness of God.
Compared with accepted rabbinical thought, Peter is being astoundingly gracious and generously merciful to suggest offering forgiveness 7 times – the recommended number was 3 times!
Contemporary and modern practical human wisdom, would probably agree with the rabbis, or at least, with the idea of putting a limit on forgiveness, and we know in ourselves that when we are wronged we want what we call ‘justice’, which can so often grow into vengeance and exaggerated retribution. And yet Jesus, astonishingly, demands of us unlimited forgiveness. To our minds, it seems foolish, unjust and unnatural. Intentionally using the same phrase as the dubious character of Lamech from Genesis 4, Jesus contrasts the extravagance of forgiveness required of the disciple to the extravagance of Lamech’s desire. Jesus’ teaching here is so astoundingly difficult, that it feels almost impossible for one disciple to repeat it to another here, today, let alone to expect ourselves and others to somehow manage to fulfil it.
Despite us always being drawn to what is demanded of us, the focus of the parable is rather on the costly mercy of the king. This king gives up a debt so huge that it would take the slave multiple
lifetimes to repay even a small portion of it. In comparison, the debt anyone owed to the first slave was microscopic. In the contemporary culture, as it was in England and many other countries for a long time, it was entirely acceptable to imprison someone who could not pay a debt and this slave could have been imprisoned for life. The king is willing to give up his rightful recompense, vengeance
and retribution, because the slave pleads for mercy. Costly forgiveness changes lives, it brings a freedom that once received cannot leave us the same as before. That is why the merciful king is so furious at the first slave’s lack of mercy towards his fellow slave.
Forgiveness is costly. It requires us to give up our desire for vengeance, and instead trust God to bring justice. It requires us not to ‘forget’ the pain that was caused to us, but rather to choose not to recall, dwell on or seek the repayment of that pain upon the one who caused us pain. It requires us to relinquish bitterness, resentment and our desire to control the future to protect ourselves and those we love.
The events at the Red Sea show us the awesome power of the God we worship. Just before God
intervenes, the Israelites, in great fear cry out that it “would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness”. Note that it isn’t the fear of attack from the Egyptians,
there and then, that they are afraid of, it is the fear of the unknown, the fear of crossing into a freedom which they have never seen and cannot imagine. Remaining in a known oppression felt safer than stepping into an unknown freedom.
Holding onto pain and hurt from others’ sin against us grows and becomes resentment that
oppresses us, but so often, like the Israelites, the fear of the unknown, of not knowing how justice will be delivered with a future is beyond our control and fear for what that means for us and our loved ones makes us reluctant to step into the freedom open to us in Christ if we receive forgiveness and offer that to those who have hurt us. Resentment imprisons us, and stops us from receiving the gift of freedom and life that God wants to give us. It can stop us making decisions for our future, it can affect us physically, as well as emotionally. Most serious of all, it stops us from receiving the
forgiveness of God, hardening our heart so that we cannot see how great a mercy God has shown us in Jesus Christ.
All forgiveness is costly. On our own, it would indeed be not only impossible to do, but impossible to think we could do. The only way anyone can is in response to the abundant mercy and forgiveness offered to each of us by a sovereign and almighty God. The cross isn’t mentioned in Matthew 18, but even as Jesus shares this parable with his disciples, He knows just how costly the forgiveness that He
models will be for Him. The debt each of us owes God through our sin is far larger than even the
largest possible financial debt, even in our age of billionaires.
The good news that faith in Jesus offers is that the sovereign and almighty God is a life-giving and
freedom-giving God.
The king in the parable writes off the debt. King Jesus pays the debt we owe Him for us, so that we
can be reconciled to Him, and the only right response to the mercy and forgiveness we have
received is to make a conscious choice to forgive those who have hurt us.
Forgiveness is very costly, but the one who requires us to forgive others paid a price for our forgiveness far greater than any price we could afford.
There are many ways we could respond to this parable. But I simply want to leave us with a couple of questions:
1) Have you received the forgiveness of God that changes your life?
It is only out of the forgiveness of God that we have received that we can find the reason to forgive
others. Without having received forgiveness from God, we will not be able to forgive those who have hurt us. In His Son, Jesus, The God who blew back the sea to bring freedom to the Israelites bought our freedom paying a price bigger than any financial value, to buy it, by dying on the cross to redeem ourselves to Him.
Come to the cross, and consider what you see. Jesus paying our debt for us through His blood. It
sounds gruesome, but the debt we owe to God is our lives, so Jesus paid it for us with the only life that can fully pay it – His own.
You may have come to the cross before, or this may be the first time. Either way, spend time
receiving the grace and mercy that Jesus pours out to you, so that you can give it out to others and carry to them the gift of life and freedom.
2) Are there people you need to forgive so that you can receive freedom and life from God? Is
resentment stopping you from receiving the forgiveness that is available for you in Jesus
Christ?
Forgiveness is not a one-time thing. It is not even a limited time thing. Just as Jesus still bears the scars of the wounds of the cross after His resurrection, the scars of the wounds you have suffered will likely remain, reminding you of the pain you have experienced. But our God is a redeeming God, a God who buys freedom with His own blood. Bring your pain to Him, and seeing His scars and pain,
a conscious choice can be made to trust the One who knows, more than anyone else, the true cost of forgiveness. The unknown future is scary, but it is in the hands of the sovereign and almighty God who will ensure that justice is done. The invitation of life and freedom is offered, will you choose to
receive it?
repairerofwalls 