This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to day five of our look through Matthew chapter 18. We've
been talking about forgiveness the last couple of days. Jesus gets on this
subject, he knows how important it is to us, and so he keeps teaching about it.

And we're going to listen together today to a story that Jesus told about
forgiveness. It's one of his most dramatic parables. He's just challenged Peter
to forgive, you remember from yesterday, and now in this story he pictures for
us how important it is to forgive.

Let me read this story for you, beginning in verse 23. "Therefore, Jesus taught,
'The kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his
servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him 10,000 talents was
brought into him.

Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his
children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. The servant fell on his
knees before him. Be patient with me, he begged, and I will pay back everything.

The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt, and let him go. But
when the servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants that owed him 100
denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him.

Pay back what you owe me, he demanded. His fellow servant fell to his knees and
begged him. Be patient with me.

I will pay you back, but he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown
into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had
happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything
that had happened.

And then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I
canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had
mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?

' In anger, his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured until he
could pay back all that he owed. This is how my Heavenly Father will treat each
of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart. " What a story and what
a teaching about forgiveness.

This is the story of a man who owes a debt he cannot possibly pay and about a
master who is willing to forgive that debt. It's a picture of God and us. My sin
has created a debt between me and God that I can't possibly repay.

The only way to repay it would be perfection and I already am not perfect, so I
can't repay it. And yet there is God who through Jesus is willing to forgive
that entire debt of my sin. As I look through this story, there are three vital
questions about forgiveness that I see in this story.

Question one is, are you trying to repay your debt or to be forgiven your debt?
When it comes to the debt of your sin, are you trying to repay your debt or be
forgiven your debt? The servant says here, "I will pay it back.

" The master says, "I'll forgive it all. " But apparently as you read through
the story, the servant didn't hear that. He kept thinking, "I'm going to pay it
back.

" Because that's what he went to do. When you go to God, you don't go to God to
pay it back. To somehow be good enough or pay enough good works in order to get
in his good graces.

It's impossible. It's absolutely impossible. And so in our relationship with
God, we've got to realize that we need complete forgiveness.

We can't pay it back. There's a refreshing freedom when you truly do get to that
point. I know it takes humility.

And I know that humility can be difficult to admit I can't do it on my own. But
there's a refreshing freedom in the love of God when you realize he will forgive
me of the entire debt of my sin. The second question, when it comes to your
relationship with God, when you talk to him about sin, the question is, did you
receive a temporary reprieve or complete forgiveness?

God is not giving you a temporary escape, like I'm holding off on judgment until
you get your act together. He gives you complete forgiveness. This man is trying
to repay, in essence, $10 million by demanding $10 back at a time from his
fellow servants.

He can tell himself by doing that, "I did all that I possibly could, but all
that he possibly could could not possibly be enough. All that you can do is not
enough. It could never be enough.

Your spiritual debt is too great, and you are too spiritually poor. I am too
spiritually poor. " So you recognize, I'm not coming to him to get him to stay
judgment for a little while until I become a good Christian, and then I'll know
that I'm in his good graces.

I'm coming to him for complete forgiveness. Now I know a lot of believers who
started with knowing they were coming to God for complete forgiveness, but who
drift into thinking that somehow they're paying off part of the debt as they
grow, as they serve. This suspicion starts in the back of our minds.

I think Satan plants it there. I know he does. And it grows into this thought
that somehow I'm good enough now.

I'm serving enough now. I love others in a way that somehow I'm paying off part
of the debt. You can't.

You never will. We serve and we love others in appreciation for the fact that
God paid off all the debt. The moment I came to him not to try to pay off some
of the debt.

Never think that anything you do before you were a Christian or now that you're
a Christian is somehow getting you into God's good graces. Only God's good
graces can get you into God's good graces. Third question.

Are you asking of others what God would never ask of you? Jesus is very serious
about this one. When he gives the picture of the man who goes out and tries to
ask of someone else when he was shown mercy.

He says, "So my heavenly father will do to you if you do not forgive your
brother and sister from the heart. " Now, he is not saying that you must forgive
others to be forgiven. That would be a work.

That would be me working myself into God's good graces. He is not saying you
have to forgive others to be forgiven. He's saying that if you're truly
forgiven, you're going to forgive others.

If you've truly received God's mercy, you're going to find it in your heart to
forgive others. It may not always happen immediately. It may be a struggle to
forgive others, but you'll go through that struggle.

As he talks about this, there is no fluffy marshmallow language from Jesus on
this one. He goes straight to the heart of the problem, and he frankly declares
that our refusal to forgive someone can always be traced back to a
misunderstanding of our own need for forgiveness, our own acceptance of the
grace of God. There is this breath of fresh air in this hard to hear truth.

If you're struggling to forgive, resist the temptation to focus on your feelings
of guilt about that struggle to forgive, and focus instead on God's grace and
magnify in your mind the great forgiveness, His great forgiveness of your sins.
Don't focus on your struggle. Yeah, you're human, you struggle.

Focus on His forgiveness. I found that the only way I can find the strength to
forgive others is to embrace the fact that God has forgiven me, that Jesus has
forgiven me. Now I know it can get more difficult as the sin against you, the
offense against you grows.

I know that happens. Some of you, as I talk about this, you've been wronged in
just unimaginable ways, and I recognize that. But still, the forgiveness that
Jesus gives us, that is the motivation, the means to be able to forgive others.

I know some people say, "What they did to me, I can't forgive. " I found there's
a couple of reasons people feel they can't forgive. We touched on one of them a
little bit yesterday.

One is that you may not understand forgiveness. Forgiveness does not mean
forgetting. It doesn't mean you have to pretend it didn't happen.

It doesn't mean you have to pretend that it was all right that it happened. No
one can forgive if forgiveness meant forgetting, because we all remember.
Forgiveness does not mean you don't remember it anymore.

It means you put it into the capable hands of God, and any judgment, any
revenge, you put it in His hands. "God, I'm letting it go to you. You can handle
it.

I can't. " More often, people can't forgive. The thing they struggle with is
they can't let it go.

For some reason, you think you have to hang on to that hurt to punish them for
what they've done to you. Now, of course, you know deep down you're only
punishing yourself. They probably don't even know or care about what you're
thinking.

But through your bitterness, that past pain, it is hurting you over and over and
over again. That bitterness starts to hurt your other relationships, including
your relationship with God. If you think you can choose not to forgive someone
else, and it won't affect your relationship with God, Jesus says here, "You're
just kidding yourself.

You're lying to yourself. " Now, if you're struggling to forgive, like Peter was
struggling to forgive here, Jesus in one sense gives a prescription for change
in the truth of this parable. And I'd encourage you to read Matthew 18, 21 to
35, every day for the next couple of weeks and just let God speak to you about
forgiveness.

Don't rush it. Let him speak to you. His grace is patient.

He'll speak to you. And when you and I recognize the greatness of his
forgiveness towards us, we will find a new freedom to forgive others. Let's pray
together.

And Lord, as we pray, we do ask that you would give that freedom into our
hearts, a freedom we cannot find our own power, the freedom to forgive. Lord, we
begin by saying thank you. Thank you for forgiving us of the sins that we know
about and the sins that we have conveniently forgotten or painfully forgotten.

Lord, you forgave it all, past, present, and future. You forgave it all. Thank
you for your life given for me on the cross.

Thank you for the pain, emotionally, physically, spiritually, that you went
through on that cross for me so that I could be forgiven. Lord, I start this
journey of recognizing my need to forgive others by thanking you with the depth
of your forgiveness for me. In Jesus' name, I thank you.

Amen. Next week, we're going to be studying Matthew 19 together. Jesus teaches
us there about marriage.

He also teaches about genuine faith.