Text: Matt. 18:21-35
Facebook Live: Forgiveness and mercy is Jesus!
21 Peter came up and said to [Jesus], “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.
You remember the story of Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens, A Christmas Carol? He was a man of means and one who held onto what he had in this life with little or no love for those around him. He had no interest in Christmas, Bah Humbug! and were it not for the visits of the ghosts of Christmas past, Christmas present and Christmas yet to come he would have remained in his state of miserly misery until death closed his dark eyes and he returned - in the sleep of death - to the earth awaiting the final yet to come visit without hope, without peace and without comfort in his life.
We too are all born Scrooge like in our sinful state and destined to die with the idols we cling to in this life left behind for others, while we await the judgment to come.
But in the Christ of Christmas, there is a marvelous change that takes place whereby we are made new and hope, peace and comfort are given freely in an eternity yet to come - that never ends.
“That is the mystery which is rich in divine grace to sinners: Luther writes, wherein by a wonderful exchange our sins are no longer ours but Christ’s and the righteousness of Christ not Christ’s but ours. He has emptied Himself of His righteousness that He might clothe us with it, and fill us with it.
And He has taken our evils upon Himself that He might deliver us from them [and] in the same manner as He grieved and suffered in our sins … we rejoice and glory in His righteousness.”
–Martin Luther, Werke (Weimar, 1883), 5: 608.
In the gospel reading for today Peter asks Jesus a probing question.
“Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?
As many as seven times?”
It’s easy to see that Peter believes himself to be quite generous in his view of forgiveness. Maybe even thinking that at some point certainly after seven times, I’ll be able to justly not forgive my brother and end this nonsense.
To this Jesus replies:
“I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.”
It is not the Lord’s intent to show a definite number of times where forgiveness is to be delivered but that for God’s people who have been forgiven by grace, may understand that the content of their hearts should contain … only God given love and forgiveness.
But for we who are Christians, saved by the mercy and grace of our Lord, we live daily within that tension of being both saint and sinner. Both, brought forth in iniquity, and conceived in sin as Psalm 51:5 reminds us, yet justified by faith, receiving God’s peace through Christ’s work by the power of the Holy Spirit as St. Paul writes in Romans 5:1.
We have received in essence, the favor of God on account of Christ through this blessed exchange, our sin … for Christ’s righteousness.
“The idea is not simply that we have been forgiven, and therefore ought to forgive [others], but that God Himself, in Christ, has forgiven us, and therefore our debt is truly incalculable.
No matter how much has been done against us, it is little compared with the offense we have thrown in the face of our Lord.
Take for example the parable our Lord tells today in the Gospel:
The servant owes his master 10,000 talents.
This is a large sum.
1 denarii = a day’s wage
1 Talent = a hundred days wages
10,000 Talents = you are in big trouble!
For you and me when we think of billion dollars. It is a bit beyond comprehension.
$100, 1000, 100,000, 1,000,000, 100,000,000, 1,000,000,000, it’s beyond what we can even think or imagine in reality … the sum is that great.
Now, you are called in to the King and he gives you your debt. Let’s say it is $100,000,000. What do you do? If you are like me, you can’t pay. Even if you sell everything you have at the best possible price, your home, your stuff, and at the most favorable time and price you can’t even cover 1/100 of the debt.
So you go to the King, which in our case might be the IRS – it’s a joke - and you say as you fall on your knees:
“have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.”
You know you can’t … and you’re just pleading for mercy.
And this is the part of the story that won’t pertain to you or me,
27 And out of pity for him [the IRS] released him and forgave him the debt.
But Jesus says, in light of the great debt and the Lord’s great mercy, you and me and the servant in the parable are forgiven!
If we know anything of [our own] forgiveness, if we have glimpsed anything of the magnitude of [our own sin] and the debt we owe to God … our forgiveness of others will not seem to be such a large leap.”
–D.A. Carson, Love in Hard Places (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2002), 80-1.
“There is no one righteous, not even one;
11 there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God. … not even one.” Rom.3
The truth is that as sinners we have a very high view of self and a very low of sin. To that end, the indebtedness that we owe to Christ for our rescue is devalued and you either see your sin as really not all that bad or Christ’s forgiveness and rescue as really not all that good or necessary.
The servant in the parable’s joy didn’t last very long.
When he was confronted with a fellow servant who owed him 1/10,000 of the debt he himself had owed and had just been forgiven of, he showed no mercy to him and had him put in prison until he could pay.
What should he have done?
Well, he should have forgiven the debt, bought him the big Christmas Turkey in the window, picked Tiny Tim up in his arms and proclaimed,
“God bless us, everyone!”
As sinners, we too can be Scrooge like with grace. We expect it for our own wrongs but are stingy and hell bent at times when doling it out.
But, apart from God’s action and working, every one of us would remain, dead in trespass and sin. And like Lazarus who was unable to free himself from the bonds of sin, death, and the tomb, wrapped in grave cloths and dead until the voice of Jesus called, “Lazarus, come out!”
We too would remain entombed in our own sin, dead to God, forever separated from the love of Christ found only in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Christ’s mercy for we who deserve death is a nothing but pure gift.
Even one sin would separate us from the love of God in Christ, not to mention the 10,000 talents, worth of sins and more that we have been forgiven of!
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,
This 5th petition in the Lord’s Prayer has real significance for you and me in how we see sin - our sin - and how we see the Lord’s forgiveness and grace.
21 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?”
God bountiful mercy is given us for the sake of Jesus, who paid the debt of our sin.
He has [freed] us from the imprisonment we deserve and has forgiven the debt.
Therefore, we have the obligation of gratitude resting upon us that we gladly forgive our fellow-men what they have sinned against us.
Even if such a [sin] great in the sight of men, it cannot come into consideration in comparison with the debt which God has mercifully forgiven [you and me].
Luther – Kretzmann NT pg. 103
21 Peter came up and said to [Jesus], “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.
You remember the story of Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens, A Christmas Carol? He was a man of means and one who held onto what he had in this life with little or no love for those around him. He had no interest in Christmas, Bah Humbug! and were it not for the visits of the ghosts of Christmas past, Christmas present and Christmas yet to come he would have remained in his state of miserly misery until death closed his dark eyes and he returned - in the sleep of death - to the earth awaiting the final yet to come visit without hope, without peace and without comfort in his life.
We too are all born Scrooge like in our sinful state and destined to die with the idols we cling to in this life left behind for others, while we await the judgment to come.
But in the Christ of Christmas, there is a marvelous change that takes place whereby we are made new and hope, peace and comfort are given freely in an eternity yet to come - that never ends.
“That is the mystery which is rich in divine grace to sinners: Luther writes, wherein by a wonderful exchange our sins are no longer ours but Christ’s and the righteousness of Christ not Christ’s but ours. He has emptied Himself of His righteousness that He might clothe us with it, and fill us with it.
And He has taken our evils upon Himself that He might deliver us from them [and] in the same manner as He grieved and suffered in our sins … we rejoice and glory in His righteousness.”
–Martin Luther, Werke (Weimar, 1883), 5: 608.
In the gospel reading for today Peter asks Jesus a probing question.
“Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?
As many as seven times?”
It’s easy to see that Peter believes himself to be quite generous in his view of forgiveness. Maybe even thinking that at some point certainly after seven times, I’ll be able to justly not forgive my brother and end this nonsense.
To this Jesus replies:
“I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.”
It is not the Lord’s intent to show a definite number of times where forgiveness is to be delivered but that for God’s people who have been forgiven by grace, may understand that the content of their hearts should contain … only God given love and forgiveness.
But for we who are Christians, saved by the mercy and grace of our Lord, we live daily within that tension of being both saint and sinner. Both, brought forth in iniquity, and conceived in sin as Psalm 51:5 reminds us, yet justified by faith, receiving God’s peace through Christ’s work by the power of the Holy Spirit as St. Paul writes in Romans 5:1.
We have received in essence, the favor of God on account of Christ through this blessed exchange, our sin … for Christ’s righteousness.
“The idea is not simply that we have been forgiven, and therefore ought to forgive [others], but that God Himself, in Christ, has forgiven us, and therefore our debt is truly incalculable.
No matter how much has been done against us, it is little compared with the offense we have thrown in the face of our Lord.
Take for example the parable our Lord tells today in the Gospel:
The servant owes his master 10,000 talents.
This is a large sum.
1 denarii = a day’s wage
1 Talent = a hundred days wages
10,000 Talents = you are in big trouble!
For you and me when we think of billion dollars. It is a bit beyond comprehension.
$100, 1000, 100,000, 1,000,000, 100,000,000, 1,000,000,000, it’s beyond what we can even think or imagine in reality … the sum is that great.
Now, you are called in to the King and he gives you your debt. Let’s say it is $100,000,000. What do you do? If you are like me, you can’t pay. Even if you sell everything you have at the best possible price, your home, your stuff, and at the most favorable time and price you can’t even cover 1/100 of the debt.
So you go to the King, which in our case might be the IRS – it’s a joke - and you say as you fall on your knees:
“have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.”
You know you can’t … and you’re just pleading for mercy.
And this is the part of the story that won’t pertain to you or me,
27 And out of pity for him [the IRS] released him and forgave him the debt.
But Jesus says, in light of the great debt and the Lord’s great mercy, you and me and the servant in the parable are forgiven!
If we know anything of [our own] forgiveness, if we have glimpsed anything of the magnitude of [our own sin] and the debt we owe to God … our forgiveness of others will not seem to be such a large leap.”
–D.A. Carson, Love in Hard Places (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2002), 80-1.
“There is no one righteous, not even one;
11 there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God. … not even one.” Rom.3
The truth is that as sinners we have a very high view of self and a very low of sin. To that end, the indebtedness that we owe to Christ for our rescue is devalued and you either see your sin as really not all that bad or Christ’s forgiveness and rescue as really not all that good or necessary.
The servant in the parable’s joy didn’t last very long.
When he was confronted with a fellow servant who owed him 1/10,000 of the debt he himself had owed and had just been forgiven of, he showed no mercy to him and had him put in prison until he could pay.
What should he have done?
Well, he should have forgiven the debt, bought him the big Christmas Turkey in the window, picked Tiny Tim up in his arms and proclaimed,
“God bless us, everyone!”
As sinners, we too can be Scrooge like with grace. We expect it for our own wrongs but are stingy and hell bent at times when doling it out.
But, apart from God’s action and working, every one of us would remain, dead in trespass and sin. And like Lazarus who was unable to free himself from the bonds of sin, death, and the tomb, wrapped in grave cloths and dead until the voice of Jesus called, “Lazarus, come out!”
We too would remain entombed in our own sin, dead to God, forever separated from the love of Christ found only in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Christ’s mercy for we who deserve death is a nothing but pure gift.
Even one sin would separate us from the love of God in Christ, not to mention the 10,000 talents, worth of sins and more that we have been forgiven of!
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,
This 5th petition in the Lord’s Prayer has real significance for you and me in how we see sin - our sin - and how we see the Lord’s forgiveness and grace.
21 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?”
God bountiful mercy is given us for the sake of Jesus, who paid the debt of our sin.
He has [freed] us from the imprisonment we deserve and has forgiven the debt.
Therefore, we have the obligation of gratitude resting upon us that we gladly forgive our fellow-men what they have sinned against us.
Even if such a [sin] great in the sight of men, it cannot come into consideration in comparison with the debt which God has mercifully forgiven [you and me].
Luther – Kretzmann NT pg. 103
22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.
You have been set free from eternal death may the love of Christ live freely in each one of us.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen
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