Matthew 18:21-35
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?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.
“Therefore 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 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 a hundred 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 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. 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 also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week, I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, Psalm epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. The Gospel reading for September 17, is Matthew chapter 18, verses 21 through 35. Then Peter came up and said to him, Lord, how often will my brother's sinned against me, and I forgive him, as many as seven times. Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but 77 times, therefore 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 10,000 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 for him, the master of the servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when the servant went out, 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 this fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, have patience with me, and I will pay you. 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. 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 also, my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother, from your heart, coherence, the reading. This reading follows immediately, the section in Matthew chapter 18, where Jesus talks about what we do when a brother sins against us, it's first go tell him his fault, just the two of you. If that works, you've gained a brother next, bring one or two witnesses. And if that doesn't work, bring it to the congregation. And if that doesn't work, treat him as he would a Gentile and a tax collector. And he says, Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven, talking about forgiving and retaining sin. So the natural question then is what Peter says, how often? He says, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times? Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but 77 times. So the question is, like, makes sense. How often should we forgive? Peter's like, Oh, I've got this huge number seven times. And Jesus says, No, not seven, but 77. Okay, so that means when I have my my sin against me book, I have to have 77 checkmarks. And then I stopped forgiving, right? Of course not. This is not an accounting problem about sin. Jesus is saying, no, no, no, seven is not enough. You have to multiply it so much that we always forgive. And that's the thing. Jesus is telling him, You must always forgive. So he tells a parable. I won't read it all. But it's a parable about a servant who owes a bajillion dollars to a king. That's about what 10,000 talents is way more than anyone could ever have. The king forgives it when he begs. And then that same servant goes to another servant, who owes him just a pittance. He says, pay me what you owe. The servant can't. He begs for forgiveness, and that first servant refuses. This is a parallel for our relationship with God is that the sin that we owe against God, our debt to God is so vast that there is no way we could ever pay for it. Every day we sin every day our hearts turn away from God, and our lives are filled with horribleness. And in fact, even all our best deeds, all our good works. They're all tinged with the stain of sin so that even they are filthy rags. We have nothing that we can present to God to pay him back. But he forgives us for the sake of Jesus Christ because Jesus gave up his holy Precious Blood by his innocent suffering and death, so that His infinite value of his infinitely valuable life can be poured into our bank account to pay back what we owe. Now, when someone sins against us, even if it's a huge deal, not a pittance, but a really big deal, it can still never live up to the debt that we owe God. An interesting thing about this is every once in a while I get the chance to counsel someone, they'll come into my office, and we'll talk about forgiveness like this, that when someone sins against you, we are required to forgive. And sometimes every once in a while, someone will say something like this, but pastor, it's just too easy. It's just, I'm just saying the words, and it lets them off the hook. And I always have to remind you that when someone confesses their sin to you and says, Please forgive me. And we offer forgiveness, it is actually not easy. We're saying your sin is so bad, that Jesus needed to die for it, that the Son of God, the Eternal savior, gave up his life to pay this debt. It actually takes in very, very seriously, it is not just papering it over say, ah, that's okay. Don't worry about it. It's saying Jesus died to take care of this sin. That's a big deal. So, when the fellow servant, when the King found out what the servant had done, he goes, and I'll read this, he says, 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. This is where God's law comes in to remind us that when God forgives us an infinite amount of our sins through the blood of Jesus Christ, we are required, as God's loving people to forgive the same way that God has forgiven us. In this story, the master throws the servant in jail until he should pay all his debt. And Jesus says, so also, my heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. We're required to bring about forgiveness. And I think this helps to put in context, what pastors do when they do the office of the keys, not just what individual Christians do, they also are required to forgive. But pastors don't get to choose who to forgive. It's kind of a misconception. They often say, Well, who are you to judge? Who are you to choose who gets forgiveness and who doesn't? It's actually really simple. There's no choice. Pastors, forgive people who repent. That's it. Not complicated, not hard. Pastors forgive people who repent. Because of this rule. Whenever someone comes to me to ask for forgiveness, it's my job to give it straight up. That's all there is. And it's true for us, as well as individual Christians. When someone comes to us and ask for forgiveness. We must, we are required by the blood of Jesus Christ to give it and what a joy it is to be able to offer up this kind of forgiveness, knowing that our savior has forgiven us as well. That's all we have for this reading. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye
Transcribed by https://otter.ai