Sermon Tone Analysis

ATTN

In 1995 Brenda Adelman’s father (whom she adored) shot and killed her mother (whom she considered her best friend) and then turned around and married her mom's sister.

He was not remorseful, and, in fact, refused to talk to Brenda about what happened.

O he went to jail for what he did, but his plea bargain and good behavior got him out in only two years.

Apparently the court bought his story that he had only “recklessly caused his pistol to discharge directly into his wife’s head.”

As you can imagine, Brenda struggled with forgiveness, as any of us would, I suppose.

I don’t know if there was any connection, but she became a psychologist.

Over the years, she has dealt with many other people who struggle with forgiveness.

From her own experience and from her counseling, she gives the top five reasons people give for not forgiving.

1.

If I forgive this person I am condoning what he or she did.

2. My anger assures me that this person will never be in my life again.

In other words, I have to stay mad at them so they can never be around me again.

3.

If I forgive them, they will hurt me again.

4. Who would I be if I forgave them?

Somehow, forgiveness seems to make us the doormat who is losing our identity.

5. What happened to me or a loved one was just too horrible.

If you boil all of these reasons down, you come to one over-arching conclusion: We do not want to forgive because forgiving implies losing.

If we give up the grudge, we are giving up our dignity and self-respect some how.

BACKGROUND

And we are not the first people to struggle with the concept.

Jesus’ disciples did as well.

You remember where we are in our series.

We began this little investigation into the Lord’s prayer with a discussion of it’s logistics: How, when, where, and why should we pray.

Then we discovered the intimacy of prayer by learning of “Our Daddy in Heaven.”

We followed that with the worship of prayer, learning of the awe of the Father’s presence.

We then discovered call of the King to build His Kingdom and the provision He makes in prayer when He tells us to bring Him our daily needs.

But, perhaps no phrase is really harder to grasp and apply as this next one: Say it with me: Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be Your Name.

Your Kingdom come, Your Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread and (watch) Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

Now none of us really have a problem with that first part: We all want to be forgiven.

We may even think we deserve to be forgiven.

But our pride really bumps up against that second part.

We, very often do not want to forgive our debtors.

Jesus knows our reluctance.

That’s why He goes to great lengths to make sure we understand the principle.

In fact, He’s so determined that we “get it” that He actually repeats and clarifies it down in vv 14-15.

14 “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

15 But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Now, it’s like the disciples are chewing on this requirement for the next 12 chapters of Matthew, because I think they had just as much trouble with this concept as you and I do.

I mean, we think to ourselves that this “open-ended” forgiveness must have some limit right?

I mean, if you smack me in the face once, yes, I might let you do that and forgive.

But if, every time you see me, you smack me in the face, there comes a point at which you draw the line, right?

Well, that’s what the disciples were thinking, so they diplomatically ask Jesus that question.

Peter, as usual, steps up to the plate and asks the question everyone else is thinking: In Matthew 18:21 it reads,21 Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?

Up to seven times?” Now you’ve probably heard that the Rabbis had already ruled on this question.

They said that you were obligated to forgive three times and, after that, you could take revenge.

Peter, realizing that Jesus always seems to go overboard, tries to get way out ahead of Him in this forgiveness thing.

He doubles what the Rabbis said and even adds one.

Jesus response is mind-blowing.

He says: 22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.

And really, Jesus was not saying 490 times, but that your forgiveness must be limitless if you expected to receive limitless forgiveness.

Now that, to our minds, seems impossible!

Really???

No matter what someone does to us, we are to forgive them?

Really?

Now, I’m sure when Jesus saw that, he could see the question marks in the eyes of those twelve followers, so He graciously gave them a picture which explained the concept.

He says (read text - Matt 18:23-35)

TEXT

Jesus, in this story, draws us the picture of an unforgiving heart and why we must avoid it, and I want you to hear Him today.

You see, you may be here and you really don’t get it.

You’ve always heard that you had to forgive, but you always resisted the idea.

You kind of echoed some of those reason we talked about for not forgiving.

You feel like keeping up the wall of a grudge keeps out the pain and even the possibility of future hurt.

You may even feel like unforgiveness is the only protection you have from the person who would hurt you all over again.

Frankly, throwing the door open to that possibility just seems to be beyond your ability today.

I really want you to listen because you may find out not just why it’s important to forgive, but also how you can actually forgive from the very bottom of your heart.

I believe that this principle is so important that, if you’ve struggled with forgiveness, these principles of scripture could lead you to a freedom you may not have experienced in a very long time.

It all starts here: You must really grasp the truth that, if you refuse to forgive, you will not be forgiven.

This parable gives you a clear picture of why this is so.

In the first place, an unforgiving person is not forgiven because an unforgiving person fails to:

DIV 1: COMPREHEND THEIR DEBT

EXP

This story is one about debt.

We can see that clearly, but what we may not quite understand just how much debt is being discussed.

When it says that this servant owed 10,000 talents, we might be tempted to kind of equate that with dollars, and you might say something like this.

“Ten thousand dollars?

Well, I got two credit cards that have that kind of a balance.

What’s the big deal?”

Well, in the first place, if you say that you need to sign up for Dave Ramsey!! But, in the second place, 10,000 talents is probably speaking of silver.

A talent was 30 kilograms of metal and one talent was worth 6000 denarii.

If one denarius was an acceptable day’s wage for a laborer, then one single talent would represent what a laborer might hope to earn in half a lifetime.

Ten thousand talents was 60 million denraii or the equivalent of 30 tons of silver.

In effect, the guy owes the king more money than existed in circulation in the whole country at that time!

You could say, the poor guy owed zillions of dollars.

His debt was huge and unpayable.

Now, obviously, he could see that this was a huge debt, but somehow he failed to really grasp it.

I know that because of what he says about the debt.

In v 26, when he is confronted with the fact that he owes more money than even existed in the country his response is, The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, ‘Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’

ILL

Really??

You owe more than exists, and you’re going to pay it?

That probably sounds like what bill collectors hear all the time.

Kind of like that old redneck joke that Jeff Foxworthy tells about the guy living in a trailor park when a bill collector comes to the door.

He says, “Mr.

Jones, we really need you to make a payment on this trailor if you want to keep living here.”

Mr. Jones knowing he is broke starts making excuses about why he can’t pay.

Finally the bill collector gets exasperated and says, “Don’t you have anything to make even a partial payment?

Can’t you go down to the ATM or write a check?”

The old redneck says incredulously, “You’ll take a check?

Well, now, I’ll just pay the whole thing off then.”