New Years Eve Sermon

Matthew 18:21-35

Grace mercy and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

THE NECESSITY OF MERCY

I just can’t forgive them anymore. They have hurt me for the last time. What a sad comment this is. How could anyone pray our Lord’s Prayer after saying something like this? Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. We say these words so often. But, how often do we think about what we are saying? In a prayer our Lord taught us to pray, these words should stand out. They should immediately come to our mind when we even think about withholding forgiveness. Yet, many times, we mechanically repeat the Lord’s Prayer without ever considering what we really are saying.

We trust in the unlimited mercy of our Savior. But, in this prayer, Jesus reminds us that there should exist a positive correlation between our willingness to forgive and our obtaining forgiveness from God. Sadly, we either miss this message or we forget it all too often. But we are not alone. Peter missed the message as well. In our text, Jesus had to give Peter a pointed lesson on the necessity of mercy. It is absolutely necessary that we receive God’s mercy. It is also necessary that we show mercy to our brother. Consider these ideas as we hear Jesus answer Peter’s question, "How many times is it necessary for me to forgive my brother when he sins against me?"

Peter asked Jesus the question, "How many times is it necessary for me to forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times? Think for a minute how this question must have saddened Jesus. At the time Peter asked this question, he had been with Jesus for almost three years. Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem for the last time. Not long before this, Peter had witnessed his Lord’s transfiguration. Not long after this he would also witness his death and resurrection. Jesus sadly replied to Peter’s question, "I tell you Peter not seven times, but seventy-seven times." This was not a law concerning how many times we are to forgive our brother. Jesus was not saying, "Peter on the seventy-eighth time you do not have to forgive your brother when he sins against you." Rather, what Jesus was saying is this, "Forgive your brother every time he comes to you and says I am sorry that I hurt you." It doesn’t matter how many times we have been hurt. Remember how many times we have hurt our Savior. How many times have we went against God’s will? How many times have we disappointed our Heavenly Father? Jesus goes on to illustrate forgiveness in a parable.

In this parable, Jesus tells a story about a king and an unmerciful servant. The king represents our Heavenly Father. The king, in his mercy toward this servant, acts as our Heavenly Father acts toward us because of what Jesus did on the cross. The unmerciful servant, all too many times represents us. The king called his servants in to settle accounts. One of the servants that he called in owed him ten thousand talents. In today’s world, the Roman monetary system of talents and denarii and all these things are foreign to us. We are not used to dealing in the Roman monetary system. So, when we read this parable, many times we read over the ten thousand talents without ever realizing how much the servant really owed. So let’s convert the debt owed in the Roman monetary system at this time into something we can understand. Each talent was worth somewhere between 5000 and 6000 denarii. A days wages, on average, was one denarius. Therefore, using a 360 day business year, which is the same as the number of days in the Jewish calendar year of that day, it would take the servant 139,000 years to pay back the debt if he worked seven days a week and gave every penny to the king.

We can see that his situation was hopeless. He would never be able to repay that debt. The king ordered that he, his wife, and his children be sold to recoup whatever he could of that debt. The king had every right to do this. It was a just decision. The servant borrowed the money. The servant was responsible for paying it back. Yet, the servant could never pay that back. So, as in today’s world, when we have debts we can’t pay, the king had the right to sell whatever property there was in order to repay the debt. In this case, the property also included the servant, his wife, and his children. Whether the servant, his wife, and his children were sold together or separately did not matter to the king. He simply wanted his money. The chances of someone buying the whole family were probably pretty slim. So the servant faced losing his family and his life as he knew it. Life from then on would never be the same. It would never be a happy situation for him.

The servant, as we would expect, begged the king to have mercy on him. And the king did! The king forgave the debt. he marked it paid in full. This was solely from the king’s heart. Nothing the servant did or could do merited such treatment. In doing this, the king sacrificed a tremendous amount of money.

We all stand in the same position before God as that servant stood in before his king. We deserve nothing but God’s eternal wrath and punishment. We stand before God as beggars saying "Have mercy!" Like the servant who could not repay the debt, there is no way we could do anything to meet God’s demand. God demands perfect holiness and righteousness. No sin! Paul tells us in Romans, "The wages of sin is death." Because all of us have sinned, the wages we have earned are death and eternal damnation. And once we have sinned, there is no way to undue the sin. There is no way to meet God’s demand.

Like the servant, our situation is hopeless if we are to depend on ourselves to contribute to our own salvation in any way. As it was necessary for the servant to receive mercy from the king to keep his life and his family, it is also necessary for us to receive mercy from God if we are to have eternal life and to live with him forever.

God sacrificed something more valuable than money to give us that eternal life. He sacrificed his only Son. He sent his Son into this world to live the perfect life we could not live. He sent his Son into this world to die on the cross, putting all our sins on his shoulders. As Paul said, "He made him who had no sin to be sin for us." Jesus died on that cross to suffer the torments of hell so that we do not have to. Jesus marked our debt PAID IN FULL from the cross with his last words, "IT IS FINISHED." In Greek, actually this is one word. And that word could easily be translated PAID IN FULL, because that is the same word that merchants marked on a bill when someone paid the bill in full.

We see and understand how absolutely necessary it is for us to receive God’s mercy. It is also necessary for us to show mercy to our brother. Jesus continued the parable to illustrate that God’s forgiveness is an example of the way that we are to forgive. The servant, after being forgiven this tremendous debt, went out of the king’s house. He met a fellow servant who owed him one hundred denarii. This is nothing compared to the amount the servant had owed the king. The servant was debt free. There was no reason why he need this money. But what did the servant do? The servant grabbed his fellow servant and began to choke him and demanded the servant to pay back the money. The fellow servant begged for mercy. As the servant had done before the king, Here his fellow servant was on his knees begging for mercy. "Give me time. I will repay the debt."

It was as if the servant had never been in the kings presence. It was as if the servant had no idea of the magnitude of the debt just forgiven him by the king. The servant, with an unmerciful attitude, thought only about himself. He demanded payment. he did not show mercy to his fellow servant. In fact, he had his fellow servant thrown into jail to repay the debt.

The other servants standing around were in shock. They were horrified that this servant had done this. They had just witnessed the enormous amount of debt that this servant had been forgiven. They went to the king and they told the king exactly what had just happened.

Upon hearing this report, the king was angry and upset. As well he should be. He called the servant back in and rebuked him for his unmerciful actions. "Should you not have shown mercy to your fellow servant as I have shown mercy to you?" He punished the servant by withdrawing the mercy he previously had shown. He ordered the servant to be thrown into jail and tortured until he should pay back all that he owed.

Jesus tells Peter that the Father will treat all who refuse to show mercy to their brother from the heart exactly the same. God demands that we who have been recipients of his grace to forgive as he forgives. Without limit. Failure to do this will cause us to forfeit the forgiveness we have received.

But, there is a difference between the earthly king and our Heavenly King. And the difference is huge! The earthly king by showing mercy to the servant could only hope that the servant would follow his example. He could not transfer his merciful spirit to the servant. It is obvious that if the servant’s heart was not touched by the king’s display of mercy toward him, nothing else would be able to change him.

Our Heavenly King, however, is not this limited. He can and He does tranfer his Spirit to us. He transfers his Spirit to us at our baptism. Paul tells Titus in Titus, chapter 3 verse 5, at our baptism we were renewed by the Holy Spirit. RENEWED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT! At our baptism there was a new man created in us. "Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone. The new has come." The new man created in us wants to do God’s will. The new man created in us wants to be merciful to his brothers.

Paul said to the Galatians, in chapter 5 verse 16, "So I say live by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature." Not only does the Holy Spirit create a new man in us that wants to do Gods will, that wants to be merciful to his brother, that Spirit gives us the ability to do God’s will. He gives us the ability to be merciful to our brother. Yes, our Heavenly King can and does transfer his Spirit to us. And that Spirit not only prompts us to want to do his will, but he enables us to do his will as well.

It is absolutely necessary that we receive mercy from God. Through Christ perfect life, innocent death, and resurrection this has been accomplished. It is also necessary that we forgive our brother. Not because we merit God’s favor by doing so. But because God has sent us his Spirit through the waters of Holy Baptism giving us the will and the ability to forgive our brothers.

We have heard Jesus’ answer to Peter’s question. How many times is it necessary for me to forgive my brother when he sins against me? Forgive as I forgive.

We pray:

Lord Jesus, I ask with Peter of old: How often must I forgive those who sin against me and offend me! O, Lord, if I am to forgive seventy-seven times, then you must give me the grace and the will to do so. My sinful heart is resentful and often filled with bitterness against others. So often I have been hurt and sinned against. I must confess to you Lord Jesus, that I do not find it easy to forgive and forget. Help me, O Lord.

I know you have forgiven me times without number. That is why I am coming to you, asking for help. Enable me in all sincerity of heart to say as you did on the cross: Father, forgive them; and then help me to forgive as you have forgiven me.

Hear my plea gracious Lord.

Amen.