SERMON ON 14TH SEPTEMBER 2008
ST KATHERINE’S KAJANG
BROTHER RODRIGUEZ UNAK ANAK CHARLES
TEXT: MATTHEW 18:21-35
Then Peter approaching asked him, "Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?" Jesus answered, "I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times. Let us pray:
Father I thank You for this opportunity to share the Gospel our Lord Jesus Christ. And Dear Lord, as I share, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart will always be acceptable in Your sight. O Lord my Rock and my Redeemer. Amen.
Illustration: A husband and wife who is quarrelling on who’s right and who’s wrong, newly wed couple, and they quarreled for almost half an hour. Finally, the husband said to his wife, “Since neither one of us are willing to surrender, here’s what we’ll do….”
Is it that hard to ask for forgiveness? Or is it hard to forgive others instead? Have any of us ever been in a situation where we want others to apologize first? Is that what God wants us to do? Let’s look at the scripture.
Here we can see Peter purposely asked Jesus whether to forgive someone who had sinned against him for 7 times. Now, why SEVEN times? In the Jewish culture, the number 7 implies the meaning of ‘completeness or a perfect number’ just like our Chinese friends who loved the number 8. That’s why we have the Olympic in Beijing on 08/08/08. Numbers are so important, and Peter too, thought so. In other words, Peter focuses on the amount of the number of times that he should forgive but then, he should only forgive until certain degree. However, that is not what Jesus had in mind though. What does Jesus want actually?
Jesus’ answer for Peter was classic: whether we take it 77 times or 490 (70 x 7), instead of unlimited vengeance, the followers of Christ have to show unlimited forgiveness. The emphasis is to be genuinely true in our forgiveness. Jesus did not say that ‘we should forgive the person who sinned against us for maximum 490 times’, no he did not. As I have mentioned earlier, it is not about the number; it is about the genuine forgiveness’. 7 is a perfect number for the Jews, now Jesus even increased the number to change the concept altogether to ‘perfect forgiveness’, amen?
To make it clearer, allow me to use some general terms that we all are familiar with:
To measure a length, what unit do we use? – cm, m, km, 1 light year?
Height- we normally use metre- Mr. Mano is double of my height.
Weight we normally use Kg or pound. When I first came to STM, I was exactly 49 kg but look at me now.
How about forgiveness?? Is there any numerical figure or unit that we can use to measure ‘forgiveness’? No, there is no ‘numerical figure or standard measurement unit’.
Therefore, 70 x 7 is NOT about number. It is about doing it without measure. Doing what? Forgiveness. The thing that I can say here is that “the measure of a forgiveness is a forgiveness without measure.”
Brothers and sisters, even if we still want to insist that ‘forgiveness can actually’ be measured, it actually has its own standard way of calculating. But it doesn’t involved modern figure or unit at all. You know how long was it? It was this long. Yes, on the cross.
From here, we are going to look at the parable that Jesus gave about a king who wishes to settle accounts with his slaves. Christians are so familiar with parables to the extent that whenever Jesus gave a parable that involves the character of a ‘king’ in it, we normally say, “ah, the king in the parable is God himself” true or not? Well, you are right again this time.
This king has a slave who owed him quite a huge amount of money- 10k talents is not a small amount. I’m quoting from a book here, ‘we might say in English, he owed the king a billion.’ A BILLION my friend, now why would a king generously lent a billion to his slave?? Even if it was a cumulative debt that has topped up to a billion, why did the king allow the slave to owe him further money? I’m sure, for a king, he must have thought of the impossibilities for the slave to clear his debt.
Let’s put it this way: moneylenders will normally ask for the pay slip of their would-be borrowers, why? So that they can know whether or not this fellow would be able to pay in the end of the day. By doing so, they can be assured that they can get their money back plus the interest. Another example is when my sister applied for her first credit card, she complained to me that the process was too demanding and that she has to prove that she earns certain figure per month and per year to be eligible to have a card. Why? Because the company would not take a risk by having a lousy customer. Here, the keyword are ‘reputation and potential’.
The King knew the reputation of the slave and the potential that he will never be able to pay back. The king knew about this all along. But the slave begged for his mercy (in v 26) and promised to pay the king everything that he owed. The king released him. Friends, when the King cancelled the huge debt, not forgetting that the King knew that the slave has now way to pay back, the King actually is more ready than to forgive him all this while. The King was after all, were ready to forgive from the very beginning.
However, the slave disappointed the King when instead of showing the grace and forgiveness that he had received earlier on, the slave became extremely ungrateful and did not show the same measure of forgiveness towards his fellow-slaves who owed him only a hundred denarii.
When the King knew about this incident, he was driven by disappointment and punished the wicked slave as he deserved. Jesus ended the parable by saying, “so my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” Friends, there are two things I want to highlight here:
Jesus said “everyone of you” which means there is NO exception. There should be NO excuse not to forgive.
And secondly, forgive from your heart. Too often we forgive from our head- we look at the possible negative implications of forgiving. Many people thought that when they forgive, it will show their weakness, when they forgive, they will lose face. When they forgive, they will lose something that we call ‘pride’. If that is so, what pride did Jesus held when he paid your debts on the cross? Isn’t that a shameful thing?
As Christians who claimed to have been ‘cleared of our debts,’ we are to learn how to forgive others too. Our ‘debts’ are our sins. God has cleared that ‘debts’ when Jesus died on the cross. Yet, if we are unable to start to have the spirit of forgiveness even in our church, I guess the theme for this year ‘transformation of the congregation in Christ’ is far beyond our reach. Be the first to say ‘I’m sorry or the first to forgive’. You don’t have anything to lose. You have done your part when you forgive and GOD sees that. That is what the King of kings wants all along. Let us pray.
Father, thank you for the cross by which our sins are forgiven and our debts are cleared. In this life, there will be people who we may find it hard to forgive others. Yet, we believe you are the one who will strengthen us to do so. Continue to refine our hearts to be genuinely good, to be genuinely pure and to be genuinely forgiving. This we pray through Jesus Christ our Lord and savior. Amen.
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