Church Discipline: The Posture (Matthew 18:21-35)
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet virtually this week.
Transcript
Well good morning my name is chet i am one of the pastors here uh grab your bibles and go to Matthew chapter 18. we have been working our way through the Gospel of Matthew and we've spent the past couple of weeks in Matthew 18 looking at uh Jesus's teaching on addressing sin uh in one another he's teaching on the gravity of sin and then how do we address sin with each other and now we're looking today we're kind of finishing this up we said we'd spend three weeks on this and we said we'd talk about Church discipline.
Because that's this concept that we would address sin uh in the Church among one another in one another we said the first week was the purpose why would we address sin why would we go out of our way to do this and we talked about that sin is weighty and dangerous the second week last week we talked about the process of Church discipline how we would um how we go about addressing sin with one another and today we're looking at the posture the attitude behind how we address sin in one another and this is a very important week.
For us i think this is a very helpful teaching and we're going to start with verse 21 where Peter comes up and asks a question because Peter like you just sat and listened to Jesus is teaching on sin and on addressing sin and one thing very clearly stood out to him and so he comes up and he says this is verse 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.
Okay so i think sometimes we read this passage in Matthew and we think oh wow it gets really harsh at the end that you would actually break fellowship with somebody but Peter caught the gist of what Jesus was saying was that actually before that ever happens there's three opportunities for repentance to for forgiveness he actually says the goal of it is that you would go win your brother that you would address sin where they've sinned against you they would repent and you would win them back they all would uh reconcile.
And so Peter says okay question though for how long what's the what's the limit what's the appropriate amount of times that i'm supposed to forgive someone they sin against me i address it they repent i forgive them but the thing i've noticed about them is that they do it again Jesus i don't know if you've hung out with any people that's a thing they do and so i i have and i had a question how many times am i supposed to do that and Peter throws out a number he says seven and that's actually kind of a it's a very jewish way to ask this he's talking to his rabbi and he's asking what's the.
Rule how many because they would do that they would say you do this three times you do this this amount of times we do this up to this many times so he comes to Jesus and he asks this is a helpful question because we've just talked through the weightiness of sin the need to address sin and now we need to understand okay but if i address sin and they repent and i forgive them at what point can we stop that process and whether you know it or not you probably have some kind of an answer to this some of you maybe you're running with the baseball policy of three strikes you're out some of you.
Go a little bit under that you do fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me unless you're a fan of george w bush and he eloquently put it this way fool me once shame on you fool me for me can't fool me again maybe that's the system you run with but we have some kind of system of this is how much i'm willing to put up with this and so Jesus answers this question and his answer is wonderful it it's refreshing and life-giving and it's extremely difficult.
And so that's what we're gonna look at so let's pray for our hearts this morning as we look at this passage together God we ask you to soften us to your word to help us to see clearly the beauty of forgiveness both for ourselves and for others we pray that we would walk this out faithfully as you empower us by the spirit in Jesus name amen so Peter says seven and i think that's pretty gracious and Jesus said to him i do not say to you seven times.
But 77 times okay so seven sounded generous Jesus says no not seven seventy seven and some uh a way to translate this is seventy times seven or seventy seven times so it's either 77 or 490 but either way it accomplishes the same thing which Jesus is saying all the times he didn't mean for Peter to go okay 77 sounds hard i'll have to get a little book to write that down and i'm going to keep up someone does something i'm like i'm forgiving you and just.
So you know we're at 37 we're a little we're getting close to halfway that you tell somebody okay but this is 76. you got one more shot of this and we're done and some of you who have been married for a while you're like 77 that was like year five on this thing but he says 77 and reality is you have to be in real relationships for this to apply which is a beautiful thing that the Church is supposed to have that's why he's using the term brother it doesn't mean your actual blood brother he means your brothers and sisters in Christ that we would actually be around each other enough to get on each.
Other's nerves and to sin so much that it actually needs uh unlimited amount of forgiveness this is one of the things we talk to our group leaders about we talk about the concept of we celebrate the mess meaning that if we're going to be real Church family in real life we're going to have real conflict because all of you are real sinners that's actually that's a that's a Mill City Church of kc guaranty we don't guarantee a lot but we guarantee.
If if you're new and you're just hanging out and you're just joining a group i want to i want to make a promise to you if you stay long enough we will sin against you will hurt your feelings we'll do something we ought not to have done and guess what if you stay long enough you'll join us and participate you'll hurt our feelings you'll do things you ought not to have done that's the reality of walking in relationships and that's why we tell our group leaders we celebrate the mess which is that your group is going to have some mess.
If every time your group gets together and we say how are we doing everybody goes fine fine fine fine fine fine okay sometimes that's true you run that out for six months we've got a group full of liars who need to repent they're sinning address it but that's the reality is that we're going to have some mess and this is beautiful when you're the sinner that's exactly the answer we want 77 times uncountable don't keep a record this is actually what.
First corinthians 13 in the the chapter on where he talks about love and what love is and where married couples tried to steal it and they're like no you're not allowed to talk about it unless it's at a wedding because that only applies to us which is silly it was said to the Church it's how love is supposed to work in the Church it says that love keeps no record of wrong it's not resentful that it has no record and that's what he's saying that you would not keep a record of wrongs that.
When you forgive somebody they restart you reset it with them that's the point see Peter's saying okay but that's one that's a tally mark right so they've sinned and i'll forgive them but i'm putting a tally mark and Jesus says no there are no tally marks you forgive them we're reset we're at zero and the reality is when you're the sinner that's beautiful but when you're sinned against that's hard this is a good time for us to have a beautiful double standard where you forgive me unlimitedly and i get to keep count that's how most of us want this to work.
But that's so think about it somebody in your group lies about you they say you said something you didn't say causes some trouble you find out about it you finally trace it back to why are they acting like this and you finally they told me you said this i didn't say that you go to them and you say i didn't say that and they go yeah you're right you didn't i was stirring stuff up i've done this since high school and i'm sorry i'm trying to change please forgive me.
Because they actually repent that's that's how this works they don't just say no no these are people who actually repent like i'm sorry i shouldn't have done that you forgive them and then six months later they do it again so you walk through the process again you find out we did this you forgive them eight months later they do it again now most of us are saying we're not friends anymore this isn't how this like i'm not i can't i'm a fool to stay in this relationship.
Jesus would say no you're one of my people to stay in this relationship if they're genuinely repenting and for most of us we'd say well they're not really repenting because they keep doing it but is that how we treat it when we sin because i can tell you right now i've been married for 10 years and i'm on i'm past 77 on some things and my wife will say we've talked about this and i'll be like you're right and i am genuinely sorry again.
Because you're right that's a really good point i shouldn't do that and i might do it again but i'm genuinely sorry and i don't want to and i'm actively trying to repent but we do that again and when it happens to us when we're the sinner it's like no that makes sense that i'm genuinely sorry and then yes i keep i keep doing that but when somebody else does it would go they're not actually repenting and so for some of us we are holding on to unforgiveness this is too painful.
Look at the damage they've caused well i'll forgive them but i'm not going to forget i'll forgive them but they're not going to make a fool out of me i just don't think i can open myself back up to them i just don't think this can be the way it was i don't think you know i'll still i'll stay in the group but i'm just not going to talk anymore some of us have this with people in our community group some of us have it with some of our Church family members some of us have it with old Church family members from another Church another pastor somebody that we have this that we've held on.
To some of us this is people from high school this is people we grew up with some of us this is a spouse this is a parent this is our children we've got something we're holding on to and we have kept a record now Jesus if we actually did this this would be beautiful but we don't want to this is hard for us and so Jesus tells a story to help cement this idea and to help us understand why this is how this has to work not ought to work has to work this way.
For those who belong to him for those who are in the kingdom so this is what he says verse 23 therefore the kingdom of heaven so this is his kingdom as it advances and what it ought to look like and how this plays out therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants so he's going to pay some back he's going to get back what he's owed when he began to settle one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.
Okay so that's lost on us a talent so a dinari was a one day's wage you worked you got a dinari that was a day labor wage so that'd be minimum wage to 15 an hour kind of like a your day's worth of work depending on the job you had is about a dinari a talent would have been 20 years of day labor so 10 000 talents so 20 years a day labor is 300 to 600 000 10 000 talents is 3 billion to 6 billion dollars it's a silly amount it's insane that this person would owe six billion dollars.
If i'm doing pre-marital counseling and i'm like all right now let's talk about debt how are y'all in credit card debt and the husband's like yeah you know as we're getting married i am bringing in some debt i got some credit card debt okay how much credit card debt do you have 1.2 million dollars in credit card debt i know y'all are in love i look at the girl and i'll be like i'd probably just walk out on this one that's kind of this this number is insane.
If you went back in time one million seconds you would go back all the way to september 22nd of this year if you go back in time one billion seconds you go back to october 4th 1989. that's the difference between a million and a billion this is a silly number when he says ten thousand talents they're like us i don't know what a billion dollars is can't even picture it even that going back to 1989 thing only kind of helped ten thousand talents it's a silly number it's ridiculous this guy owes ten thousand dollars.
Now listen some people get into business they take out a loan and some bad things happen and it doesn't turn out the way they want to this is like wicked gross negligence to be three billion dollars in debt this is insane how much debt this man has accrued and he he's over and abundantly rudely sinfully imposed upon this king he is in debt 25 and since he could not pay right makes sense i'm gonna write you a check don't cash her till monday no he couldn't do that 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 he says that's it i'm collecting everything you own your house every piece of property all of it we're selling it and you're getting sold and your wife's getting sold and your children are getting sold and i'm going to get some of my money back i'm going to recoup some of it not all of it he would not have had that much money to recoup even after he sold everything but the point is i'm going to take it out of your skin it's coming out of you you owe me.
So the king orders that he be sold and that some amount of debt be repaid verse 26 so the servant fell on his knees imploring him have patience with me and i will pay you everything the concept of someone falling on their knees i don't think you've ever seen this have you maybe seen children do it it looks silly if you see it happen in real life if you were at the bank and somebody was on their knees in front of people at the bank holding on to their shirt saying please please don't don't do it you would realize that they had reached a point that they were just broken he falls on his knees.
And he says have mercy be patient i'll pay you back which is a lie he's not going to pay him back he can't pay him back he's saying he'll try out of pity for him verse 27 the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt he doesn't release him and put him on a payment plan he doesn't say okay well you're working for me for free from now on he doesn't he says you're forgiven he says to his guards can't go the guy his scribes go cancel that wipe it clean he's forgiven have you ever almost gotten a speeding ticket you knew you deserved it this is like that.
But six billion times better this moment of freedom of joy of delight that's not hanging over his head anymore he walks out he didn't have to pay back with what he had he has what he has and he owns it now he's not in debt anymore verse 28 but when that same servant went out he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii three months a couple thousand dollars a decent amount but not nearly compared to what he had he owed him 100 denarii.
And so you would think how would he respond first of all he's skipping down the road whistling he sees this guy and you think he'd be like tony because that's a palestinian first gen first century name they used tony you don't owe me anything because he would pass it on right he knows what it feels like seizing him he began to choke him saying pay what you owe what see he walks out some owes him three months worth of work and he sees him and he thinks.
Finally i caught this rat and he grabs him and starts choking him choking him saying pay what you owe the guy gasped out so his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him have patience with me and i will pay you that's exactly what he just said so now he's going to have that moment where he has a flashback his heart changes 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.
So the king forgives this one servant this one this other servant has peers they're on his level he went on level with the king but he's got peers and so he forgives he's forgiven by the king and then he attacks another servant and then the other servants see it and they go tell the king they wouldn't told him all that had taken place verse 32 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 his anger his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt so the king says it's ridiculous you owe me and he takes it right back out of his skin he says no this this this isn't how this is going to work and he throws him in jail and this story this man's forgiven this and it reminds me of the um the movie it's a wonderful life it's a christmas movie it's on every christmas season there's this guy named george and he's just a solid guy he he.
Had had hopes and dreams but he kept just kind of dealing with duty every time duty came up he just handled things that needed to be taken care of and so he's very sacrificial throughout this whole story and he's serving others and he works really hard to serve others and he in the in the story though his uncle is really forgetful they run a bill a business and his uncle loses eight thousand dollars which at that time was a significant amount of money and it's gonna come out of george the main character and it's gonna seem like he embezzled that he stole it and everything's gonna fall apart he's gonna go to jail everything's gonna.
Get foreclosed on he decides that he's worth more dead than alive because he has a fifteen thousand dollar life insurance policy so he goes he's planning on committing suicide the whole story is him realizing that he shouldn't he decides not to he's running back to his home he's just going to face what's coming to him he's going to go to jail but he thinks that's better than suicide and while he was out everybody was worried about him his wife was worried about him his wife runs around town and just goes and tells everybody george is in trouble we need to get money together.
So he shows up last season in the movie he's at his house people just start pouring in and they just start piling money on the table they said we heard you were in trouble we don't know how you got in this debt but we're going to pay it back i mean it's beautiful he walks out on his porch he's just blown away and he sees the sky that we had seen earlier in the movie that he had helped out a couple of times and he says fred and he says fred everybody in the neighborhood came in and helped give money back to me and you owe me 20 you owe it to me they were.
Given out of the generosity of their own heart you owe it to me he jumps off the porch and he attacks him he just starts punching him in the face and it fades to black and hark the herald angels sing plays and it's beautiful and it ends exactly the way you want it to end and that's why it's a christmas classic that doesn't happen at all because you along with him you feel in your heart this beautiful moment while you're watching this of forgiveness and redemption this moment where everything's working back out.
For this guy when he didn't have to and that's what should have happened in this story but this man walked out forgiven and it was completely lost on him it was as if he deserved it i don't know it was as if that's how the king ought to have acted i don't know what's going on his heart but we know that as soon as he saw someone else who needed forgiveness from him he wouldn't give it and Jesus says this as he finishes the story.
Verse 35 so also my heavenly father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart the reason we address sin is that we believe it's destructive and we long for forgiveness and reconciliation we we address sin so that we might forgive and so that we might restore we don't address sin to catch somebody or to harm somebody or to call to collect on their debt we address sin so that we might wipe debt clean this story.
Jesus says that's how it will work if you're forgiven by the father but then you fail to forgive he will call you to pay your debt colossians 3 puts the same idea this way it says colossians 3 13 will be on the screen bearing with one another which i just love that's a command to the Church you ever feel like that's all you do with these people good you're being biblical you're living out what it's like you're bearing with one another.
And if one has a complaint against another forgiving each other as the lord has forgiven you so you also must forgive if you're a believer if you're a Christian you've placed your faith in Jesus you have received lavish unlimited forgiveness far beyond anybody owes you and so we give lavish unlimited forgiveness we are a forgiving people because we are a forgiven people and when we fail to forgive and when we're unwilling to forgive what we are announcing is that we don't actually believe the Gospel that man must not have understood what had just happened that's that's the only way you can read that story and go he just didn't grasp how much his debt had.
Been paid and so when we are unwilling to forgive we actually are holding out that we don't believe in forgiveness we don't believe the Gospel we don't want it we don't understand it i love that it uses the concept of debt because that's actually how sin works it creates real debt if i borrowed five hundred dollars from you and then never brought it up again you would feel that when we were around each other and you would be like i know he remembers he's got to.
Remember right he feels that we're around each other too is he not if you brought it up and i was like oh yes i do think he kind of you know and then you would feel like the reality of sin is that it creates debt when the king says his debt is forgiven we might be confused and say well nobody paid the debt but that's not true who paid the debt the king in this story the king paid the debt when he says the debt's forgiven it came out of him he said instead of me taking it out of you instead of me making you pay what you owe i'm going to take it out.
Of me and that's why we use that language when someone sins against us we say i'm going to make them pay i'm going to take it back out of them and that's an option we only have a few options when somebody sins against us uh tim keller puts it this way he says it's like if i came to your house and i broke a lamp i break your lamp and you say don't worry about it well you have a couple options you can say don't worry about it you can say you owe me a lamp you can take it back out of me right you can say don't worry about it.
But if you say don't worry about it you are willing to go without the lamp that you had so you you pay in lack of light and in the money you spent that is now broken or you can go buy yourself a new lamp but either way you're incurring the cost of forgiving me that's why we don't want to forgive because we have to incur the cost that's why we say things like i don't know just i'm having such a hard time forgiving it hurts yeah it hurts to forgive our model.
For forgiveness is not God magically waving his hands our model forgiveness for forgiveness is the son of God brutally beaten and nailed to a cross forgiveness is costly that's the reality we see in colossians 2 13 it says you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh God made alive together with him having forgiven us all our trespasses by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands just leave that slide up there we're going to be here.
For a minute do you realize that when you sin you accrue debt actual debt if you sin against somebody you are taking out of them you are harming them when we sin anywhere against anybody we sin against God and we accrue debt i've heard that they're gonna start having stores where you basically just walk around and you just put the items in your cart and while you put the items in your cart digital technological science adds it up and then you just walk out the door and it charges you.
Now i don't know how all that would work magic is a good guess but i've heard that this is what we're going to do that's a good picture of actually what we've done our whole lives every time we've taken something that wasn't ours every time we've lied about somebody every time we've almost kind of told the truth to manipulate a situation to make ourselves look better to control how about somebody responded to us every time we've been jealous and resentful every time we've sat around and pouted.
Because we didn't get our way every time we've been envious or lustful every time we've willfully participated in sexual sin and debauchery every time we've participated in gluttonous and drunkenness every time we've walked around in this world destroying God's good design and sowing unrighteousness we are accruing debt and the reality is if you're honest with yourself and you think back over the course of your life six billion dollars sounds about right it doesn't seem like a ludicrous number anymore it's like.
If you were charging me for every time i've willfully and sinfully harmed those i love you honestly if you think about the people you love the most and how much you've sinned against them that's the best you can do i desperately love you and i am inflicting severe harm on you that's the best version of us a cruise debt that'd be like if you were the best version of your business dealings would only be bankrupt by four million dollars we have debt by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands this he set aside nailing it to the cross what was nailed to the cross.
Jesus that's why first corinthians said he who knew no sin became sin second corinthians became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God and our sin debt was placed on Jesus and nailed to the cross and if you believe in Jesus you are forgiven it's wiped clean it's gone he's canceled the record of your debt you're free if you have not placed your faith in Jesus you have debt but he's willing to pay it you can repent of your sin you can come to him you can plead.
For mercy and he'll give it he won't tell you here's how to pay restitution here's how to earn it back he'll wipe it clean that's the beauty of the Gospel and that is why Christians must forgive because we're a people who have been forgiven if anyone was to understand what debt felt like and what forgiveness felt like it should have been the man in this story and if anybody is to understand what debt feels like and what forgiveness feels like it should be Christians you are not a Christian.
Because you are one of the good ones you are not a Christian because you have earned it you are not a Christian because the record of your life is in the positive we are Christians because we had a negative balance that had to be paid with the costly blood of Christ it had to come out of somebody's skin and we stood in line and said not ours please let it be Jesus by the grace of God let it come out of his skin and he was willing to do it that we might have forgiveness and how dare we how dare we say thank you.
Jesus for forgiveness and then look at someone else and say do you know how important i am i can't live with what you've done to me no we're forgiving people because we're a forgiven people and some of you right now need to forgive you have received lavish grace and you are holding debt against somebody and you need to cancel it and you need to take it to Jesus and say you who could forgive six billion dollars i need you to teach me how to how to forgive fifteen hundred i need you to teach me i need you to change my heart i need you to melt me.
So that i might not hold on to this any longer and act as if i don't know you and do you know how beautiful this is that Christians genuinely from their heart can leave this room pick up the phone call their father who they haven't talked to in years and say i forgive you the Christians can leave this room and and work it out in front of their bibles with someone you don't even know how to find or talk to and say.
Lord i forgive them i let it go you know how beautiful it is that we get to walk in family with people who don't keep a record of debt because that's the only type of people you can consistently walk in a relationship with that we would be people who forgive because we're people who have been forgiven don't miss out on that if you need forgiveness come get it and if you owe forgiveness go give it let's pray God we thank you that you forgive sinners that you took it out of your own skin that by your wounds we are healed that you have canceled the record of our debt and may we forgive.
Because we have to if we can't forgive we don't believe the Gospel so lord may we believe the Gospel and may we be a gracious kind forgiving people that put you on display in a way that the world cannot match that we address sin and forgive the world is only able to do one or the other of those they can address sin but not forgive or they can just say let's not worry about it but we get to do both in a way that beautifully displays the cross where you called us out.
For our sin and forgave us and may you work in our hearts today by the power of your spirit to receive forgiveness and to give forgiveness in Jesus name amen.