Who’s Counting?
Matthew 18:21-35
November 17, 2019 anno Dominni – Redeemer
Accountants have a tough time with the Kingdom of heaven. So do people who balance their checkbook to the penny. The Kingdom of heaven is hard to comprehend because we are counters at heart just like Peter.
Then Peter came up and said to (Jesus), “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Peter is counting. He is counting what he must do for his brother. Whenever we count we always count in our favor. In your last argument– in your kitchen, at your work, with your sister, who was in the right? Whose arguments counted the most? Yours did, because you always count in your favor. Peter does not ask “How many times must my brother forgiven me when I sin against him?” He asks, “How many times must I forgive my brother?”
Peter counts to seven. Seven is a godly number. God created the world in seven days. Revelation is filled with sevens – seven churches, seven lampstands, seven angels. Why at our Foundation Fundraiser we have even renamed a card game Seven Heaven. Although that involves a lot of counting, so forget I mentioned it. Seven is God’s number of completion and perfection from the beginning to the end of Scripture
Seven is a lot of forgiving. Would you forgive your child for not picking up his room after you told him seven times? Would you forgive your husband for looking at another woman seven times on a dinner date? Would you forgive a friend or co-worker who lied about you seven times?
Seven is practical. You could remember seven – once a day for a week. If you forgave someone seven times and they still sinned against you wouldn’t it be reasonable to stop forgiving them? Seven is a good number.
But here’s the problem – you’re all accountants. You want to bring balance and fairness to forgiveness. Plus, you’re thinking of what it might cost you instead of what you have received.
So Jesus says to Peter, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.” Jesus still gives a number, but it is an outrageous number. Why didn’t Jesus just say, “Forgive a gazillion times?” He wanted to teach Peter and you a lesson. So he takes Peter’s number and adds 70 to it. It’s also possible that it should be translated 70 times 7. Either way the point is obvious. If you want to count forgiveness the Kingdom of heaven is not for you.
Peter’s problem (and it is yours as well) is self-justification or being self-righteous. Peter thought that if he forgave his brother seven times he would be doing right in the eyes of God and should get credit for it. He was trying to balance the books in his favor by his own works. We are all self-justifiers before each other and before God. How did you justify yourself the last time you got a ticket? In the last argument you had with your wife? The last time you skipped the Divine Service to serve yourself? You expected God to accept your bookkeeping just as Peter expected Jesus to say, “Wow Peter! Seven times is a lot of forgiveness. Good job.”
The Kingdom of heaven may be compared to a King who wished to settle accounts. The King’s auditor found someone in the Kingdom who was wasting the King’s money. It’s about as hard to believe there is waste in government as it is to believe we have wasted our Lord’s gifts. The auditor was excited. “This fellow owes us 10,000 talents.” A talent is 20 years wages. If you work 250 days a year your debt would be 20 x 250 x 10,000 = 5 million day’s wages. By the way I needed a calculator to figure out all those zeros.
The King displays His righteous anger over this servant who has been disobedient, unfaithful, and lazy. He had been negligent and wasteful. Sell him, sell him as a slave, sell his wife and his children, make them all pay for this man’s debt.
That’s what we deserve isn’t it? We have sinned against the holy and righteous God. Not once, not twice, not seven times, but we are sinful by nature. Husbands neglect their wives. Students disobey their teachers. Parents provoke their children and children their parents. Have you said, “O my god” more than seven times a day? Have you skipped more than seven Sundays in the Lord’s house this year? Have you complained seven times about what God has given you? Could you atone for your sin? With your best effort, starting now, could you make things right between you and God?
That is what the servant tried to do. He fell before his Master and pleaded, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.” His Master should have become more angry. This man was proposing to pay off a mansion on the river in Sartell, working two hours a week at McDonalds. Yet there is no anger, no revenge, for you see the Kingdom of heaven is not the Kingdom of man. Man counts and calculates. He seeks revenge and recompense – God forgives. Out of pity (mercy, compassion) the Master… released him and forgave him the debt.
That is the Kingdom of Heaven. That is the God of Holy Scripture. That is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Jesus of Nazareth is God the Father’s Word of justification, His declaration that all is right between you and Him. “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.” (2 Cor 5:19) “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” (2 Cor 8:9). The Son of God became a man to take credit for your sin. He claimed every one of your sins as belonging to Him. Transfer all of that to my account. The debt of your sin was heaped upon Him at the cross so the Father’s anger burned against Him instead of you. As the King cancels the servant’s debt out of his own pocket, so God the Father has cancelled the debt of your sin with His own Son. You are forgiven. 5 million days wages, all your sins, forgiveness greater than you can count. Christ’s His debt destroying death, and His righteous resurrection are credited to you in baptism, by faith.
The problem with forgiveness is you can’t feel it. Just like you don’t feel guilty for a lot of your sins because no one knows about them. Your conscience might accuse you, but it’s not like you’re arrested for your sins, or have them read aloud in church. If the Credit Union called you up and said, “We’re forgiving your loans,” you’d feel that. Or if you were on death row and the Warden said, “The Governor pardoned you.” You’d not only feel joy but you would experience freedom firsthand.
That’s what makes the end of the story so wrong. The servant who had been forgiven five million days wages is celebrating his freedom at the Boulder Tap house when he sees his old buddy Fred down the bar. Fred owes him 100 days wages. 1/500th of a percent of what he has been forgiven. You’d expect him to forgive, but he doesn’t. Why not? Because he did not believe in his forgiveness. He enjoyed it. He celebrated it, but he did not believe it. The King’s mercy made no difference in his heart, so he was locked up forever.
The Kingdom of Heaven is forgiveness from the Father through His Son by the Spirit. Everything else is a blessing, but this is the one thing needful. God has not treated you as you deserved. He offered His Son to declare you righteous, to forgive you. His gift is your freedom from the debt of sin, death, the devil and hell. Believe that and you will forgive your brother seventy-seven times, at least, in the name of Jesus. Amen.