What's The Point Of Forgiveness~ Denisha Workizer Ep. 36

Have you ever missed the point? In this episode, we are going to look at a parable Jesus shared that could leave us wondering... what’s the point?  

I believe we need to understand the point of this parable now, more than ever. What’s the point of forgiveness? In this episode, let’s unpack this parable from Matthew 18. May we each come to realize that if we have been given forgiveness, then we have forgiveness to give. 

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Transcript

What's the point?

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

forgive, parable, forgiveness, jesus, began, reclaimed, debt, komodo dragon, story, pay, servant, owed, outlandish, matthew, freedom, master, day, venom, choice, life

SPEAKERS

Denisha Workizer

Denisha Workizer  00:00

Welcome to living the reclaim life podcast. I'm Denisha, we're glad you're here for conversations that revive hope, inspire healing and encourage you to live a vibrant life with Christ. So grab a cup of coffee as we chat with today's guest.  Have you ever listened to a story? And then three minutes in and you just don't get why they're telling it? Has someone ever told you a joke? And you were the only one not laughing? I know I've been there. Have you ever missed the point? Today we are going to look at a parable that Jesus told us that could leave us wondering, what's the point? You are about to hear a sermon that I gave a few years ago and I believe it is quite relevant today. As a matter of fact, I can't shake the fact that I think we need it now more than ever. What's the point of forgiveness? In this episode, let's unpack a parable from Matthew 18. And I pray we don't miss the point. May we each come to realize that if we have been given forgiveness then we have forgiveness to give, we're taking a look at the parables that Jesus taught. And a parable. It's a story told by Jesus with a specific purpose and a specific point. And the one thing, there's always something in there that we can apply to our lives. And the one thing that we don't want to do is miss the point. So last week, Glenn gave us three questions that he kind of walked through in his parable and answered as he went along. And we're going to do the same this morning. So the first question is, what is the context? And the second question is what question is being asked? And the third is, what is the outlandish thing in the story? Because in parables, there's something there's a plot twist at some point, there's some point that makes you think this was going this way. And suddenly, it turned out that was unexpected. And so we're going to look at those three questions today as we look at the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18. And this is a time that Jesus taught about forgiveness. And my hope for today is that we can each come to realize that if we've been given forgiveness, then we have forgiveness to give and a funny story for my family. So we have an almost 13 year old. So we have a 12 year old, a 10 year old and a four year old right now for another month. And then those numbers change. But so one day, my oldest, my oldest son, he loves Legos, you guys all familiar with Legos, those like building blocks, right. And you can make everything from like a little farm set to like a huge, like Millennium Falcon, okay. And so my son loves these. And he will spend hours sitting and assembling these using an instruction manual that I really think was supposed to be for an engineer. And he will put these together, and then he'll carefully take that, that piece of art that it is now and he will put it up on his shelf in his room to be displayed very proudly. And so one day, our littlest one, Matthew, He caught Tyler in the living room playing with one of his toys. And it was ugly. Matthew was not happy about this, that Tyler had one of his toys. And so our three year old at the time, began to do the ugly cry on his brother. We're like tears shoot out sideways, that they're so upset that they've just this injustice of somebody else playing with one of their toys. And so they're having this this, you know, little fight here over this toy and we sit him sit him down, and Tyler says, Oh, I'm sorry, buddy. And Matthew says, it's okay. And so we think, all right, well, and his little three year old mine, like we're pretty sure he's got it. Okay. He's accepted the apology, and we can move on with our day, till about an hour later. And we hear all this commotion going on in Tyler's room, and we're like, what is going on in there? So we walk in and we realize that Matthew has gotten up on his tippy toes. He has reached as far as he can into his brother's shelves of these prized pieces of art that he has designed, and he's wrapped his arms around them, brought them down and begin disassembling them on his floor. Because retaliation seemed like a really awesome idea at the time. And so we realized in that moment that Matthew had missed the point of forgiveness, that he did not let it go right, he was out to retaliate against his older brother. And, you know, although this is a story of two siblings, which we somewhat expect to quarrel with each other from time to time, that's like a rite of passage. I think from the youngest to the oldest device, that we know what that feels like to because many of us have been through something similar. Maybe. Maybe someone owes us money. And that makes us angry. Maybe somebody that we love and care about has said some things about us that have led to us feeling betrayed or maybe it's a parent or a child that's done something that's caused you hurt. And we can tell ourselves, I'm good. It's okay. But sometimes if we're honest, we aren't okay. So let's take a look together this morning at one of the times that Jesus talks about forgiveness. And what we're going to see is that the parable that we're looking at today, it begins with Peter asking Jesus a question. And he asked Jesus, How many times should I forgive someone. And Jesus responds back with a story and to summarize that, he tells a story of a master and a servant, and the servant owed the master a lot of money. And the servant began to beg him for mercy, you know, please, and so the servant or the master comes back, and he says, All right, I'll forgive you. Well, we'll wash this clean, I forgive you. The servant goes out on the street and bumps into a guy who owes him a little bit of money. And you would think he would give what he had been given. But he didn't, he didn't. And we're gonna we're gonna explore that a little bit more here this morning. Why don't you go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Matthew 18. And as you turn there, let's answer our first question. What is the context? In other words, what was going on at this time in history? And here's a little fun fact. You know, we're led to believe that Jesus told this parable in a 10 day period between the Jewish New Year and the Day of Atonement. And those days were designed for seeking forgiveness between individuals. And so the time it was focused on the necessity to forgive one another, so that they could approach God without having bitterness in their hearts. And so when you look at that, you think, okay, so vertical forgiveness at this time period depended on horizontal forgiveness. And so you could say, at this time in history that like forgiveness was in the air, okay? Now, we can't just soundbite this one parable, we can't take this one parable and just look at that outside of what's going on around it. So if we go back into verse 10, which is two stories prior to the parable we're looking at today, we will see that Jesus taught on the lost sheep. And that's the story where there's 100 sheep and one wanders away, and the shepherd leaves the 99, to go after the 1. And that demonstrates the value of human life to God. And then after that, Jesus teaches about the process, what do you do when your brother offends you or wrong? And see, what do you do with that? So Jesus then goes from the lost sheep into that, which leads us into the parable that we're looking at today. So there's a flowing connection that Jesus is talking about forgiveness and relationships. So let's dig into the parable that I described earlier. It's Matthew chapter 18. And we're going to start in verse 21. Then Peter came up to him and said, Lord, how often will my brother sinned against me, and I forgive him as many as seven times. Now let's look at that for a second. So the answer to our second question What question is being asked is Peters it's how many times do I forgive someone who has wronged me? Peters basically asking when is enough? When can I be done with them? Now Peter mentioned seven times and there's significance in that because at this time, the rabbis were teaching people that you forgive three times. And so Peters thinking I'm gonna up this is I talked to Jesus about forgiveness, I'm gonna up this, and I'm going to say like, you know, seven, like more than double seven, was considered to be the perfect number. And I think Peter represents what could be all of us at times. So he wants a rule to follow. This person was me and I want to know when is it okay that I cut them off? He wanted to rule over loving the person and see if you have to ask, How many times should I forgive, then you might miss the point of forgiveness. Peter's missing the point and Jesus wants him to understand that and Peter's trying to get bonus points, but Jesus is about to raise the bar. Let's look at what Jesus says in verse 22. Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but 77 times, oh, rabbis are teaching three times Jesus just said 77 times. Now, raise your hand if your Bible says 77 times. Okay? Now raise your hand if your Bible says 70 times seven. Okay, now here's the neat thing about that. It could be either one Greek translators agree that it could be either one, but that is not a literal number that it is an unimaginable number. That it symbolizes unlimited forgiveness is what Jesus is trying to say. And, you know, poor Peter, he's trying to give the perfect answer with the perfect number seven. And I would have loved to have seen Peters face. As Jesus opens up, this tells the rest of this parent or begins this parable here. Let's look at verse 23. So we're in Matthew 18, verse 23, therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wish to settle his accounts with his servants. When he began to settle one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents. And since he could not pay his master ordered him to be sold, his wife, his children, and all that he had and payment to be made. How much is 10,000 talents? 10,000 talents was the equivalent of 150,000 years of earnings. That is a lot of money, right? And so what's being said, to put this into perspective, the total tax bill for the region of Palestine, to the Romans was less than 1000 talents per year. And for that amount of money, they had infrastructure, they had protection, they had roads for that. So what Jesus is trying to say when he chose 10,000 talents in this parable is he's trying to drive home the enormity of this man's debt. And in Bible times, there were serious consequences for not being able to pay your debt. And you would be thrown into prison for life, you would be sold into slavery to make back that money. And so could your family, your wife, your children, could be put into slavery in order to pay back that money. So there was a serious consequence here. Now, let's read on in verse 26. So the servant fell on his knees imploring Him, have patience with me, and I will pay you everything. And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave the debt. Just like that he was wiped clean, he had been completely forgiven. One minute, he's heading to jail, and his family is about to be sold into slavery, and the next minute he is completely free. His hopeless circumstance could only have been fixed by the grace of his master. Can you imagine how he felt at the end of the day? That was a great day, right? He had total freedom from debt, not going to jail, walked out completely free. Instead of being a slave who had no value until they had earned their value back. He got to walk away a free man. Imagine being in the audience at that time, you're probably thinking, wow, that masters great. Like, I wish my master would do that, like forgive all debts. But now get ready because here comes our outlandish thing. This guy's totally free from debt and leaves to go home and let's see what happens next in verse 28. But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him 100 denari and seizing him, he began to choke him saying, pay what you owe. So this fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, Have patience with me and I will pay you he refused and went and put him in prison until he could pay the debt. Now, the Justice inside of us has to kind of rise up at this moment right and go what we were just celebrating your victory. We were just so happy you got released. Why would you not forgive him? Now let's put that that 100 denari into perspective to the 10,000 talents. 100 denari was four months wages were 10,000 talents was 150,000 years of wages. So that's pretty serious, like he was forgiven of a lot, and yet he did not give what he got. Instead, he had him held him accountable for the very thing that he had been forgiven of. Now let's finish the parable in verse 31. When his fellow servant saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed. And then they reported to their master all that had taken place. Then the master summoned him and said to him, You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should you not 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 could pay off the debt. So also, my Heavenly Father will do to each one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. So the fellow servants went to the master, can you imagine them in the crowd? They're thinking like, we wanted you to get this right. The crowd is watching and they saw the reality they saw that injustice as we saw when we read it, but the man the servant, who would not forgive, what he saw was the amount of money that was owed to him, he saw that he had been a victim. And so our third question this morning, what is the outlandish thing that has happened? It's outlandish that someone would be forgiven of 10,000 talents, and would not return the favor by forgiving someone of 100 denari. It's also outlandish that the guy who had been given us so much just turned around and began to choke and flog this guy, and send him to prison for this. So where does our context, our context is that this was a season of forgiveness. The question being asked, How many times should I forgive? And the outlandish thing that happened in the story, our plot twist? Where does it all drive us to? What was the point that Jesus was making? Jesus was telling us that if you have been given forgiveness, then you have forgiveness to give. And that sounds easy, right? I mean, okay, it's like, if I've been given money than I have money to give, I get it, okay. But when we take a moment, and we think about someone that we could forgive, it's hard. And it's complicated. And I can imagine that most of us have that situation, or that person in our lives. And I'm going to share with you one of mine, about 13 years ago, I had left my corporate job in jewelry to pursue starting my own business with one of my friends. And my husband, I just had our first baby. And so things were tight, finances were really tight. And when you start your own business, you know, we didn't have an investor or a huge pile of cash sitting around. So we started that business with our own money. And what we did was people would order jewelry from us, and then we would get payment, it was very important to get payment before you know, we sent the jewelry so that we could pay our suppliers, because otherwise that was our personal responsibility. And so one day, I get a phone call from a friend of mine, and I'd worked with him for about 10 years. And so I get this phone call. And he says, Hey, I'm going to order some jewelry from you. And I thought great. Over the course of about three to four months, this friend, he ended up buying about $20,000 worth of jewelry from us. And then one day on a Wednesday, he calls me and he says, Hey, denisha Listen, I need to diamond by Friday, and you don't have to do anything. There's no customizing. I just need the loose stone. Would you drop ship it to me, he was out of state, and then I'll send you a check. So I thought for a second and 10 years of friendship of history passed before me and I thought, Oh, okay. And then I, you know, he just did all this business with us in a really short amount of time. So okay. All right. So I went ahead on Wednesday and dropship, the diamond and he got it on Friday. And this was a $5,000 diamond. So Friday came and he got the diamond and Monday came in. I didn't get a check. Tuesday, Wednesday, a week goes by, and I had not gotten a check. So of course this whole time I'm making excuses for him, right? I'm starting to say things like, Well, you know, he's probably busy, he probably just forgot, oh, I'm sure he'll return my call soon. But every excuse I made was invalid. So I had to come to this realization that my friend whom I had known for 10 years had stolen from me. And then I realized it didn't just stop with me, because the woman he had had some dealings with as well. He had conned her out of her home and her entire life savings. And she wasn't the only one either. All of this added up to the tune of a million dollars for this guy. And I found it a little ironic that when I looked up the story online and and it said that when he was in court, he said, I will pay everything I owe. Does that sound familiar? Oh, wow, that's the parable right there. And so I realized that I wasn't going to get a dime from him and that he was in a lot of trouble. And I was left with the consequence of trusting him and him stealing from me. So as a business owner, the only option I had was to take my personal credit card and pay our vendor $5,000, so I was weighed down. In that moment, I was weighed down with feelings of betrayal and anger and shock and I want to justice The last thing that I wanted to do, to be honest, was to forgive him. So why forgive? See when we're wrong, it's hard. It's really hard. But if we don't choose to forgive, it hurts us. When we hold on to the anger and the bitterness and the judgment, it is hurting us not then. When a wound is created it festers, and it can occupy our thoughts. It can affect our actions, it can determine our future responses to people in situations and ultimately, we're the ones who pay the price. In this moment, I have a great illustration an a picture from nature, of how these wounds fester inside of us, and it's the relationship between a water buffalo and a Komodo dragon. And it's not a happy relationship. See this Komodo dragon this giant lizard really just wants to eat this this water buffalo but the water buffalo is 1200 pounds. And the lizard is the Komodo dragon is 200 pounds. But here's how it works. So the Komodo dragon bites the water buffalo in the leg. And the to the water buffalo the dragons like annoying, right? It's annoying. it's it's a it's something that things you know, ouch. And it kind of, you know, kicks it off and goes on about its way. But what it doesn't know, is it that Komodo Dragon has unleashed a venom that is slowly going into its bloodstream and will kill the water buffalo. So the Komodo dragon begins to follow it. Knowing eventually what will happen. And it can be like up to a week even. And so think about how that water buffalo feels during that week, it gets a wound, okay? On Monday, say in Tuesday, it's like, a little slower than I was yesterday. By Wednesday, I'm not feeling so hot. By Thursday. Wow, I'm, I'm kind of out of it. And they might look behind them and think, hey, why is that guy following me. By Friday, he's dead by Friday, like he's gone. And the Komodo dragon and all of his friends are having a feast. And I think that's a great example of the effects of wounds in our lives. You know, how many of you have had bitterness, or anger fester inside of you. You know, we have a choice, we have a choice to forgive, which is like the antidote for the venom. Or we can hold on to it. And we can carry that venom around with us and let it course through us. So what weighs you down? Perhaps as we're talking this morning about forgiveness, maybe a face came to mind, maybe a memory of a time when something was done that that wrong, do a memory that was stirred. Maybe it was the person who cut you off on the way to church this morning. Maybe it was someone who critiques your parenting choices. Or maybe it's deeper, maybe it's something that you've been holding on to for a long time. What I want us to understand is that forgiving someone is an act of faith that brings us freedom and restores the value to that person. So how do we get that? How do we get that freedom? I want to spend the rest of our time this morning talking about three steps to forgiveness. And the first step is to give what we've been given. Ephesians tells us be kind to one another tender hearted forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. And see forgiveness. It's not based on a rule. You know, Peter asked how many times when is enough enough? When can I cut these people off? It's not based on a rule forgiveness is a response to God's love. See, Peter had unlimited he had been given unlimited forgiveness. Therefore he could give forgiveness unlimited. But see, God never asks us to do something that he won't empower us to do. His grace and His love is what allows us to forgive others. We can give what we've been given. Step two is to make a choice. Forgiveness is a choice and friends that is something that we sometimes have to do over and over and over again. Sometimes even for the same wrong that's been done. But I want to encourage you to give yourself the grace to do that. And know that making the choice to forgive does not mean that you are saying what they did was okay. And nor is it giving them permission to hurt you again. That's not forgiveness. by forgiving you are choosing to cancel the debt and you were making the choice to not get even. And as you make that choice, it will begin to change you The anger the bitterness will no longer control you. For God has forgiven us and we can make a choice to forgive others. So our first step to forgiveness is to give what we've been given. The second step is to make a choice and the third step. The third step is to allow for the process. I want to give you an example of someone who made a choice. Leonardo da Vinci. He is one of the outstanding intellects of our history. And he was a great draftsman, engineer, thinker artist. And there are several stories surrounding the painting of the Last Supper. And I want to share one of them with you today. Just before Leonardo began working on that painting, he had a quarrel with a fellow painter. And he was mad, it was described as a violent quarrel. And Leonardo was so enraged and bitter that he decided to paint the face of this fellow painter whom he had fought with, onto the face of Judas. Now, if your face is going to go down in history, that is probably the last person that you want it going down in history on right, Judas was the guy that betrayed Christ. So the face of Judas was the first face that he had finished. And everyone who saw it could easily recognize that that was the face of the fellow painter, that that stirred some conversation during that time. And he was taking out his revenge and his anger for all to see. But when he came to paint the face of Christ, something was holding him back. Something was frustrating him. And he couldn't, he couldn't go forward, he couldn't make progress. And he finally came to the conclusion that the thing that was holding him back and frustrating him was the fact that he had painted his enemy on the face of Judas. Therefore, he painted over the face of Judas, and begin to paint the face of Jesus at this time with the success that history has acclaimed. You cannot at one time, in the same time, be painting the features of Christ into your own life. And paint a face with the colors of venom, and hatred. We have a choice to make, and we can choose forgiveness. Step three is allow for the process. The definition of the word process is a series of actions that produce something that lead to a particular result. A series of actions towards forgiveness could be talking with a trusted friend or a counselor. It could be praying and giving the Holy Spirit permission to accomplish in us what we can't do ourselves. See, it's our choice to step out in faith. But it's his grace to get us through the process. See, going through that process will result in freedom and transformation in us. When my friend stole for me, and I was $5,000 in debt, because of my decision to trust him and his decision to steal from me. Every month, I had to write that check on the credit card every single month, I had to do that. And I had to allow for that process to go over and over again, to let it go. And I have to tell you, it's not because I wanted to in that moment. It was a cycle that I had to complete. I wanted to bury my emotions, I wanted to hide them and maybe say some not so nice stuff about him to people and I was mad. And but you know what, I couldn't do that. Because every month I couldn't even bury the emotions because every single month, that bill kept coming in every single month, I had to write the check on that credit card. But because of the process over time, God helped me to forgive him. It started with an act of faith. But over time, this thing began to be less painful. And eventually I could actually think of him without getting upset. And I remember I actually remember the two billing cycles that this began to happen inside my heart. I begin to acknowledge that he was a person that God had also loved. And it wasn't just the cricket cheat that I had labeled him as for a while. I began to have compassion for him and realize that he was acting out have his own brokenness. And this began the healing process in me. See, forgiving someone is an act of faith that brings us freedom and restores value to the person. See, I found freedom when I released him. What does freedom look like? Freedom looks like being released from slavery, from the things that hold us captive freedom looks like not replaying the hurt over and over in our mind. Freedom looks like not getting even. Freedom looks like understanding that just as Jesus gave his life for us, that he did it for them to which we began to see the person instead of the hurt that they've caused. And you know, this is hard for every one of us, right? But we want freedom. That's something that we can all have. And I want to encourage you to make the choice to forgive others, that you may set them free and in doing so that you will come to experience freedom for yourself. And let's not give up, it's a process. Okay, let's make the choice to respond to the love and the forgiveness of God, and that it's already been given to us and give away that which we've received. And remember that we are all in process together. We're all together in this and that freedom is for all of us. Going to pray for us this morning. Dear God, I just Lord, I thank you so much for your example of forgiveness that you've given us. Lord, I thank you that we can give what we've been given and I thank you for all the forgiveness that you've given us. I'd give us help us to be brave Lord, as we make the choice to forgive. And Lord, we thank You for Your grace to walk out the process. Lord, we thank you and we love you. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.  Friends, I am not saying forgiveness is easy, but it is definitely worth it. And I wonder if the Holy Spirit laid someone on your heart as you listen today. If he did, I encourage you to extend forgiveness to them. Because when you release them, it is you that binds freedom. And it's our choice to step out in faith to forgive someone. But it is His grace that gets us through the process. That doesn't mean that what they did was okay. It actually means that what they did was so wrong, that Jesus, God's only Son had to come to Earth die on a cross and rise again, in order to cover the wrong that they did. Wow. May each of us come to realize that if we have been given forgiveness, then we have forgiveness to give. Thank you for joining us. And if you would like someone to pray with you, please email us at connect at reclaimed story.com and we'll see you Same time, same place next week. Thanks for listening. I pray you found hope in today's conversation, and maybe even feel a little less alone in your story. stay connected with us on Facebook and Instagram at reclaimed story. Want to learn more about living a reclaimed life and how you can be a part of our growing community of reclaimers check out our website at reclaim story.com all of those links and more will be in the show notes. And if you enjoyed this inspirational podcast Be sure to subscribe rate and review. That is a huge help and helping us reach more people to live the reclaimed life. Thank you so much for listening.