Parables: Part 2 | The Unforgiving Servant | Pastor Josiah Guajardo

Well, good morning, church, and welcome. I'm so thankful you chose to be with us today. We're in a series in the book about parables. And man, I really believe that God has a word for you and for me today. And my name is Josiah. I get to serve here as our pastor of Battle Creek Church Online, as well as get to lead our communications teams. And I'm so thankful to be with you. I'm honored to be able to do that. I just want to thank Pastor Alex for the opportunity to speak today. And I just know that I want you to know we serve under one of the best pastors in the entire world. I'm so thankful for the impact that he's had on my life and on my family's life. My wife, Delmi, and I have been serving here at Battle Creek Church for just under a decade. We have two beautiful children, Josiah and Isabella. This is us a couple of weeks ago on vacation. My boy, Josiah, is three and a half years old, and Isabella just turned seven months. And so we are getting tons of sleep at our house and enjoying this season with little kids. But it's been so good. But we're just thankful for Battle Creek Church and the investment in our lives as a couple, but also in the lives of our children. Now, one thing about me is I play in a hockey league. I know what you're thinking. This five foot eight Mexican plays hockey. It's kind of a weird thing. But coming out of college, I went to Oral Roberts University. That's how I got to Tulsa. I had this list of things or activities, hobbies that I wanted to try that I had never really tried before. So when I graduated college, I started to work on that. And one of them was playing hockey.

So I play in this adult league. It's very basic, very minimal in the recreational section of it. But one of the things that I use in there is we use helmets and shields. Like if you watch the NHL, they use half shields. We use full shields because we want to have teeth. If you looked at any NHL or when you talk to them, they got about four teeth and they seem to always be missing in the front. But I play with this shield and some people play with a cage. But a shield is more, it's this clear thing. But when you get later in the game, what happens is, is I start to breathe pretty heavily, right? I'm not in shape. And this is only once every couple of weeks. And so what ends up happening is I end up fogging up my shield. And I don't know about you, but for me, when I play, one of the things I'm trying to do is not fall or break a leg or hurt myself. And so when you're trying to do that and all of a sudden your vision gets blurred and it's hard to see, it gets pretty scary. And so what happens is it distorts your view. And so it's hard to play. Well, last week we started a series on parables and we realized that our view of the world can look a little like that shield. It can fog up and it looks a little bit different. It distorts our view. Sin and corruption, it distorts how we see everything. And so Jesus is offering us a better way of life. And you see, that's what sin does. It distorts our view. And the parables help us to understand what the kingdom looks like. There's a clear window into heaven. They show the blessed life, the better life, you see. But they don't just see the better life, but it's an invitation to experience it. Last week, Pastor Alex taught on the prodigal son and we learned how God forgives quickly and he loves fully. Our God forgives quickly. That's something for you and for me to know today.

And today we're going to look at another parable, how we live with one another. This story includes a man in the middle of crisis, a radical act of grace and a response that really nobody saw coming. It's the parable of the unforgiving servant. So would you do me a favor as we get ready to jump into God's word today, would you pray with me? Would you open your hands and say, Lord, I receive your word today. Let's pray. Father, we're so thankful for you. And Father, we pray today that as we get ready to hear your word and to read your scripture, God, that it would help read us, that it would speak to us, that we would be able to put our burdens down, God, that we would be able to work through forgiveness. And what does it look like to forgive today, God? We love you and we thank you in Jesus name we pray. Amen and amen. Hey, would you do me a favor? We're going to be in Matthew 18. Would you start to get there? And as you do, I want to set it up. So in Matthew 18. Jesus isn't talking to the crowd. He's talking to the disciples. And so Matthew 18 is all about kingdom relationships, right? We know that the kingdom of God is really is the opposite of what the world tells us, that greatness looks like humility, not power. In God's kingdom, we pursue those who stray, right? Last week was about finding the lost one, that it matters, that we desire to pursue reconciliation, that that matters in the kingdom of God, right? And that there's a need to confront sin

between God's people. So this leads to the question of forgiveness. How do we deal with people who've hurt us? Some of us in this room are walking in here with some real pain, from maybe family or heartbreak or betrayal, but there's some things that have been done to us. There's some hurt that we carry. Or for others in the room, there's some things that we can't forgive ourselves of, that we carry this heavy burden that we can't let ourselves off the hook. So today we're gonna walk through this parable and I wanna share three thoughts on forgiveness. If you have your Bible, I said to turn to Matthew 18, verse 21 is where we're gonna start today. And it says this, then Peter came to him and asked, Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times. So Peter's asking, right? How often should I forgive somebody? Seven times. And in that day, tradition says that they should forgive three times, that three times was enough. So I think he's thinking seven times, he's knocked it out of the park. Let's keep reading.

Verse 22 says, no, not seven times, but 77 times. Some of your Bibles may say 70 times seven, but really what Jesus is saying there is that it doesn't matter whether it's 77 or 70 times seven, it's an unachievable number. It's a number that you can't even understand. It's saying it's so many times that you should forgive, you shouldn't even count them, you should just do it. And so Peter's probably thinking that he's gonna say four or five, right? That Jesus is gonna say four or five. If tradition says three, and that's what culture in that time says is enough, that Jesus might say four or five, right? And so I think Peter's saying, well, if I say seven, that's more than double. That's more than being kind to that. But Jesus says, no, 77. So I wanted to know why 77? So if you look at it, the only other place that that number shows up is in Genesis four. And in Genesis four, it's when Cain kills his brother, and later he ends up building a city. And in that city, a man named Lamech kills a man and he gloats about it. In Genesis four, it says this, I have killed a young man who attacked me, a young man who wounded me. If someone who kills Cain is punished seven times,

then the one who kills me will be punished 77 times. Lamech is proud of his vengeance. You think Cain is bad? I'm worse, right? He's saying, you hurt me? Well, I'll hurt you worse. That feels natural, doesn't it? I don't know about you, but you ever been in traffic and get cut off? Actually, a couple of weeks ago I said we were on vacation. And we drove and one of the things, I don't really speed a ton, but one of the things I can't stand is when people tailgate you, right? And when we were driving, there were some times where people would be on me and they end up past me and go super fast. And I don't know about you, but every once in a while I was like, man, I hope the cops just pull them over. And maybe when they do, you may get a laugh out of it, or that just may be me, but really our human default is to get even. And so by using the number 77, Jesus was pointing back to Lamech and saying, my kingdom is the opposite of that, right? It's not about math, it's about identity. He's asking whose kingdom do you belong to, right? Do you belong to Lamech and the kingdom of vengeance and having unlimited vengeance,

or Jesus's kingdom who commands unlimited forgiveness? That leads to our first thought that I wanna share about forgiveness today. The kingdom of God multiplies mercy, not vengeance, right? It's the same number, but opposite kingdoms. Forgiveness is resistance against the cycle of violence in our hearts and our communities. It's how we don't allow that bitterness and that hate to grow. So it's at this point where he continues in the parable. So go back to Matthew 18 and verse 23. It says, therefore the kingdom of heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. In the process, one of the debtors was brought in who owed him millions. of dollars. He couldn't pay it, so his master ordered that he be sold along with his wife, children, and everything that he owned to pay the debt. So the king calls in his accounts. Some translations say 10,000 talents. In that day and age, one talent is worth 20 years wages. So just think about that, right? Five talents is worth 100 years of wages. And so when you think about 10,000 talents, it's basically like billions, right? It's a laughable amount of debt. It's not just laughable, it's an unpayable amount of debt.

And I don't know about you, but I always think when I read that, like, how did he get into this? Like, how did he have so much debt? Like, was he one of those guys trying to sell stuff that wasn't very good? Or maybe you've seen the show Shark Tank, and he's one of those guys that went on there, and you're like, he should not even be in the room. You're like, who's buying this kind of thing? He's kind of like that guy who always has an idea, but 99.9% of them are not very good. But you see, what's funny is he doesn't need help or time. He needs mercy. And so when debt repayment often meant servitude or working it off, and so what would end up happen to him is that his family would be separated, his land would be confiscated, and everything that he had would likely be lost, and he would never get it back. Let's keep reading in verse 26 and 27. It says, but the man fell down before his master and begged him, please be patient with me, and I will pay it all. I want you to underline that. We'll come back to that in just a little bit. And then 27 says, then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt. He says, be patient with me, I'll pay it all. When I read that, and I had you underline it because it's absurd that he even says it.

He owes millions, billions of dollars, right, an unfathomable amount, an unpayable amount, and his words are, be patient, I'll pay it. Why is this crazy? Because there's no timeline in which this works. I don't know about you, but I'm thinking this, like, it doesn't matter if he's patient for his whole life, he's never gonna repay it. So for him saying, be patient, I'll pay it all, it's just crazy. And when I read this story, and I read this parable, and I read this part specifically, I just, I can picture him in my mind. I can hear him in my mind, right, on his knees. You can hear the desperation in his voice. Be patient with me. He doesn't even know what he's saying, right? He's in such desperation. He's saying things that doesn't make sense, like, be patient, I'll pay it. He can't pay it, there's not amount of time. He doesn't need time. What he needs is a miracle. And then the master does this shocking thing. He releases the debt, right? He does this thing that no one imagined, a massive generosity. He's generous and merciful with this man, and says, I'm gonna forgive you. And I think he does it not because he knows he can't pay it,

he does it because he's moved with compassion. You see, God doesn't forgive reluctantly, he forgives compassionately. He loves you, and he loves me, and he's compassionate for us. So just for a moment, suppose you were in the same situation. Imagine you're the servant, you're about to lose your family, your home, everything, and you plead and you're completely forgiven. I don't know about you, but in my mind, when I picture that, I think of my mortgage, and maybe even some of my cars, some of that being paid off. My car paid off, my house, I would feel, right? What a blessing, right? You probably feel grateful. I would feel grateful and relieved, changed, right? You would feel that if somebody came and released you of your debt, not because you earned it or deserve it, but because your debitor was compassionate. And I think sometimes we feel like we have to work a way to earn God's grace. Sometimes we have to figure out a way to do that. We have to go and do good deeds, or to go do these things to earn God's grace. And a lot of times we act like we can earn it, right? Just give me time, like this guy saying, just give me time, I'll fix it. When we know there's not amount of time that will fix it.

That really, that's religion, trying to perform your way out, right? It's us trying to say, God, I'm gonna do these things and it'll lead to these results. And the reality is, God is saying, I don't need you to do that. I've already given you grace. I've already given you the things that you need. But the truth is this, grace doesn't wait for change. Grace is what makes change possible. And so in light of what God has already done for us, His grace and His forgiveness, our hearts are already changed. And so that leads us to our second thought of forgiveness today. And it's this transformation grows from the grounds of grace. In light of this level of mercy, the level of forgiveness, the magnitude of compassion, our only response is to be forever changed. Our response is to help others in need, right? It's what exactly God is calling us to do is to help others. My wife and I, we've been married now for a little over than eight years. And one of the things that has really helped us and got us through a lot of moments in our marriage that have been difficult is early on, we established this thought that whenever we fought or we had an argument or things were hard for us, that we would take a step away

and we would refocus on what God says. And he says this, why should I not show her grace when all he has shown me is grace? I can forgive her of the things that she did or she can forgive me of the things that I did because God has forgiven us. And he hasn't just forgiven us one time or two times. It's an unfathomable amount of times that he's forgiven you and for me. And so it's our responsibility to share that with others. It's our responsibility to tell others, to give them forgiveness, to say, it's okay. You see, with that kind of mercy, you expect gratitude or generosity, right? That he would do the things that were done to him. A lot of times because gratitude and generosity, mercy, they're contagious, right? When you're around it, you wanna be involved in it. One of the things that I love, I really don't like social media, but one of the things that I like about social media right now is there's a lot of these influencers who are going and helping people. They're being generous. And you see that a lot of times when they're generous to people, it's contagious. And they end up blessing somebody else because they were blessed. It's contagious.

And so in this story, we expect him to now leave and to be generous and merciful to other people. But what happens next is shocking. In verse 28, this is what happens. But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars, he grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment. You see, the minute he was forgiven, what's crazy is he leaves. You think he would be joyful and grateful and he would want to show mercy to others. He goes directly to somebody and says, repay me for what you owe me, right? He owes an unfathomable amount, right? Millions, some of our Bibles say, and it really could be seen as billions of dollars. This second wage that this man owes him is about 100 denarii, which is about 100 days wages. It's not even close to what he was forgiven by. And still he doesn't do anything. He doesn't say, I will forgive you. No, he says, give it to me. And I know forgiveness costs us something, but we have to be able to see how God sees us. And so really we expect him to see mercy, but he gets apathy, cold apathy, waiting for repayment, but it's not, wanting repayment isn't automatically wrong, but you would think for what just happened to him

that he would do it, but he chokes him. And it's not about justice, it's about control. It's about assault and public humiliation. You see, forgiveness releases the debt, but it does not release the boundaries. And so what we're not saying today is forgive and forget. No, you can forgive and still protect yourself. You can forgive and still tell the truth. You can forgive and still get others involved. You can forgive and still set boundaries to be safe and to continue your walk with the Lord. Let's keep reading in verse 29 and 30. His fellow servant fell down before him and begged him for a little more time. Be patient with me and I will pay it, he pleaded. But his creditor wouldn't wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full. Doesn't that sound familiar? Verse 29, be patient with me and I will pay it. It's the exact same words that the first servant used when he was talking to the king. I think, this is my opinion, I think that that's in there to just say, these two men, there wasn't a difference in how they pleaded. They pleaded the exact same and the response was different. He used the exact same words. Be patient with me, I'll pay it. This one seemed a little bit more. that made sense, right?

That he could possibly pay this off compared to the first servant who couldn't. But he's saying, be patient with me, I'll pay the exact same words that the first servant uses. But instead of mercy that you think that he would give him because he received that, the second servant gets thrown into prison. See, the problem is in prison, he can't repay his debt. There's no income, right? So the debt becomes locked in place. He's completely unfair and unproductive. He's not gonna get anything by throwing him in prison. He won't even get his money back. But you see, unforgiveness is a prison that holds you captive. It creates a debt that never gets finished. We end up imprisoning ourselves with the bitterness and the hate and the things that we carry. You see, for some of us, the problem is we want mercy by the bucket from God. That when we do things wrong, we want God just to, we want it from the bucket, but we give grace by the handful to others. You ever been in the self-checkout line? And when you're waiting in line, you're always like, come on, you gotta hurry up. When it's, you gotta get going. Come on, scan it faster. For some reason, every time I'm in the line at self-checkout, it always turns red

and somebody has to come help. And so when it's our turn, right? And you're thinking, let me have my time, leave me alone. I'm always like that. Like I said, mine always turns red. So I end up having to be there and I'm just thinking people are looking at me. It also reminds me of my kid. My kid's three years old and we're in that season of learning how to share, right? Cause everything is mine. We know mine pretty well. And one of the things that we go to my sister's house and he plays with his cousin, Caleb. We have this model that he has to say before he goes in, I'm gonna share and I'm not gonna fight. Like I'm gonna share and I'm not gonna fight. But what's funny is, is when it's his turn, right? It's about, I can take as much time in the world that I want. But when he has to share and he gives it to his cousin, he thinks about 35 seconds, says, okay, I've shared. It's mine again. That's what we kind of expect. And we want others to give us a bucket of mercy. And yet we don't wanna give grace to anybody. You see, one of the things that I find, and I think is that, I don't think that we believe in struggling in forgiveness. I believe that we struggle in believing someone deserves it.

That we struggle to believe that someone deserves the forgiveness that we give them. And what's crazy about that, as a believer, is that if we struggle to believe someone deserves it, it's the opposite of what we believe. Because we didn't deserve it. We didn't, Jesus didn't need to do it, but yet he died on the cross so we could have mercy, so we can be saved. We didn't deserve it, but yet he still did it. You see, the real captive is often us. When we hold the unforgiveness, we become captive to ourselves. We end up carrying this burden. We end up carrying this thing on our back. And a lot of times, I'll be honest with you, when that happens, this heart of bitterness grows. And hatred, and what happens, it takes away the joy of the Lord. And we begin to become people that we're not. We begin to treat people the way that we never had treated people before, because we're carrying this burden that's so heavy. It's weighing us down. It's taking away our personality. It's taking away the joy that God has given us. And so we begin, that once was the joy in the room, now becomes the heaviness in the room. And the sad thing is, is it's often us who's holding ourselves captive and carrying this burden

because we are reluctant to forgive. Let's keep reading in verse 31. When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. You see, the king's mercy was public. So people knew about it. The refusal to forgive is still crazy in my mind. You were just forgiven of all of this debt, and yet you can't do this. Unforgiveness isn't just personal, it spreads. Like I said, it becomes the heaviness in the room. People begin to not want to be around you because you're walking with this bitterness in your heart. It contaminates the people around you. Verse 32 and 33. Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, you evil servant, I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn't you have mercy on your fellow servant just as I had mercy on you? Just as I had. had mercy on you. The servant who was completely forgiven of his debt is now thrown into prison where he has no chance of paying off the debt. So what's ironic is now he finds himself in the same position in which he had had that servant. They're now in prison because he couldn't extend the mercy

and the grace and the forgiveness that was shown to him. This is one of the most powerful thoughts of the parable. My last thought on forgiveness for today. Refusing to be merciful requires God to treat us the same way. Refusing to be merciful requires God to treat us in the same way. The measure of mercy you refuse becomes the measure of justice you receive. This is the clear window of heaven. We sinned against a holy God. We owed a debt we couldn't pay, but God forgave us out of love, out of compassion. Grace should produce transformation in our lives. But if mercy stays in our head and never reaches our heart, then grace becomes the thing that judges us and exposes us. As I said before, when unforgiveness sits in our heart, it will become exposed. People will see it. It'll change our lives. It'll make it worse. It will allow us, it won't allow us. It will make us walk with this burden that's too heavy for us. You see, forgiveness isn't easy, but unforgiveness is deadly. It'll end up killing and destroying your life and the joy and the things that God has given us for us to live in abundance and for us to live joyful. So I wanna just recap those three thoughts

before we go today. The kingdom of God multiplies mercy, not vengeance. Transformation grows from the grounds of grace and refusing to be merciful requires God to treat us in the same way. You see, there's a story that happened several years ago of a young man named Brent Jean and his brother was killed in a tragic shooting. And in the courtroom, they had just sentenced the lady who had killed him to 10 years. And in this, he had an opportunity to share a statement. He had an opportunity to share or talk to the lady who had killed her brother. I don't know about you, but as I think about this, if my brother had just been killed and I was sitting across from them and probably he could be justified, my thoughts is you would probably think that there were gonna be anger and condemnation and hatred spewed at this lady. And a lot of people, like I said, would think it's justified, right? For what she did. And what we see is shocking and really it shocked the nation when it happened. He sits there and he tells her, I forgive you. When the world expects him to be angry and really just hatred and spew a hatred at her, he says, I forgive you.

He not only just says, I forgive you, then he says, I just want you to know I love you. And the best thing that you can do is give your life to Christ. That video of that moment ends in a very powerful way. He says, he then asked the judge, can I hug her? They go and they hug and this was a powerful moment of reconciliation, right? What the kingdom of God is about. That act of forgiveness, I think helped lots of people beyond what that could have imagined, but it also released him. He didn't have to hold that unforgiveness, that burden and carry it with him. It was released the moment he forgave her. I'm not saying that it wasn't hard. I'm not saying that you forget. I'm just saying he forgave her, which allowed him the opportunity to move forward. And you're saying, well, why are you saying that today? Because some of you and some of us are carrying a wound, are carrying a hurt that we've carried for many years, way longer than we should have ever carried it. And it's weighing us down. It's taking our joy away. It's changed who we were and we don't love who we've become because we walk with this chip on our shoulder. We walk with this burden that we have.

And so today, this can be the day that you forgive and you walk free, that you can say, I'm no longer gonna carry this with me. I need to let it go. It's forgiven me, so therefore I can forgive others. And I want to walk free. For some of the other people in this room, maybe the problem isn't that you haven't forgiven others, but you can't forgive yourself. Something that happened long ago or something that you're dealing with right now that you can't forgive yourself. And you feel like you're unworthy or unlovable. Well, let me just tell you, let me speak to you directly today. You have a father who loves you more than you know. He forgave a debt that you could never repay. Why? Because he loves you. He loves you compassionately. And so forgive yourself and allow God's grace to fill in you. For some of us in the room, maybe you need to experience God's forgiveness for the very first time. Maybe the problem is you're not walking with him. You haven't made him the Lord of your life. You see, maybe some of you have been walking and trying to earn it. You've been doing all of these things

and you have yet to achieve it because really the only way to receive grace is through him. To ask him to forgive of your sins and to make him new. For you to choose to follow Jesus. And if that's you today, I want to say this prayer and I want you to repeat it out loud, confessing your sin and making him the King of your life. Would you pray this with me today? Dear God, I know I'm a sinner, but today I ask to forgive me for all of my sin. Jesus, come into my life to be my Lord and my Savior, my forgiver. And in the best way that I know how, I trust you alone to save me. I want to thank you for saving me. In Jesus name. If you prayed that prayer, we want to say congratulations. I'm excited for you and believing with you that God is going to do a work in your life. But for others in the room who say, I've already, I'm a believer, but I've been carrying this weight. I've been carrying unforgiveness or I haven't forgiven myself. I want you to take a moment and I want you to release that. I want you to say just some simple things that you would pray this. Jesus, I'm carrying unforgiveness. Help me to release the debt. Heal my heart so I can forgive others.

Lord, I'm so thankful for you today. God, I'm thankful because you're merciful, God. I'm thankful because we can't do it alone and God, you come alongside us and you speak to us and you hold our hand and you guide us, God. God, I'm thankful that we can, we don't have to walk with this burden on our back. We don't have to walk with this heaviness. Father, we can lay it at your feet because you've already paid the price of our debt. God, we didn't deserve it, but yet you still did it. So God, let today be a reminder that we can forgive others and walk free. We can walk in freedom because of what you did on that cross 2000 years ago. So God, we thank you for that. God, I pray for anybody today in this room who's walking with bitterness and hatred in their heart. God, I pray that they would forgive today, that you would release your spirit in them and they would release so they can walk free. God, I pray for anyone who is walking in this room that is caring, that they haven't forgiven themselves for something that they did. God, I would pray that they would know that you have grace, God, that you paid the price of that debt and they can forgive themselves. They can leave it in their past and they can walk forward in freedom.

God, we ask that today. God, I thank you for. And all of the world through our online. God bless us today as we go. God, we love you and we thank you. In Jesus name we pray, amen and amen.