Title: Grace Is Greater Than Your Wounds
Place: BLCC
Date: 1/21/2018
Text: Matthew 18.21-35
CT: What’s been done for you is greater than what’s been done to you.
[Screen 1]
FAS: Each week Kevin Tunell is required to mail a dollar to a family he'd rather forget.
They sued him for $1.5 million but settled for $936, to be paid a dollar at a time. The family expects the payment each Friday so Tunell won't forget what happened on the first Friday of 1982.
That's the day their daughter was killed. Tunell was convicted of manslaughter and drunken driving. He was 17. She was 18. Tunell served a court sentence. He also spent seven years campaigning against drunk driving, six years more than his sentence required. But he keeps forgetting to send the dollar.
The weekly restitution is to last until the year 2000. Eighteen years. Tunell makes the check out to the victim, mails it to her family, and then the money is deposited in a scholarship fund.
The family has taken him to court four times for failure to comply. After the most recent appearance, Tunell spent thirty days in jail. He insists that he's not defying the order but rather is haunted by the girl's death and tormented by the reminders. He offered the family two boxes of checks covering the payments until the year 2001, one year more than required. They refused. It's not money they seek, but penance.
Quoting the mother, "We want to receive the check every week on time. He must understand we are going to pursue this until August of the year 2000. We will go back to court every month if we have to."
Few would question the anger of the family. Only the naïve would think it fair to leave the guilty unpunished. But I do have one concern.
Is 936 payments enough? Not for Tunell to send, mind you, but for the family to demand? When they receive the final payment, will they be at peace? In August 2000, will the family be able to put the matter to rest? Is 18 years' worth of restitution sufficient? Will 196 months' worth of remorse be adequate?
How much is enough? Were you in the family and were Tunell your target, how many payments would you require? Better stated, how many payments do you require?
No one—I repeat, no one— makes it through life free of injury. Someone somewhere has hurt you. Like the 18-year-old, you've been a victim. She died because someone drank too much. Part of you has died because someone spoke too much, demanded too much, or neglected too much.
Max Lucado, In the Grip of Grace (Word, 1996)
Is grace good enough for Kevin? Is grace good enough for the family? Have you got someone who needs the forgiveness? Are you in need of such forgiveness yourself?
This is my third week of the sermon series Grace Is Greater. This week I am going to look at grace being greater than our wounds. Grace is far greater than anything the world throws at us.
Do you need to clean out your own closet and see if you need to deal with some things you have not dealt with in a while? Maybe you think you have been hurt too badly. The journey with grace begins with a willingness to forgive even if forgiveness seems like it may be too much to ask for.
You say things like:
“You don’t know what I’ve been through.”
“Not after what he did to me.”
“It is too painful to think about.”
Maybe this is where you are. Maybe you’ve done the math and come to the conclusion that the hurt done to you is greater than the grace you are able to give.
That’s the first step we have to make to go on this grace journey: a willingness to forgive even if it doesn’t seem possible to make the equation work out.
[Screen 2]
Let’s go to the Bible. Matthew 18. 21-35. In Matthew 18 Jesus tells the story of the unmerciful servant to help us understand not just the greatness of the grace we have received but also the greatness of the grace we are to give. Grace is a two-way street. Receiving it from God but refusing to give it to others is not an option. Grace flows.
Peter comes to Jesus in [Screen 3] Matthew 18. 21, Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
How many times does Peter have to forgive someone? He even gives a good guess of seven. Surely Jesus will give him a bit of praise for that. Peter is ready to be done. He has been hurt too badly too many times.
Perhaps for you it is not the number of times but rather the degree of the hurt.
Perhaps, it is the people we know the best who can hurt us the most. The people we give our hearts too are the most likely to hurt us. [Screen 4]
Jesus gives Peter an answer, Matthew 18. 22, Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”
That is a lot of times. Jesus is basically saying, “grace is better.”
Now don’t get me wrong I know some of the things you have to forgive are pretty bad. You want to believe grace is better but emotionally the equation looks a little bad. Are you at least willing to try?
Jesus understands how difficult it can be so he tells a parable. [Screen 5]
Matthew 18.23, “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.”
The first man owed him so much there was no way he was going to repay him. It would be equivalent to 150 million today. [Screen 6]
Matthew 18.24-25, As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. [Screen 7] 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
The master realizes this guy can never pay him back,
You can live in denial and pretend you don’t owe God. Or you can accept that you owe him a big debt and decide to pay it off. The problem is you can’t. The debt is too big. You owe too much. There is nothing you can do to make things right again with God.
Jesus opens up his parable by showing how much we owe. It is a reminder that we are all in deep debt to God because of our sin.
God knows about all of our sins.
Your teacher may not know you plagiarized on that paper in college, but God does.
Your wife may not know about your flirting at work, but God does.
You have deleted all the websites you have recently visited, but God knows which ones you looked at.
Your boss doesn’t know how you are embezzling that money, but God does.
God knows everything we do. He even knows about how prideful you feel right now that I left your example out. But God knows.
The servant in Jesus’ parable realizes his debt is hopeless and says, [Screen 8] Matthew 18.26, At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.
The master knows this will be impossible. No one can repay what this man owes.
[Screen 9]
The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. Verse 27.
As significant as the debt was the master’s grace was greater.
This is a great story up to now. The master is a good man. But the parable takes a disastrous turn. [Screen 10]
“But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. Matthew 18.28.
The servant who had just been forgiven 150 million dollars finds a coworker who owes him 20 bucks. He begins to demand payment. [Screen 11]
“His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back. Verse 29.
This is exactly what the first servant had said to the master. Don’t miss this: he is being asked for the same grace he received, only to a much less degree.
But the servant cuts no slack. [Screen 12]
But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. Verse 30.
This next part of the story is easy to overlook, but we are going to take a close look here. [Screen 13]
When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened. Verse 31.
The other servants of the master are the ones who report the unforgiving servant to the master. They saw how well he had been treated and how bad he was treating the fellow who owed him 20 bucks.
Why are they reporting him? It is because they all are treated as sons and daughters by this master. This master is known for the good he does for his people. So they cannot let it go when one of their own, who has been receiving the grace, refuses to give grace. They are outraged.
That is the appropriate response when someone in the community violates the core value of the community. If grace is the core value of a community, then the community just can’t ignore someone who refuses to be gracious.
Here is my concern. Often the church is known for its outrage toward people outside of the community who need grace rather than outrage for the people inside the community who refuse to give it.
When we sniff legalism in our community, or see someone who has received God’s incredible grace being judgmental and condemning toward those whose struggles are different than their own, we should become stressed.
And so the master finds out that the guy he had just received the incredible grace was refusing to give it. [Screen 14]
Matthew 18.32-34, “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. [Screen 15] Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’
[Screen 16] In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
How long will it take? Do you really think this guy is going to earn 150 million dollars in prison? He is never going to pay it back. He is going to spend the rest of his life in the prison. That is called hell.
Jesus’ ending to his stories is often left to cause people to wonder. Jesus ends this parable with a direct hit. [Screen 17]
“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” Verse 35.
Whoa. You’re telling me that if I don’t forgive the person who has hurt me, who abused me, who betrayed me, who cheated me, who abandoned me, God won’t forgive me…No, I’m not that. I’m just telling you what Jesus said.
This wasn’t the only time Jesus issued such a warning. [Screen 18] In Matthew 6.14-15 Jesus said, For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. [Screen 19] But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Jesus made it clear that you can’t receive God’s grace and then refuse to give it to others.
If God forgives your sins, you can’t continue keeping track of the sins of others.
If you do you hold onto bitterness, your hurt becomes hatred. So instead of holding onto the bitterness of what was done to you, hold it up, realize its not something to keep and get rid of it.
It begins by being willing to take the first step. I know it’s not fair. The other person hurt you. They owe you something. Maybe they owe you a childhood. Or a marriage. Or a lot of money or at least an explanation.
It’s not fair to let it go. [Screen 20]
It’s GRACE.
And you will never be asked to give more grace than you’ve already received.
Jesus answered Peter’s question with an equation of his own. [Screen 21]
150,000,000 is greater 20
In other words, the grace you have received is greater than the grace you are being asked to give.
I grew up thinking that if I hurt someone, I was to make it right. I needed to do or say something to make it right for that person.
But this led to an unbiblical approach to forgiveness and grace.
I came to the conclusion when someone hurts me; forgiveness comes when the person who hurt me makes it right. When they say or do something that makes it right, I will forgive them. The problem is that this is not grace.
What do you do when you are hurt so badly nothing can be said or done to make it right?
What do you do then? Some of you know exactly what I mean. You’ve been hurt badly enough that you are painfully aware that there is nothing they could say or do that would make things even near right…
That is exactly where you found yourself in with God when he extended his grace to you through Jesus. You could do nothing. You could say nothing. When there was no possibility of you making it right.
God made it right by giving you his Son, Jesus Christ.
Jesus said the master canceled the debt. He didn’t just extend it. He erased it completely.
That’s what God has done for us. It’s not earned.
With grace the person doesn’t fix the consequences of their sin; you take the consequences of their sin. That’s not fair. It’s not right.
But it is exactly what Jesus did for you.
The master has canceled our debt, and it is time for us to let that grace flow. It’s not easy, but with God it is possible.
Here is where I want to ask you to begin: stop thinking about what’s been done to you, and start thinking about what’s been done for you.
Every time the pain of what’s been done to you gets triggered, intentionally start thinking about what God has done for you. [Screen 22]
Because what’s been done for you is greater than what’s been done to you
Bibliography: Idleman, Kyle; Grace is Greater; Baker Books, Grand Rapids Michigan, Chapter 4, 2017
