The Truly Forgiven by God are Forgiving of One Another #1

In this part of the sermon: Martin delves into Matthew 18:21-22, analyzing Peter's question about forgiving 'seven times' and Jesus' response of 'seventy times seven.' He explains that Jesus was not giving a…

Jesus' response of 'seventy times seven' to Peter's 'seven times' is an analogy to firefighters using fire to stop a forest fire, meaning Jesus is fighting Peter's numerical concept of forgiveness with numbers to show it's not about quantity.

He was doing what we mean when we say, fight fire with fire. Do you know where that metaphor came from? Firefighters at times, when there's a raging forest fire, and they see the direction it's going, the way they try to stop it is to light a fire to establish a path of charred over land that when the forest fires, the fire reaches there, it has to stop. It has nothing to consume, no more combustible material.

30:29 - 30:57 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin begins expounding the parable, focusing on the king's immense mercy in forgiving a servant's incalculable debt. He clarifies that the details of the parable serve to…

To convey the immense size of the 10,000 talent debt, Martin calculates how many dollar bills laid end-to-end would stretch from the George Washington Bridge to Chicago, emphasizing the incalculable nature of the debt.

I went downstairs and got my wallet and I measured a dollar bill. It's almost exactly six inches long. So I started doing a little fiddling with my calculator. You know what this guy owed?

40:43 - 40:56 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: This section details the unforgiving servant's brutal treatment of a fellow servant who owed a comparatively minuscule debt, immediately after receiving immense forgiveness…

The contrast between the king's forgiveness of the servant's 'Matterhorn of debt' and the servant's refusal to forgive a fellow servant's 'molehill debt' highlights the disproportionate lack of mercy.

This is R-rated stuff, folks. Jesus is describing this servant who has a lack of forgiving mercy to a minor debtor. He's just had all this debt canceled. And he goes out and finds this man with this piddling debt, trying to think of some imagery.

48:57 - 49:18 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin describes the king's angry response to the unforgiving servant, who is summoned, identified as wicked, reminded of his obligation, and delivered to tormentors until his…

The fellow servants reporting the unforgiving servant to the king is described as 'snitching,' which Martin defends as a righteous act when done out of grief for the wronged party, not spite.

So when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were exceeding sorry. And they came and told their Lord all that was done. They snitched. Yeah, they did.

51:23 - 51:37 Read in full sermon