In our lesson today, Peter asks Jesus how many times he ought to forgive someone who sins against him. Peter thought he was being extremely generous in his suggestion. Up to seven times? To us, that doesn't seem like much, but seven might as well have been a million, because that is what he meant, or at least a thousand. Whatever it was, he was confident that Jesus was going to be proud of him for his willingness to forgive so many times. He thought he was going to get an attaboy for this. It didn't come. Instead, he was told to forgive a thousand times more or even a million times more. Not seven but seventy seven or seven times seventy. Either way, it was pretty much an impossible figure.

So, we look at the point of this lesson and say, "This must be telling us that we need to forgive others." And that's true. But it's not telling us so much THAT we need to forgive others, but how. And not even so much how to forgive, but how we are able to forgive. It's a story that tells us what needs to happen to us before we can do it. In other words, typical of the Bible, it is telling us less of what we need to do and more of what God must do to us. Another way of saying it, "More Gospel, God's work; less Law, our work."

Don't believe me? Look like I'm pushing this Gospel thing a bit too much? I remember this one T.V. preacher who made everything sound like it was talking about money. I'm not joking. He could take any Bible passage and make it sound like it was talking about giving an offering. He would start with some random passage, and you would think to yourself, "This has nothing to do with money. He is never going to get it to sound that way." And sure enough, he would. What was so funny about it, is that the people would cheer when he did. It's like they were holding their breath, confident that he would be able to do it, and then he did.

You should be the same way when it comes to a sermon. You should be holding your breath, waiting for me to bring a text around so that it is talking about what God does for you.

What you do for Him, or even for others, is not that important. It's what He does for you. And when you hear Him tell you what He does for you, that's when you should breathe a sigh of relief because that is what your soul is here to get.

So, this passage is about what He does for you, not so much about what we do for others. It's all in the parable, this analogy, particularly, where the king forgives his servant his huge debt.

Speaking of analogies, last week, I used an analogy of a dinner party to describe our getting into heaven. Not just getting into heaven--getting access to our Father, having the confidence of knowing we are His children. According to this little comparison, the admission to this dinner party is too expensive. We can't afford it.

To make matters worse, at the very same time the party is going on, we have to do community service. So, it is on two counts, inability to pay the admission fee, and paying our debt to society that we would be out. We can't go. We can't get in.

We need to rely on Jesus to take care of these, otherwise we get no access to the Father, we never have the confidence of being His children; we can't make it to heaven.

Start with the admission fee. Jesus takes care of that. The admission fee is holiness, something we can't provide on our own. Last week, as we talked about All Saints Day, I spoke about how we are seen to have a perfect life, the admission into heaven and into the presence of the Father. This was granted to you when you were baptized. That was when you put on Christ, and His righteousness became as though it were your own. You are now called "holy" or "a saint." In faith, you still stand that way, and while you live and when you die, you will be granted admission because you have what you need--a perfect life--His.

That takes care of the admission, but what about the community service? While we are supposed to be showing our ticket and getting in, we can't, because we are paying our debt by serving time. We committed some crime, and are paying it off. For us to be able to go to the party, someone who has to do the time for us. Again, that's what Jesus does. This is the forgiveness. This is the whole point of the parable. This is what He does for the whole world. He does the time for the whole world. He pays the price for everyone in the world. He pays the price for you.

Most people figure they have the forgiveness thing down pat. Every church talks about forgiveness. It's the most basic thing about Christianity. We figure, "Yeah, got that," but we don't. Neither did this first servant. We don't grasp the depth of two different elements in this story, the same two elements in our own story. First the depth of our debt of sin. Second, the depth of His forgiveness.

First, the depth of our debt of sin. The servant owed 10,000 talents. Millions and billions of dollars. That's what we owe. We think we just occasionally slip and hurt someone. It's a whole lot worse than that. To start, we are enemies of God. The Bible says it very clearly and very directly, "while we were enemies." It doesn't get clearer than that. Look at Romans 5. Being an enemy is going to rack the debt up fast. Where we thought we may have owed a few bucks to God for our sinning, being an enemy takes it to a whole new level.

But it's worse. We are not only enemies, we are traitors. An enemy is one thing. That's usually a person outside the camp. A traitor is someone on the inside. Our creator made us. He formed us. As David the Psalmist says in Psalm 139, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made." And what do we do with our gratitude for that fact? We turn against the One who made us. We are traitors. Can you hear the debt rising? Kaching! Kaching! Never mind that we can't help it, that we are born that way. It's what we are.

Finally, everything we do, every time we sin, it's all done against Him. It's done against Him because we don't fear, love and trust Him as much as we fear, love and trust other things. Lost your temper with someone? Kaching! Gossiped about someone? Kaching! Didn't help someone you could have? Kaching! Didn't want to come to church today? Kaching! The debt rises higher and higher. We can say, "I can't help being an enemy or being a traitor," but we keep adding to our debt every day and just about every moment. Do we owe an enormous debt? You know it! Are we like the guy that owed a billion dollars? Yes. Can we pay it off? Are you kidding?

Now, let's step back from the picture of our enormous debt. If we think we don't owe much, if we don't think our sin is that deep, or that extensive, then forgiveness isn't going to seem like it's any big deal. "God forgives me. Yeah. It's not like He had that much to forgive." But you should recognize now, it's a huge deal. This sets us up for the other part we don't grasp--the depth of His forgiveness.

We don't get it, because we expect Him to forgive the way we do. We figure forgiveness for Him is like it is for us. "Hey, it's no big deal." "Don't worry about it." "Forget about it." But we don't say, "Hey, it's no big deal, forget about it," to a person who is a sworn enemy, much less a traitor, and who is still in position to cause still more hurt.

Sometimes, when the sin against us is really big, we have trouble saying, "No big deal." We don't do very well treating it like it is small. Instead, in these cases, we might be more inclined to say it hesitantly. "I forgive you, but you are going to have earn my trust." Or, "You'll have to prove to me that you are sorry," sort of like saying, "I'll let you work it off."

But that is not the case in the parable nor the case for our Lord. Remember what the king did. The servant treated his debt as though it were small. "Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything." He acted like He could pay it back. But the king knew that was impossible. Instead, he forgave the debt completely. He paid it Himself.

Surely, we should now realize we can't pay back our debt, nor should we think God is going to act like it's no big deal. It is a big deal. God's forgiveness isn't God just brushing it off. If we can't pay the debt--and we can't--then He must. So He does.

He does our time. He pays our penalty. Christ on the cross is God suffering for all we have done--being an enemy, a traitor, and willfully adding up the debt. He pays not just ours, but the debt of the whole world, of all people in all times, going all the back to Adam and Eve and starting up again with Noah.

The time, the penalty--we and the whole world owes--was paid when Christ was on the cross. It was announced that it was sufficient for all, including us, on Easter, when He rose from the dead.

But that He would pay all of it and expects no payment is difficult for us to believe. We find it impossible to believe. We don't even want to believe it, because it makes us charity cases. We are given for free the most precious thing we could ever be given, and nothing is expected for it. Instead, we want to say, "I have to do something to earn it." "At the very least, I have to show that I want it." "I have to try to be a Christian to show that I want to be forgiven, otherwise, I'm not truly forgiven." We have such a tough time receiving a free gift.

The same with that first servant. He did not believe he was truly forgiven. He didn't want it to be free. It showed as soon as he saw someone who owed him. "Pay up or be punished." He was collecting on his debts so he could begin to pay what he owed, because his pride would not let him just simply receive it.

We don't think it's truly free either. We are sure God expects something, and this is why we have trouble forgiving others.

Review what we have covered. We had a huge debt. We are enemies and even traitors, daily racking up our debt. God pays the debt for us completely, by sacrificing His Son. He doesn't brush it off. He pays the ultimate price. And He pays it completely.

What is left? What is the appropriate response? Isn't it to do what Micah said, "What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" Yes. He expects it of us because we have been given so much. No, not as a condition, but if we understood what He has done, if we truly grasped it, we would automatically do what the Lord requires. If we could grasp the magnitude of our forgiveness, we would never sin again. We would have no trouble forgiving others, no matter what they did to us.

But the reality is, we do still sin, we do have trouble forgiving others, and so we have to admit we don't grasp it. We don't believe it. We don't trust His Word. We sin against Him even here. Pile on some more sin. Kaching! The debt goes even higher, but even as we are crying out, "Lord, have mercy, I can't seem to avoid it; every time I turn around I'm sinning against you," we hear Him say, "I have had pity on you and I have forgiven your debt, all your debt. You are now free."

Jesus closes this reading with some chilling words which makes the same point. They lead us to cry out for mercy because we don't grasp the magnitude of His forgiveness. "So also my Heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart." Who of us does this all time? I don't. You don't. We don't forgive our brother from our heart, as we are expected to do, and so we are shown once again we don't get it. We are driven to cry for His mercy again and again, "Lord, you are my only hope; have pity on me" and He says, "I have and I have paid it all. Welcome to my kingdom and to the dinner party."

AMEN