The Way of Humility

Introduction

I appreciate that song selection, Clayton. That goes very well with what we’re going to talk about this morning, and particularly the idea of God demonstrating these attributes to us of justice and mercy and humbleness. All of this demonstrated through the life of Jesus. And as we’ve been working through the Gospel of Matthew, we’re really looking at the way of Jesus, the way Jesus lived and the way Jesus taught. And we’re going to see a lot more of that this morning in what we’re doing in Matthew chapter 18. Now that we’re coming to this fourth discourse within the Gospel of Matthew, we’ve seen the way that Jesus wants his disciples to live and their actions toward each other in Matthew 14 and 15, and then the revelation that he is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and His glory being magnified to all around him in chapter 17, when he is on the Mount of Transfiguration.

And so he is declared as God’s Son. He is now demonstrated to be his son in a very magnificent way before the disciples. And then we come to chapter 18, which many think of as what we might call his community charter. This is what his people are supposed to be like, how they’re supposed to live. And what I want to show in just a minute is a lot of this is nothing new. It’s very similar to things he’s already said. He’s kind of building on some of the things he’s already talked about in the early part of the Gospel of Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount. And we’ll come back to some principles. I want to introduce the principle from Leviticus 19. You’re familiar with the phrase, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

But on that principle or concept is a lot of what Jesus is doing and teaching. And he’ll come back to that in a few chapters later as Matthew records it for us. But I think it also stands behind a lot of what he’s going to talk about here in the eighteenth chapter of Matthew. Matthew 18 is a well-used chapter. It talks about how to handle conflict, and it’s one of those chapters that when we feel wronged, we really like to talk about. And when we are on the other side of that, and maybe we have been the offender, we don’t like so much. And so we’ll just start there with thinking about that. And we need to be guided by the words of Jesus either way.

Whether we have been offended or whether we have been the offender, these principles and these ideas are meant to help us dwell as God’s people together and to live in harmony. That’s the reason Jesus is speaking this to his disciples is really based somewhat on their own arrogance, some of the ways they’re thinking that are wrong, and it gives him opportunity then to talk about the nature of what his kingdom is like and really what it’s not like. Both sides of that are pretty important in this text. As you look at this story sequence here, I’m going to begin reading through Matthew 18. I’ve kind of broken this down for you on the screen so you see what’s happening in each section. But as you’re looking at that, I’m just going to start reading through this, and we’re going to read through 18.

It’s not all that long. And then we’ll work back through this text, hopefully in a helpful way, for us to think about what it means to be God’s people, particularly within this community, within this assembly or congregation. Begin reading with me in 18 in verse 1. It said, At that time, the disciples came to Jesus saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And calling to him a child. He put him in the midst of them and said, Truly I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me. But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a millstone, a great millstone fastened around his neck, and be drowned in the depth of the sea.

Woe to the world for temptations to sin. For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes. And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire. See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.

What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of my father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you have gained your brother, but if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.

If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church, and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them. Then Peter came up and said to him, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him, as many as seven times? Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.

Therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold with his wife and children, and all that he had in payment to be made. 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 him the debt. But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, Pay what you owe.

So his 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 should pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw that he had taken what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you 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 should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.

Jesus wanted to emphasize to the disciples that the kingdom of heaven is not driven by greatness, not in the way the world thinks, or pride, or self-glory or power or status, or the advantage one can gain over others. These are all the sorts of things that were driving things like the Roman Empire, and everything they saw around them is a sort of dominance and even the highlighting of pride. They upheld pride as a kind of a good thing in the ancient world. But the citizens of Jesus’ kingdom would be very different. They would value all people, even the little ones that he talks about frequently in this text. It’s not Jesus’ way to seek the downfall of others for personal gain, like often happens in the kingdom of men, where people look for their own personal advancement by destroying the character or the reputation of someone else.

Jesus’ way is to act straightforwardly and with clarity when there’s wrong to be addressed. But it’s also to be done with gentleness and mercy, minimizing embarrassment and damage. It’s not his way to scheme or be harsh or seize opportunity or take advantage. None of these are the ways that the disciples are needing to act within their kingdom, but they are going to be people who are to act with mercy and love, with justice and care and concern. And I think maybe the basic concept as he starts this dialogue with the disciples, is that the foundation of Jesus’ community is childlike humility. A type of love and humility that will lead a community if they act this way to protect themselves from threat and to seek the well-being of all.

These are probably the most direct. and maybe you heard some of them. If you’re familiar with the Sermon on the Mount, as I read, you might have thought that sounds a little bit familiar. and so Jesus is not introducing a lot of new ideas here. He’s kind of taking some of the things he already presented in Matthew 5 through 7, and he’s bringing them back up and kind of expanding them in this certain direction, dealing with in many ways the attitude of the disciples, which shows their worldly oriented nature. They’re focused on their own greatness, kind of their own self-promotion and glory. And Jesus is needing to settle this down a little bit, and so he’s taking some of these lessons already taught and working on them a little bit more.

And he’s first of all telling them you need to be humble, right? Stop worrying so much about yourself. But this is similar to what was said at the very beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And then there is this connection to the idea that repentance sometimes or turning requires some very extreme measures, getting the things out of our life that drag us in the wrong direction or lead us toward worldly concepts or ideas. He illustrates this in with amputation, right? You just you get rid of that hand or that eye, whatever it might be that’s causing you to kind of lay traps for yourself or for others, that is something that you got to get rid of and out of your life.

Reconciliation is something that’s talked about in the early part of the gospel of Matthew. He talks about if you come to worship, right? You bring your gift and you’re bringing it to the altar and you realize you’re at odds with a brother, your worship doesn’t mean anything. You need to go figure out this situation with your brother and fix that first, which is a whole lot like what we just read here in chapter 18 and 15 and following, about going to someone and dealing with problems that you may have with each other. And then there is this core concept about if you want mercy to be shown to you better be the kind of person who shows mercy to others. A couple times this is mentioned in the Sermon of the Mount, and now Jesus is then bringing this back up.

And then interestingly, it almost seems like this was already planned in Jesus’ teaching, or maybe it’s something that he just used quite frequently. There is this text in Matthew chapter 5 where he talks about if you don’t settle with this person, this accuser, then you’re going to be thrown in prison until you pay all your debt. And he brings this idea back up here in chapter 18, talking about this unmerciful servant who holds something over his fellow servant that this generous and merciful king didn’t even do to him. And there’s a magnitude of difference there that we’ll come back to in a little bit.

1. Greatness Comes Through Childlike Humility

If we are part of Jesus’ community, part of his citizenry, if we are going to be within his congregation or assembly, that is going to thrive, and greatness, if we want to call it that, is going to come through humility, not in self-elevation. Not trying to become great myself and get attention or get glory from others. This is not going to be the means by which that happens. A very counter-cultural concept in his world for sure. And then he illustrates it with something that would be almost unthinkable. He has this little child come up with him and says, if you’re not like this kid, then you’re not going to enter the kingdom of heaven. Now we read that text, and that’s really interesting, but I want to kind of take you back for a minute there and just think about the situation itself.

Now he doesn’t say just become like a child. I mean, he will get to that. But as he’s before them, he actually pulls a physical child up there with them and he says, if you’re not like this child, they’re looking at the child. Have you ever thought about that scenario? I’m not going to do it this morning. I really thought about it, but I’m not going to do it. I could tell one of these kids to come up here, and they’d probably just hop right up and come stand next to me. It’d be so simple. Because that’s that’s how kids are. They’re fairly trusting. they listen for the most part to adults. I know we have our moments where we don’t, but for the most part, we do.

But if one of you adults, if I said, Hey, why don’t you come up here and stand next to me? You’d look at me funny, kind of like, really? Do you really want me? Like, there would be hesitation. There’s just a difference between the way kids act and think and the way they are and the way they view themselves, and the way that we as adults often do. And Jesus is trying to help them understand the need to recapture that childlike heart that’s not so worried about their own status and where they stand with everybody else, that they’ll just be who they are and that they’ll attach themselves to Jesus, and that in humility they’ll do the things that he says to do, just like a child will do.

This is the nature of the point he’s trying to make here. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest. You can almost, if you if you slow down and picture it, you can almost just see the innocence of that kid. And another thing, if I pulled a kid up here, they wouldn’t be worried about how they look or the attention being given to them for the most part. Now, maybe some kids are a little shy and don’t like that, but they’re not wrapped up in all of that. You would just kind of see their innocence. That’s why we love it. They’re cute, they’re innocent. There’s there’s no presumption, they’re not trying to get attention. This is the nature of what kids are like. They understand for the most part their role.

They understand they’re not the one leading the way, they’re not the one calling the shots. They kind of naturally sort of get all of those kinds of things. And we as adults sometimes struggle with that concept. We like to be the one in control. We like to be the one getting the glory and getting the attention and calling the shots, and all of that is sort of counter to what Jesus is telling, even his disciples who he’s surrounding around him to then go forth and proclaim the kingdom. That he said that’s not what it’s about for you. This is not about you getting attention and glory and power. This is about helping people. That’s going to be the difference between the kingdoms of men, the kingdoms that are around us even today, and the nature of Jesus’ kingdom and his congregation, his assembly.

2. Seeking the Good of Those in Our Community

It is something where you’re seeking the good of other people, not what is just best for yourself. That’s the nature of what goes on here as we continue through the text. We can we get this image of this childlike humility in the first six verses. But then he begins to introduce some other ideas. Two main ones in 7 through 14 that I think we need to talk about. And there’s a lot of little intricate things in this text, and I’ll try to kind of quickly bring them up. they’re not that big of a deal, but in so in translation, they’re not necessarily wrong or anything, but they may give us different ideas about what’s happening here. So in verses six through nine, your Bible probably has words like sin or temptation to sin, things like that.

The word there is scandalon or the verb form scandalizo, and you can kind of hear the English term that we would use there, scandal, right? Or scandalous or to scandalize those kind of ideas. And it has a range of meaning. In fact, it’s used act frequently leading up to this text. In fact, in the previous chapter 17, you remember the situation where Peter tells these people that Jesus is going to pay the temple tax, and he kind of questions Peter about this and says, Do the sons pay taxes? And has that? But in verse 27, it says, However, not to give offense. It’s the same term. it’s so it’s not always just the meaning of sin. Sometimes it is things that happen that cause people to be offended, or even more so, it’s sort of like laying a trap.

If I brought that kid up here on stage and let you kind of awe and goo over how cute they were and all of that, and I kind of snuck behind them, and then when they moved, I tripped them. How would you feel about that? That’s what that’s about. You know, you’re purposely laying a trap. You’re aiming for someone’s downfall, right? And that’s the concept of what’s going on here in this text. And he says it’s just inevitable. I mean, these kinds of things happen in the world. Woe to the world for these traps or the working or the causing of someone’s downfall. These things come in life, and we’re all gonna face these kinds of things, but woe to the one by whom temptations come.

And what he’s really getting at is I better not be doing that. And you better not be doing that. If we’re part of God’s kingdom and we’re his people, we shouldn’t be laying traps for people. We shouldn’t be seeking someone’s downfall, trying to create problems for them. And then he goes into some extreme measures, as we already talked about hey, if you’ve got things that are creating that problem for you, get rid of it. I mean, get it out of your life. And so the first of these is we ought to be seeking the good of those in our community. And let me just, I’m going to use a variety of terms this morning, but when I talk about our community, I’m talking about our congregation or our assembly.

And later on, the word church is used. I may talk about that a little bit more, and that can be a little confusing as well. But in essence, that’s the concept. It’s a congregation and an assembly. It’s a community of people who are believers in Jesus Christ. We better not be like that. That’s not what Jesus’ kingdom is supposed to be like. Everybody else is not a pawn in my story for my own personal glory. That’s not how Jesus’ kingdom works. That may be how the kingdoms of men work. And how our politicians try to advance and get attention and get more money and power or whatever it is they’re trying to do. They’re seeking for the downfall of somebody else, and you can see these news stories all the time about all these kinds of things happening.

3. We See the Value of Other People

But that’s not how God’s people act. That’s not how we advance our community. In fact, that’s how you destroy your community when those are the kinds of things that are taking place. And then the second part of this, in the following set of verses in 10 through 14, is that we see the value of other people. It’s not just that we are seeking good for others, but we also see the value, the inherent value in who they are. And this is why he keeps using this concept of the little ones, right? He has the child as an illustration, and he just kind of carries that image or that idea through. Yes, they’re small and they’re little and they’re not developed and they don’t do all the things that adults do, but these are little boys and little girls created in the image of God, who have inherent value that God cares about, right?

To use the image. And what he’s really saying is that’s me and that’s you. And we were the little ones. And God cares about every single one of us. And so the first part of that is be really careful that you’re not laying traps for another one of God’s sons or daughters. That you’re not creating problems for them that are going to cause them to stumble and fall. But also at the same time, when you look at them, we shouldn’t despise or look down on, look with contempt or even avoid certain people or those kinds of ideas. That’s really the idea behind the wording there, that see that you do not despise one of these little ones. That idea of despising, that sort of implies the inherent problem that Jesus is dealing with his disciples.

They want to be great. And when you want to be great, what do you do? You look down on other people.

And maybe others that you aren’t above yet, and then you’re looking for their downfall so that you can get above them. If that’s what you’re looking for, if you’re looking for greatness, that’s going to be the mindset. And this is what Jesus wants to root out of his disciples. They have important work to do, and they can’t get caught up in this mentality of who’s going to be greatest in the kingdom. That’s not their mission. It’s not to become great. It’s to seek the good of everyone in their community. It’s to see the value of everyone, even the little ones, even the weak ones, even the vulnerable ones, even the ones struggling. That’s really the context here. And he goes into this story about the lost sheep.

And you know, this is not a zero sum game. God has the ability to care for us all, but he’s using this image to try to help us understand the idea of leaving the 90 and 9. You know, there’s this one who goes off and is astray and is struggling. And that, even that little one, that one who’s struggling, who’s having problems, he cares so much about that when he’ll leave the other 99 to go get him. God will never leave you or forsake you. That’s not the point here. But it is trying to demonstrate how important, even from a human standpoint, the people we see as little or weak or maybe unimportant when we’re thinking like these disciples. That God values them. And they have angels in heaven, it says that see the face of God.

That’s another thing for me to think about. When I treat somebody with disrespect or disregard or I despise them, I should think about the fact that they, according to Matthew here, they have angels in heaven that see the face of God. I better take that pretty seriously. Along with the threat that comes earlier about the kind of judgment that comes upon somebody who causes one of these little ones to stumble or fall. It’d be better for them to have this terrible death of drowning deep in the sea. It’s pretty vivid. Jesus wants us to think carefully about how we treat other people. Verse 10, when he says, See that you do not despise, I think it’s important to recognize this is the opposite of what is said in verse 5.

So whoever welcomes or might say receives one such child in my name, welcomes me. When we welcome the small or the seemingly unimportant, when we welcome each other in the name of the Lord, we are welcoming him. But on the other side of that, when we avoid each other, we disregard or we disrespect, we look down on, we’re doing the same thing to the Lord. These are in opposition to each other. And remember, the principle that stands behind the teaching of Jesus, love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, and your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself, teaches these very same things in Leviticus 19. And he’s heading here toward this text that deals with conflict with someone who has sin in their life and how we handle that.

4. How You Deal with a Brother Who Is in Sin

But before he even gets there, this is just about the nature of how we treat each other or we welcome each other as family, right? There’s all this family language that we’re getting into here in this text, that we are brothers and sisters. We are a community of people who are meant to live in harmony. And how can we do that if we are despising or we’re looking down or we’re avoiding one another? Those kinds of things do not work in God’s kingdom. That’s not the Jesus way is that we receive or we welcome one another. Now we come to this text that probably receives the most attention in Matthew 18. And that is how you deal with a brother who is in sin. So it’s interesting.

There’s always lots of debate about verse 15. My Bible says if your brother sins against you.

So if there’s sin, if there’s some sort of trespass, and this is actually a different word than the word we saw earlier. The word scandalon is to kind of trip up or to cause offense or to cause somebody to stumble. This is the word sin, hamartano. And the next two sections are going to be based on this.

But this is why these kinds of things happen sometimes. You know, scribes, as they’re sitting there, they’re listening sometimes and they’re writing and they’re recording, and it’s amazing how accurate they were, but there were times because they’re not inspired in copying these manuscripts. They took it very seriously, but they weren’t inspired in doing that. And so we compare all of them, and we and it’s there’s a whole field of work that goes into this that’s really well done, and it finds these kinds of things. So some later manuscripts have this longer phrase, which is what you probably see in your Bible, if your brother sins against you. That is this phrase, Hamarte a say. If I say it faster, it’s the first one. Hammar tea say.

So you can see how that would very easily happen, right? So that explains why your Bible may have it in italics or it may have a footnote or that sort of thing. But the reality is, I think what Jesus is getting at is if you see someone in sin, right? This is how we deal with it. When someone is sin or in sin or someone has done something wrong, the idea is to deal with this directly, to do it with care, to be gentle, to have a system that is very clear. Now, before I go further in this, I also just want to point out other parts of scripture talk about ways to handle various conflicts and situations. Matthew 18 is not the only place to do that.

But it is a really key place that lots of people find a very clear path of how to handle problems when they exist. And I’m not going to go into all the other ways, we can do that some other time, but this is probably the most well-known way to go about it when there are problems or difficulties. And it’s this three-step plan that we’re going to talk about as we work through this. And the idea here is that we are not neglecting or avoiding to take care of problems that then will allow for bitterness to fester and build within the community. First of all, so many problems and difficulties are cleared up through a simple conversation.

And this can happen sometimes just through seeking some clarity in a situation, a perceived wrong, or interpreting the event, something that was said or done. And of course, the reality is, as the wise man in Ecclesiastes says, we’ve all done this. We’ve all said something that somebody else took a certain way, or we have some kind of issue, or we saw something that we thought meant some sort of thing, and then later on we talk about it and we figure out that’s not what they were trying to say, or do at all. But we’re really good at telling ourselves stories about what someone was saying or doing or how they don’t like us or whatever it might be. This sort of seems to just be human nature.

And the solution to this is not to just let it fester and build and let the story kind of grow in our mind. It is to do the hard thing, which is face conflict and actually deal with it. Go to the person and say, You said this, it hurt my feelings. Can we talk about it? Right? This is the way you handle things in a way that is mature, a way that actually is going to bring solutions that are going to avoid all sorts of other conflicts and difficulties. I think I’ve mentioned this book before in connection to this sort of thing, but Crucial Conversations is a great book that deals with these kinds of ideas. And what they recognize is that I think it’s it’s more just human nature in general, but particularly within our world, we get very caught up with feelings, and we let our feelings sort of dominate everything.

Especially when we don’t filter those feelings and establish the facts first.

Minds with ideas, things like this person doesn’t like me or they said this about me or whatever it might be. And then often, if we will just go and talk about it, we realize what someone said they said was not what they said, or whatever. There’s all sorts of ways in which this happens. Problems are rarely solved when we cater to feelings apart from facts. That’s a recipe for disaster in marriage and friendships and congregations. Establishing the facts helps cut through the priority I often will give to my feelings over what actually happened. And it’s all right here in the text. I mean, this is exactly what Jesus is saying. First, you go by yourself. You go talk to the person, and you express whatever the wrongdoing that you think happened is.

It may be that you misunderstood it, but maybe there really is wrongdoing, and you deal with it alone. And notice what it says here at the end of verse 15. If he listens to you have gained your brother. That concept there is the idea of acquiring by effort, or I like this other word, investment. You have invested in that relationship in such a way that now building has happened rather than breaking apart. Rather than allowing the negative things or the incorrect things often to come in and create problems, now we’ve actually put some effort into the conflict in a way that we have gained our brother. We have acquired this by effort, by investment in that relationship.

Hopefully, we’ve experienced this if we’re married, where we’ve had some disagreement, and rather than just letting it build and fester, we’ve talked to our spouse and we figure it out. Hopefully, we’ve experienced that. The same kinds of things can happen in friendships and in congregations. But sometimes it doesn’t work.

This person says that’s not what I did, or however it all goes down exactly. But there’s this next step that deals with what I just talked about, which is establishing the facts before riding the feelings all the way to the finish line. And that is you take one or two other people with you, that every word may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. Now, again, there’s all these little intricate things I already mentioned, but the word harema in Greek can mean word or report, but also it can be about the events as they happened. And when we’re coming together, we’re trying to kind of get a hold on what were the events as they happened. And we get a couple people there who are kind of outside figures, but working with those two people in this sort of hypothetical, but we all know is a very real kind of situation, to try to come to terms and say, here’s what actually happened.

So if it needs to be stated again, you have other witnesses there who say, Yes, we talked about this, these are the things that were said, these are the events that took place, and we have some testimony to that. But sometimes that doesn’t work either. As humans, we just sometimes are stubborn and we don’t want to listen and we don’t want to work together, and we have difficulty and trouble. And there may be sin to a point at which it needs to be addressed at a higher level. And I’m going to read this a little bit differently this time because I think sometimes if we read it the way it’s written here, it can confuse us. It’s not necessarily wrong, but the way we think of the word church, I think confuses us at times.

If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the assembly. And if he refuses to listen even to the assembly, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. It is very well noted by essentially every scholar who writes in the Gospel of Matthew that there’s nothing here about leadership. The way these steps work is you go to the person individually, you bring a couple witnesses with you, and then you tell it to the assembly if there are problems. This isn’t some back office meeting with leadership or things like that. This is serious enough that it is going to be addressed by the whole group. Now there’s a lot of reasons for that, and there’s an incentive behind that. First of all, one of the incentives for this path is you only do it if it’s actually serious enough to get you to do it.

You know, I’m not going to go rally some other people and create some issue. No, it’s serious enough. I’m going to go take care of this myself, and I’m going to go to the person. And if that doesn’t work, it’s serious enough. I’m going to get some others. And if that doesn’t work, it’s so serious, I’m going to bring this in front of everyone. Right? This is the thing Jesus is talking about here. Yes, conflict is hard, but so are a lot of things in life. And this is the path. If we believe Jesus and we want to follow him, this is the way to do it well. Do we believe in the way of Jesus or do we not? If we do, we’re going to listen to him on how we treat each other, even in the midst of things like conflict, difficulty, and particularly here, he’s dealing with sin, or at least perceived sin.

We think we saw something that’s sinful, and so we’re gonna go deal with that, and we’re gonna handle it. And the whole thing here, the one point I want us to understand about this, the reason he gives us this method or this plan is not so at the end we can say this in front of the whole assembly and embarrass and shame the person. That’s that’s actually the complete opposite of the goal. The whole path is there to minimize shame and embarrassment. We’re giving this person numerous opportunities, first of all, with just one on one to say, hey, I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant. I apologize. I wasn’t trying to give you that idea, whatever the thing is, so then it doesn’t have to grow and become something bigger.

And we’re now minimizing the embarrassment, minimizing the damage that can take place in an otherwise very contentious sort of situation. And at the same time, it’s also being taken seriously. So seriously that sometimes it does involve going before the entire congregation, before the assembly. But there’s a lot of effort, a lot of investment that goes into this prior to that.

Not necessarily punishment, it’s just the way we work through things. And one of the great points he makes is all of these things work way better when we have put significant time into fellowship before we ever get there. If I have no relationship with you, and then I want to go to you and criticize you, that probably ain’t gonna go real well. You don’t even know me. That’s gonna be your response. What kind of relationship do we have where you think you can come and you’ve perceived some wrong in me? Now it may be true. But the point is also valid effort, investment, and we’re looking to actually gain the brother. The point here again is not to shame, it is to gain. It’s to restore and to have reconciliation.

5. Should Not You Have Had Mercy?

And so the method or the path by which we do this is direct, it is gentle, it is done in a clear way, with the aim that things will come together and be in harmony. That’s the goal. It’s not to win or to be right or to elevate self or any of those kinds of things. The implied point here is that we actually are putting effort into that relationship. And that’s a pretty important part of discipline as well. Now the illustration. Because Jesus always likes to powerfully illustrate the point through very vivid stories that often make it very clear what it looks like to not do things the way that he says. And so what he’s trying to help us see through this story here is how hypocritical it is to not do what he’s talking about, if we understand our relationship both to him and to everyone else in a place like this through the lens of the cross, through the lens of God’s love and mercy, and how he cares about us.

And so Jesus then takes aim at the misunderstanding of the disciples and their desire for greatness and authority or power or whatever they want status over other people by looking at this little story where there is this man who owes 10,000 talents. Let me just briefly set this up so we understand the discrepancy of what’s happening here. If my math is correct, which it may not be, but probably is, this is about 62.4 million days’ wages. Can you imagine that? I mean, we I can’t even fathom that number, which is the point. I’ve heard it said before, I haven’t checked into this, but it sounds right, that this is the highest number they can imagine, 10,000 talents. And if we think of it in terms of this, like this is millions of days’ wages that this guy somehow owns, owes.

And we think about maybe people in our world who are, you know, billionaires, hundreds of billions of dollars they have. I mean, we can’t even fathom that amount of money. And yet, this guy is in this much debt. That’s the point. That’s what Jesus set up here. This guy, he’s in more debt than he could ever pay. It’s unimaginable. And yet he comes, he falls before the king and says, Have patience with me, I will pay. No, you won’t, you can’t ever pay. That’s more than you could ever pay. But he’s trying, he’s begging, right? He’s asking for mercy, and in pity and sympathy, the master releases him from his debt. I want to point out as well, this affects other people around him. It’s not just him, but it’s his wife and his children who are going to be sold to pay this debt.

And he begs for mercy, and it’s given to him. But then he goes out and he finds a fellow servant who owes him a hundred denarii. And he seizes him. He takes this opportunity that he’s been granted, this freedom, to seize, take advantage, choke him, saying, pay me what you owe. A hundred days’ wages. That’s what this guy owes him. He was just forgiven 60 plus million days’ wages, and now he’s choking somebody and attacking them for not paying him a hundred days wages. That’s about one in 624,000 times difference right there. Same story. The guy falls before him. Have patience with me, I will pay you. He actually probably could pay him that. Because it’s nothing like what he owed, but he refuses. He throws him in prison until he’s going to pay the debt, which, how likely is that?

It’s just ugly. It’s hateful. Has no regard for his fellow servant. He’s going to hold this over his head as long as he can. And of course, others noticed. And they come to the master and say, Did you see how your servant acted? You just forgave him all this debt. And he went out and he found some other person to strangle and attack and demand that he pay him. Verse 33, and should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you. James says it this way for judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. James 2, verse 13. He’s getting that straight from the Lord Himself. While it may give me a warped sense of greatness to judge others as below me, it actually only reveals the place in my heart that has not been fully surrendered to Jesus.

Whenever I act like this unmerciful servant, it just shows me how much I’m not following him. How I’ve put myself above his ways. I’m seeking my own glory, just like these disciples who are looking for who’s greatest. Instead of humbly submitting to the ways of Jesus, even in dealing with conflict, I’m looking out for my own best interest. I’m not looking out for the good of others. I’m not valuing the life of others. I’m willing to neglect and avoid and whatever else to hold myself up while pushing them down. That’s what that guy’s doing while he’s choking that man and throwing him in prison. Not understanding the magnitude of the mercy and the forgiveness and the love that was demonstrated to him by the master. So as we think about what Jesus says here in this account in Matthew 18, particularly in connection with everything else, the idea of what is scandalous or sinful or wrong, I want to conclude it in this way.

Conclusion

It is scandalous for God’s people to treat each other with harshness, contempt, or neglect, lacking mercy and withholding familial love. Jesus’ message is that brothers and sisters do not act that way toward each other. And if they do, it compromises the peace and the unity of the community. And that pride, just like these disciples, seeking to be greatest, is the source of this problem. And it is a failure. Maybe this is the biggest problem. It’s a failure to appreciate just how huge God’s mercy is toward me when I do this. He ends in 34 and 35, much like what we saw in chapter 5, saying, In anger, his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt, which he cannot do. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.

I’ll just say what Jesus is saying here and the phrases that we like to use is that this is the salvation issue. It matters a whole lot more than a lot of other things. So much so that Jesus puts quite a bit of content into this idea, knowing that as humans, these are the sorts of things we deal with from time to time. And in his grace and in his love and his mercy, he gives us a way to work through it if we will trust him and do it the way he says to.

Community of believers who grow, who are in harmony, who are truly what Jesus wanted when he said, Upon this rock, the testimony that he is the Christ, the Son of the living God, I will build my assembly, my congregation, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. We dealt with some hard things this morning. I know that. But I want us to see the beauty of what Jesus is doing for us. He wants us to live in harmony. He wants us to be a community that loves each other. And he wants you to be a part of it if you’re not. There’s hard things in life. There’s hard things out there too. It’s not just in here, and we people use this model actually all over the place because it works.

And it’s what Jesus gave us. But he wants us to live in a way that is best for us and that is working something for us far greater than what we have here. And if you need that this morning, we want to help you with that. If you need to come to Jesus Christ and give your life to him and begin a path that is going to work, not just in this life, but in the life to come, we want to help you. We can baptize you into Christ this morning. Why don’t you come now as we stand and we sing?