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Christ’s Demand For Compassion | David Fisher

Well, y’all have homework assignment now. Your homework is call somebody who wasn’t here, say it wasn’t that bad of weather this today. You tell them, come on, tell them we were missing, that might have been flooded.

Tell them we would have brought a boat if they just let us know. No, so glad to have y’all, the brave ones here, and we got folks who came from up north. They have t-shirts on and short sleeves on and they’re probably thinking these southerners don’t, they don’t even know what cold weather is.

I’m so glad, I’m a warm weather guy, but y’all like warm weather? No? We got a civil war going on here between the hots and the colds. So good to have y’all here this morning. Today’s going to be one of the most sobering messages I think Jesus ever speaks about, and we’re going to get to it here in a few minutes.

If you’ve been here for the last several weeks, three weeks ago we spoke about God is a God of compassion, right? The compassion of God, that’s his character, that’s his nature. The next week we talked about Jesus and how Jesus operated in that compassion, and when he saw the crowds scattered like sheep without a shepherd, he was moved with compassion, right? And then last week we talked about compassion for your neighbor, right? For somebody that you see who has been wounded. So it’s compassion of God’s character, compassion of Jesus in moving and giving guidance and strength and compassion to his sheep, and then compassion to those who are wounded in our way.

Today we’re going to talk about compassion when you’re the one who’s been wounded. Have you ever been wounded? Only a few? I’d like we could all raise our hands. You’ve been wounded? Yes.

Sometimes those wounds leave scars. Sometimes they’re wounds that have been afflicted by others. Sometimes they’re wounds that you inflicted upon yourself.

All of us, I think, could say we’ve been wounded. So what do we do with that, and how on earth does that deal with God’s compassion? Jesus had been given a teaching to his disciples about trespasses, and they’d been telling him of what you do when a brother sins against you. You go to them and talk to them alone, and if they won’t, you know, if they won’t accept it, won’t deal with it, if they won’t hear you, you know, if they hear you, you’ve gained a brother, but if they won’t hear you, then you take one or two with you.

That’s biblical conflict resolution. You take one or two with you, and if not, then you may even get the church involved. And so Jesus was given that teaching, and then Peter speaks up, or in chapter 18 of Matthew, if you’re going to be looking for some of the scriptures, we’re going to be dealing with really one main parable that Jesus teaches in Matthew 18, starting in verse 21.

And Peter now says, well, okay, you’ve told us how to deal with conflict, and if somebody has wounded us, or if somebody has sinned against us, how many times we got to do it? Even a bad dog gets one free bite, right? You know, first dog, first time the dog bites you, it’s, you know, shame on him, second time, shame on me, because now I know he’s a dog, he’s a biter, right? And so he says, and I think he’s trying to be a little extra, giving Jesus some extra room here. How many times? About seven times? And I think he really thought he was kind of really going overboard, saying seven times, and Jesus says, no, 70 times seven, for you math teachers. 490, right? That’s a lot.

And I don’t think he’s really talking about the number, says you about 489 right now, so don’t do it again, you know what I mean? He didn’t say, he’s not talking about the number, he’s talking about the principle. And so Jesus, as he did with speaking parables, tells just a wonderful story. Well, I’m almost not saying it’s a wonderful story, it’s a tough story.

Jesus said to him, I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to 70 times seven. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, this kingdom, is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owned him 10,000 talents.

Stop you right there. We don’t buy and sell with talents and denarii, so let me make sure you understand how much this is. In that time, they had a coin called a denarii.

That was a one day’s wage. 6,000 denarii made one talent. You do the math, even if you got your calculator out there, that’s 60 million denarii.

60 million days wages is how much this guy owed the king. The word, the Greek word is kind of a myriad, it’s like innumerable, more than you can count. They’d also use it as 10,000.

But the point is, that’s a lot of money. More than that person can pay back in 160 lifetimes. So I think the point is saying this servant owed more than he could possibly ever, ever, ever, ever even think about paying.

Verse 25, but as he was not able to pay, can y’all understand why he couldn’t pay now? I mean, I don’t know how you get that much debt, but that’s a lot of debt. 60 million days worth of working, a lot of debt. Even Visa and MasterCard don’t let you go that high, do they? But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded him that he be sold with his wife and children and all that he had and that payment would be made.

It wasn’t going to be enough payment, but it was going to be all he had, all you got. You’re going to jail. You’re going to prison.

You’re all being sold and you did it to yourself. That’s pretty much what the king had the right to do and the right to say. Verse 26, the servant therefore fell down before him saying, Master, have patience with me and I will pay you all.

Why? The check’s in the mail, right? I’m going to pay it all. Could he? No way. You think the master knew that? Absolutely.

He says, you and an army of people couldn’t pay me what you owe me. That’s the amount of debt you’re in, buddy. But it said, verse 27, then that the master of that servant was moved with what? Was moved with what? With compassion.

The very character and nature of God, he’s moved with compassion. He released him and forgave him of the debt. Can you imagine? Oh, and all that money, all that debt in the master, because you begged him and pleaded with him, had compassion on you and it’s all gone.

Count cleared, balance zero and you’d be feeling pretty good, wouldn’t you? Verse 28, but that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, a hundred days wages. Sixty million, a hundred. Sixty million days, a hundred days.

He’s just got his account wiped clean and now he goes to his fellow servant, says he lays hands on him and took him by the throat. Can’t you see it? Took him by the throat and said, pay me what you owe. So the fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him saying the exact same things that he himself had said to the king.

Have patience with me and I will pay you all. And that man could have done it eventually, right? And he would not, but he went and threw him into prison until he should pay the debt. And the moods change in this story.

Verse 31, so when his fellow servant saw what had been done, they were very grieved. Could you imagine being a bystander and seeing it all happen? Man, something’s wrong here. So what’d they do? They went and told the master.

All that had been done and the master after he called him said to him, you wicked, wicked servant. I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not also have had what? Compassion.

Compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you. And his master was angry and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due him. Verse 35 and here’s the kicker.

This is Jesus speaking. So my heavenly father will do to each also due to each of you. So my heavenly father also will do to you if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother, his trespasses.

I don’t know about y’all, but that hurts. So my heavenly father will do to you also will do to you if each one of you from his heart does not forgive his brothers, his trespasses. I don’t know what it is within us that thinks that we have the right to hold debts against others who have wounded us when we’ve been forgiven for so much, but we do, don’t we? You ever had trouble with forgiveness? Even as a Christian, have you had trouble with forgiveness? I’m going to tell you, this is why I said it’s the most, in my opinion, one of the most sobering things that Jesus ever said because he’s talking now here to believers who’ve been forgiven and he says, so my heavenly father will do to you if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brothers, their trespasses.

And about this time, the loophole lawyer kicks in, says, well, you know, he said, if my brother, see it’s not my brother, it’s my sister. It’s not my brother, it’s my daddy. It’s not my brother, it’s uncle Fred.

It’s not my brother, it’s my neighbor. It’s not my brother, it’s that person down the street. It’s not my brother, it’s my enemy.

He says, well, you know, maybe this doesn’t apply to me. Well, I think the loophole lawyer would be giving you some bad advice. Over in Mark, I’ve got one more verse I want to turn to.

Over in Mark 11, Jesus is talking about the same type of thing and he says in verse 25, chapter 11, verse 25, Jesus is talking, given in teachings and instructions to his disciples and he says, and whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against who? Anyone. Anyone. That’s your enemy, that’s your brother, that’s your aunt, that’s your crazy uncle Fred.

That’s all of them. Anyone. Anyone.

Anyone. Anyone. If you have anything against anyone, forgive him that your father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.

But if you’ll not forgive, neither will your father in heaven forgive your trespasses. I think that loophole’s closed, don’t you? In the essence of it is we’ve been given such a great gift by God’s grace. Each and every one of us have been forgiven debts that you could never pay back.

And you know what he did for you? He spilled his son’s blood for you and paid for it all so that your debt would be cleared. So that you could walk before him and say, my debt has been paid. Hallelujah.

Praise God. Thank you, God. But in our lifetimes, especially the longer you live, the more chance you have to have barnacles attaching to your ship.

It’s true. The older you get, the more times you’ve been wounded and the more times you’ve been wounded, the more scars you develop. And the more scars you develop, the more it’s affecting you more and more and more.

And you just, I know some of the meanest people that I know. There was an old man who lived in our neighborhood. He would say, get off my lawn.

He was just a mean old man. As a young kid, we kind of thought it was funny our wiffle ball would go bounce and we’d take turns deciding who would go get it out of his yard. And if he saw it, he’d go grab it before you got there.

And he had a big box of balls and stuff, frisbees. I don’t know how much he had been hurt in his life, but my guess is he’d been hurt a lot. We decided to go Christmas caroling at Mr. Fitzpatrick’s house one day and he slammed the door on our face.

The truth is we were being ugly. We kind of got a kick out of it. I’m ashamed to say that, but it’s the truth.

We just added another barnacle to his boat. So what do you do with the wounds? So what you normally do is you start taking care of it yourself. You nurse your wounds and you pay attention to your wound until finally it quits hurting, until then something else hurts it and you get re-wounded and you get re-injured and it just kind of stays fresh all the time.

And sometimes it heals over and you develop a scar and you don’t think about it much, but then later that person’s thought comes to your mind and man it all comes fresh back again. Have y’all ever done that before? That person who, and I’m not trying to justify what that person did to you, what they did to you was wrong. And it was, there’s a reason for that debt to be there.

It hurt. It hurt bad. There was nothing good about what they did.

There was nothing right about what they did. They are in your debt. They should have come to you and asked for forgiveness.

But they didn’t. Well, maybe that’s the other loophole that we can look here in the story. It says, well, you know, I can understand where if they came and begged you, if they came down on their knees in front of you and begged, then you got to forgive them.

Y’all think that loophole works? I don’t. It’s a man named Jesus who was hanging on a cross with people who were killing him at that very moment. And he said, what? If y’all will come down here and beg in front of me, I’ll forgive you.

Is that what he said? He said, I forgive father, father, father, forgive them because they don’t know what they’re doing. There was a man named Steven, who was the first Christian who was killed, who was stoned with Paul standing right there, holding everybody’s clothes. And they were stoning him and he saw heaven.

And he said, father, do not hold this sin against them. Do you think Jesus requires them to come ask you and beg you for forgiveness before you’re required to forgive? I sure hope you don’t because you may be waiting for a long time. They may never come to you, but you can hold on to that debt.

And you can say, they won’t come talk to me. They won’t come apologize. They show no remorse.

Therefore I can hold it against them. And I believe Jesus would kindly and tenderly tell you, grab you by the face and say, my heavenly father will do the same to you. If you do not from your heart, forgive them their trespasses.

This one hurts. This one doesn’t make any sense. But I really believe if we’re going to be followers of Jesus Christ, we ought to do what Jesus did.

And if we’re going to be followers of Jesus Christ, we need to pay attention to the words that he gives and the words that he says, especially when he’s telling us about what his father will or will not do. Compassion. Compassion is the foundation of forgiving others.

We don’t forgive them because they deserve it. We don’t forgive them because they’ve begged for it. We don’t forgive them even the horrible things that they’ve done for any other reason that it is God’s character to have compassion.

And I want to become more like Jesus, don’t you? Because it’s how Jesus looked at the sheep and said, we’ve got to forgive them. Man, it’s easy to talk about compassion when we’re talking about God, what God’s done. It’s easy to talk about compassion when we’re talking about what Jesus has done.

It’s even not too hard to talk about compassion when we’re talking about whether I should do something for those who have been wounded. But I’m going to tell you, it’s tough to deal with compassion when the wound has been inflicted upon you. Isn’t it? This isn’t one of those messages where we go out jumping and screaming and yelling.

But I’m telling you, it ought to be one that shakes us to our core to say, God, I don’t want to be like that. Those of you who have forgiven people who’ve done horrible things, it just gives you a release that you never imagined. He talks about he delivered the king, delivered him to the torturers.

Some will say he’s talking about salvation. Some say it’s no, it’s just you start paying for, you just, it just accumulates on you. I don’t know the correct answer, but I’m going to tell you, I think forgiveness is important.

Forgiveness is what gets you into the kingdom. So I would not be speaking honestly if I said, I think this is a matter of whether we’re in the kingdom or not. Because this person was forgiven and then he was put back in jail.

So my encouragement to you as a pastor, as an elder of this church is we need to be serious about forgiveness and we need to be serious about the compassion that God expects us to have for everyone, especially for those who’ve wounded you. I didn’t mean it’s going to be easy. I didn’t mean it’s going to be something that you really want to hear, but I tell you, it’s something we need to hear.

You may have buried it so down deep that you don’t even realize that it’s bothering you. I’m asking you to pray, God, show me and reveal to me any unforgiveness in my heart because I don’t want any of it. I did that back several months ago and God brought back to my mind somebody that I really hadn’t forgiven.

I said, God, I’m sorry I haven’t forgiven them. And I’m going to tell you it helped me. The medical profession is just now getting caught up with this because you know what unforgiveness does to you and your body and your mind? Anybody know? Horrible things, doesn’t it? You’re not hurting them.

You’re drinking the poison that you want them to drink. It’s affecting your mind. It’s affecting your body.

There are people who have heart problems and stomach problems and gut problems and bone problems because of the bitterness and the anger that they just holding in. You’re torturing yourself. You’re not torturing them.

They could care less. Let it go. Let it go.

Let it go. Not just with your words, but from your heart. Let it go.

Be free. Be free. Can you just say that to them? Think of that person in your mind and just say, be free.

Be free. I pray God blesses you. You really want to know whether you’ve forgiven somebody or not.

Can you pray that God would bless them? Can you pray, God, I want you to bless. And now you know you’re starting to get there. But if you can’t because you really want God to punish them, you ain’t set them free yet.

They live in rent free in your head. The problem is you pay the price. You’re probably tired about hearing about compassion.

This is the fourth week we’ve talked about it. This is the last week that we’re going to talk about it in this series. But I bet we’ll come back to it because it’s important for you.

Jesus gives his disciples a prayer that they ask for him to teach them. Matthew and Luke phrase it just a little bit different. It’s different than the way I memorized it growing up.

It’s father, you know, forgive them their trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. That’s how I memorized it as a child. Like that was the Catholic version, I think that people just memorized back in the day.

That’s the one my mama taught me. That’s the one I learned. But it’s stated a little bit differently in Matthew and Luke.

Over in Matthew six, he says, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. That’s a prayer that Jesus is saying his disciples should pray. Father, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

Over in Luke, it states it just a little bit differently. Over in Luke chapter 11 verse four, he says, and forgive us our sins for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. Now we’re either saying that prayer, lying to God, or we’re doing it with God.

I need your help to forgive them the way that you’ve forgiven me. But could you imagine actually having that anger and that bitterness towards somebody, but you’re praying, Lord, forgive me our sins, but I also forgive everyone who’s indebted to us. And you know what the Holy Spirit would be saying? You’re lying.

You’re lying to yourself, but more importantly, you’re lying to God, because this is a prayer. Isn’t that amazing? It’s all I got today. I will tell you, it’s a mouthful.

That’s a stomach full. That’s a heaping helping of some tough stuff, isn’t it? If I’m really going to be honest, and I want us to be honest, not just to yourself, but to be honest with each other, but more importantly, be honest with God, because if I’m going to pray the Lord’s prayer and say, God, forgive me my debts in the same way that I forgive others, and I’m in a state of unforgiveness, what I’m actually praying is God, don’t forgive me completely. Y’all understand how serious this is? Can you imagine praying, God, please don’t forgive me for everything? Because we want to be completely forgiven, don’t we? That’s what Jesus paid for.

He paid for you. We’re going to spend a little bit of time praying, and we’ve got three of our elders out of town today, so we’ve got two elders left here today, and will the prayer partners and the elders come up here to the right hand? You may have a hard time. You may be having a hard time, and I understand that.

I’m not trying to minimize the difficulty it is. It is hard. The demands of Christ are hard.

Anybody who says they are easy is fooling you. It is a tough, tough road, but I’m going to tell you, His Holy Spirit will give the ability to do it, and if you’ve got some unforgiveness in your heart, you want somebody to pray with you about it, please do it, but I’m going to tell you this. I believe that a lot of the sicknesses that we experience are because of unforgiveness in our hearts.

I believe that a lot of the torture that we go through is because of unforgiveness in our lives, and before we pray for somebody to be healed, we really ought to ask them, is there any unforgiveness in your life going on right now? Because, man, that’s got to be dealt with. That’s got to be dealt with and leave it at the cross. Leave it at the cross.

Jesus gives you the ability through the Holy Spirit to leave it at the cross because Jesus died for their sin too, didn’t He? Man, I want them to have God’s grace on them. Amen? Amen. Y’all stand together.

If you have any prayer needs, if you want to pray, if you want somebody to pray over you, prayer partners and elders will be right down here to the sun.