Family Caroling - Two Gifts

Description

In this message from Matthew 18:21-35, Dr. Kurt Bjorklund explores how God's extravagant forgiveness—canceling a debt we could never repay—should transform how we respond to those who've hurt us. Discover why refusing to forgive others reveals we may not fully grasp the incredible gift of grace we've already received through Jesus Christ.

Summary and Application

With just days left before Christmas, most of us are thinking about gifts—what we've given, what we've received, and what's still left to wrap. But what if the most important gift of Christmas isn't something we can put under a tree? In his recent message, Kurt explored an unlikely Christmas text—the parable of the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18:21-35—to help us understand the staggering difference between God's gift to us and what we're asked to give to others.

Two Gifts of Wildly Different Proportions

The parable begins with Peter asking Jesus how many times he should forgive someone who sins against him. "Up to seven times?" Peter offers, probably thinking he's being generous. Jesus responds with a story about two debts that couldn't be more different.

The first servant owed his master 10,000 talents—what Kurt translates as roughly $10 billion in today's terms, or "19,013 years" worth of wages. This wasn't a credit card that got out of hand; this was likely the result of corruption or gross negligence in a position of authority. When called to account, the servant simply begged for mercy, and astonishingly, "the servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go" (Matthew 18:27).

The second debt was 100 denarii—about 100 days of wages, or roughly $20,000. As Kurt put it, "those numbers are hard for us to get our heads around," so he reframed them in terms of time: "19,000 years versus 13 days. That's the comparison that's being drawn here in this text."

After being forgiven an astronomical debt, the first servant immediately went out and found someone who owed him this comparatively tiny amount. When that person begged for patience, the forgiven servant "refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison" (Matthew 18:30).

The Problem of Unforgiveness

When the other servants witnessed this shocking display, they were "outraged"—a word Kurt notes is actually "excessively sad or grieved" in the original Greek. The master calls the servant back and declares, "You wicked servant... I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?" (Matthew 18:32-33).

Kurt explains that the word "wicked" here carries multiple meanings: "morally corrupt... worthless... guilty... sick... and stingy." It's a devastating assessment of someone who received everything but gave nothing.

The parable concludes with sobering words from Jesus: "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or your sister from the heart" (Matthew 18:35).

Three Lessons for Christmas

Kurt drew out three essential lessons from this passage:

First, every one of us is offered the excessive gift of God's grace. "If you're alive today," Kurt said, "the message of Christmas, the message of Jesus Christ, is that he came to earth to pay a price that he didn't owe, that you and I cannot pay so that we can share in his eternity." He pointed to John 3:16-18, noting that God sent Jesus "not to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."

Second, when we refuse to extend grace to others, we likely don't really know the grace we've received, or we're not living in it. Kurt referenced Paul David Tripp's concept of vertical versus horizontal forgiveness: "If you have been given something so incredible as God's grace in your life, then it will seem petty to you to hold on to a little offense from somebody else."

He challenged his listeners: "Do you find yourself annoyed by the way other people act? Maybe it's around the holidays, somebody comes over and they don't help as much as you think they should help, or they bring up topics you don't want them to bring up, or they don't give gifts that are at the same level you gave, and you just find yourself being annoyed." These moments reveal whether we're truly living in the reality of God's grace.

Third, you and I owe more than we can pay, and only in Jesus can your debt be met. Kurt emphasized that believing in Jesus isn't just intellectual assent—it's trust. Using the analogy of a chair, he explained: "If I were to say, I believe that this chair could hold my weight, but I wouldn't sit in it because I was afraid it wouldn't hold my weight, I don't actually believe that it holds my weight. The way that it holds my weight is when I trust it enough to sit in it."

The Heart of Christmas Generosity

Kurt shared a personal story about accidentally breaking his son's car taillight while playing disc golf. Someone had to absorb the cost—and that's the point of the gospel. "When you and I understand Christmas, we say, God has paid the cost. And then we can say, I can pay the cost for you."

He concluded with a powerful question: "Do you want to be the servant who says, I've been gifted much, I will gift much, or the servant who says, I've been gifted much, I'm not gifting you anything?"

The holidays often surface broken relationships—family members we don't see, Christmas cards that feel like mere courtesy, old wounds that still ache. But Kurt offers a better way: "God has already paid, and out of the surplus that he's paid, I can choose the path of generosity and forgiveness."

Reflect and Respond

As you prepare for Christmas, consider these questions:

1. Who in your life are you treating like they owe you the $20,000 debt, while forgetting that God has forgiven your $10 billion debt? Is there someone you need to extend grace to this Christmas season, recognizing that what they owe you is small compared to what you've been forgiven?

2. What does your response to minor offenses reveal about how deeply you've grasped God's grace? When you find yourself easily annoyed or keeping score with others, could it be an indicator that you're not fully living in the reality of the extravagant gift you've already received?

This Christmas, may we be people who've been so transformed by God's excessive gift that generosity and forgiveness flow naturally from our lives.

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  Introduction

  Good morning. Merry Christmas. It is great to be together this weekend in Wexford, in the chapel in Butler, in the Strip district, in Bridgeville, online. And so let's pray together as we often do to begin this portion of our gathering.

  God, we ask today that you would speak to each of us, and we ask that my words would reflect your word content and in tone and in emphasis. And we pray this in Jesus name, Amen.

  So there are four days left till Christmas. And what that means is that if you have not finished your Christmas shopping and wrapping, you have four days left to get it all done. Now, how many of you have finished everything as far as your Christmas preparations in terms of presents? All right, all right. Not bad. Not bad. Now, the rest of us still have something to do. And the problem with being at four days is that when you're at four days, there is really not a lot of time to order online. So you actually have to go to a store and it becomes a whole thing.

  But I have a question for you, and it has to do with presents. So if we were to assume that these two presents, the bigger one and the smaller one, contain the exact same thing on the inside. So imagine it's little chocolates that are all the same size, same quality little chocolates, same size, same quality. Or maybe a stack of dollar bills, you know, inside the little box, inside the big box. Which present would you rather be given? Would you rather be given the small present or the big present?

  Now, some of you are probably like, well, it must be a trick question. I'll take the small. It is not a trick question. The answer is generally, I want whatever is more abundant, whatever is bigger than smaller, because—not because I'm greedy, but just because more of something that's good is better than less of something that's good.

  The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant

  And today, I want us to think about Christmas through a story that we don't often associate with Christmas. I'm thinking of Matthew, chapter 18, verses 21 through 35. And it's tabbed in most Bibles. The parable of the unmerciful Servant. Join me as I read these verses, verse 21 and following.

  Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother who sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but 77 times. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him 10,000 bags of gold was brought to him. 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. At this, the servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

  "But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him 100 silver coins, and he grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me,' he demanded. His fellow servant fell on his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me and I'll pay it back.' But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt.

  "When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened. Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger, his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all that he owed."

  Verse 35. This is how my heavenly Father will treat you unless you forgive your brother or your sister from your heart.

  Now, this is the word of the Lord, and as I said, it's not often thought of as a Christmas passage, but here's where I see Christmas in this. You have two different size gifts that were requested. One large—you owe the bags of gold—and the other small, the pieces of silver. And the one is forgiven the debt, and the other is held responsible for the debt. And the way that the story unfolds is that then the servants get outraged and they say, this is not how it should be. And verse 35 is this ultimate statement where he says, this is how it will be if you don't forgive your brother, your sister, from the heart.

  You know, the holidays are a time when a lot of our broken relationships come to the surface, whether they be family members, people we used to work with, friends, people where there's been some falling out and we don't see them. We don't send Christmas cards. Maybe the Christmas cards still come, but you get the card and you say, oh, that's just a courtesy, because the relationship isn't what it used to be. And it's actually an issue of disproportionate gifts.

  The Excessive Gift

  So let's just think about this passage for a moment. First, we have what I'm just going to say is an excessive gift in the text that we have here. In the NIV, they do a nice job of trying to translate this so that we can understand the text. And it says 10,000 bags of gold. And in the original language, some translations still translate it this way. It'll say 10,000 talents. And what 10,000 talents are, is a talent—if you look at the footnote in your Bible and the NIV has this right down in the footnotes—it'll say that 10,000 talents is like a year. Each talent is a year of a day laborer's work. So if you were to take whatever the current wage is and multiply it for a year times 10,000, then you start to get an idea of the number.

  So I just did some quick research. And the median salary in our country today is a little over $60,000. So if you make more than $60,000 in a year, you are in the top half. If you make a little less than 60, you are in the bottom half. But for easy math, let's just say $50,000 is this number. And easy math, because 50 times 10,000 times 20 kind of is how you get to get to this idea of $10 billion was this number. It says here in the footnote, Greek, 10,000 talents. A talent is worth about 20 years of a day wage. So 1 year times 20 times 10,000, $50,000. $10 billion is how big this gift was.

  Now, in order for a gift or a debt to be this big, it's not like you just keep like racking up your credit card and you get to $10 billion. This had to have probably included some kind of a position of authority within the government, probably something dishonest or at least gross negligence to end up with this kind of a debt. And yet when he is called to account, he simply says, please be merciful to me. And the master is merciful to him. He says, okay, I forgive your debt. $10 billion forgiven just outright. It's an excessive gift.

  The Unreasonable Response

  But then there's this unreasonable gift. And I say unreasonable because here, this is a request from somebody who owes him. We're told in the text that he owed him a hundred silver coins is what this text says. And 100 silver coins, if you go back down to the bottom, a denarii. So this is a day wage is basically what this was. And so 100 silver coins means it's 100 days of work. So if there are 260 work days in a year again, and you work 100 of them, what that means is again, at a $50,000 like salary, it's approximately $20,000 a year. So you have 10 billion and 20,000.

  Now, those numbers are hard for us to get our heads around, so I tried to just get a little bit of a way to think about this that would help us think about it. So let's think about it in terms of time instead of dollars. So 10 billion is equal to 19,013 years, whereas 20,000 in the same scale would be worth 13 and about a half days. Or to put it another way, it's 1,100 generations versus two weeks or 190 centuries versus 0.4% or 4% of a year. In other words, this is an incredible difference between the unreasonable gift. This huge gift—like this is not proportional. This would be this little symbol, and this would be bigger. 19,000 versus 13 days. 19,000 years versus 13 days. That's the comparison that's being drawn here in this text.

  And so this man, after he's forgiven, given this incredible gift, forgiven this incredible debt, goes out, and he finds somebody who owes him this little bit, and he says, I can't give this to you. You owe me.

  And here's what we get as a reaction. Verse 31 says this: "When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened." The word here for outraged is actually a translation of two Greek words. It's a word that means to be sad. And then there's a word that means excessively. So excessively sad or grieved, and nicely translated as outraged. But it was saying that as people saw it, they're like, what? Isn't this the guy who was just forgiven this massive debt and he throws this other guy in prison?

  And then in verse 32, it says, "Then the master called the servant in and he said, 'You wicked servant.'" Wicked. That's an intense word. The way that this can be translated, according to Louw and Nida, who wrote a lexicon that's about semantic domains—so all of the possible ways that a word could be translated—here, just a few of how they said it could be translated: wicked, which is how it's seen here, morally corrupt. It could be translated as worthless. Somebody who has little positive to add. It could be translated as guilty, it could be translated as sick, and it could be translated as stingy.

  Now, maybe the way that it should be translated is simply wicked, morally bankrupt. But certainly this is speaking about somebody who's stingy, somebody who's guilty, somebody who isn't bringing a lot of value. And then it says this again, verse 35, after the man is taken and told that he should have had mercy on his fellow servant and thrown into jail, says, "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or your sister from the heart." And so he pushes this in.

  So just to translate this whole thing again, you're given this as a gift because you owe something that you cannot pay. And somebody says, here's everything you need. Somebody else owes you this and they can't pay. And you say, no, no, no way, I'm not going to do anything with it. And you take these verses at the end of Matthew 18, and he says, you wicked, worthless servant. This is how it will be for you. If you can't forgive, then you won't be forgiven either. I mean, these are some of the most striking words in the New Testament around this.

  Three Lessons for Christmas

  So how does this play into Christmas again? Well, certainly, as I said, this time of year highlights some of the brokenness of relationships, but it also highlights the greatness of the gift of God. And so here are the lessons that I just would like to draw out of this.

  Lesson 1: Every One of Us Is Offered the Excessive Gift of God's Grace

  First, that is, every one of us is offered the excessive gift of God's grace. If you're alive today, the message of Christmas, the message of Jesus Christ, is that he came to earth to pay a price that he didn't owe, that you and I cannot pay so that we can share in his eternity. The words that are used for what we owe are our sin because it's our wages of sin that produces this penalty of death. But it's the gift of God that brings eternal life.

  One of the great passages that's well known is John 3:16. You can probably quote it. Here's what it says: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." There's Christmas in a sentence, but listen to what comes right after it. Verse 17 and 18: "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son."

  The excessive gift of God's grace is available because Jesus came because he went to a cross. And whoever believes in him, what we're told, has this excessive gift already given to them. And so in the story that we read in Matthew 18, if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you are the person, I am the person who has been gifted all of this incredible grace. You may not think of yourself that way. You may prefer to think of yourself as having earned your way, or maybe as your debt not being that great. But the point here is that if you are somebody who's come to trust Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you have been forgiven something that you could not pay. You have been gifted something that you could never earn. So there's a gift that's available to all.

  Lesson 2: When We Refuse to Extend Grace to Others, We Don't Really Know the Grace We've Received

  But here's the second lesson, and that is, when we refuse to extend grace to others, it means that we likely don't really know the grace that we've received, or we're not living in it. Now, I realize that's a lot of words, so let me just say it again. It's on the screens here. But when we refuse to extend grace to others, it means we likely don't really know the grace we have received or we're not living in it, is what this means.

  Paul David Tripp writes about the difference between vertical forgiveness and horizontal forgiveness. And what he talks about is this idea that in order to really understand horizontal forgiveness, to give it—that we need to experience vertical forgiveness. And the reason I like the idea is because what he's saying is this: if you have been given something so incredible as God's grace in your life, then it will seem petty to you to hold on to a little offense from somebody else.

  Now, I know some of you right now are saying, well, wait a second, wait a second. You don't know the offense that somebody did against me. You don't understand the things that have been done in the past. And you're right, I don't. But again, don't miss the point of this. I mean, if you're a kid here, you get this, and that is, if you had this really important piece of art that you had completed in art class, and you loved it, and it was beautiful, and somebody took your art, and you all of a sudden saw that it had been soiled in some way, and you were upset. But then as they had soiled your art, you inadvertently destroyed somebody else's entirely, who had done the same art project and had done it beautifully, and they were thrilled with it, and you just happened to step on it, crush it, destroy it in some way. And that person was gracious to you and said, "Oh man, don't worry about it. Look, I'll do another one." And you turned around to the person who had touched yours and soiled it with a little spot where they had just kind of nudged some things together. And you're like, "I am so upset." I mean, you get the disparity here. I mean, that again, doesn't even begin to capture it.

  Here's again what this text is driving at. And that is when you have experienced the grace of God, then you will forgive. So when we don't forgive, what it means is that either we have not really experienced the grace of God or we're not living in the reality of it. It means that we are easily offended, or when we're easily offended, that it's an indicator that we are not living in the grace of God.

  Do you find yourself annoyed by the way other people act? Maybe it's around the holidays, somebody comes over and they don't help as much as you think they should help, or they bring up topics you don't want them to bring up, or they don't give gifts that are at the same level you gave, and you just find yourself being annoyed. What is it that's going on? Well, at its heart, at its core, what it is, is it's a moment where you're saying, I have the right to be judge and jury over another person because I don't feel like I've been forgiven.

  I think this is where feeling superior to others comes into play. When we feel like we have been superior to somebody else, what we're doing is we're not understanding the difference of these gifts. What we're doing instead is we are living in this place where we say, I have a right to feel superior to you.

  So the lessons are, first, that there's this excessive gift that is offered to everyone. It's available to anyone. And then secondly, that if we refuse to extend grace to others, it means, at least in part, that we really don't know the grace we've received, or at a minimum, we're not living in it.

  Lesson 3: You and I Owe More Than We Can Pay—Only in Jesus Can Your Debt Be Met

  And then third, you and I owe more than we can pay. And only in Jesus can your debt be met or is your debt met. You and I, we owe more than we can pay. It is only in Jesus that our debt can be met.

  I mentioned this about the $10 billion kind of frame of reference. $10 billion is so much money that very few people, even the wealthiest people in our society, could ever come to. And again, the point here is just it's beyond. It's beyond what you could do. And the idea here is you and I, because Jesus came because God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him would never perish but have eternal life. Because of this, we can come.

  And so here's what this means today for you, for me, for any of us who are listening. We need to recognize that Jesus and come to him, recognize our sinfulness, and come to Jesus. If you have not come to Jesus, this gift, this incredible gift doesn't come to us simply because we live. It comes to us because we believe. John 3:16 again talks about this idea of belief. God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son that whosoever believes.

  Now you can believe in an intellectual way of saying, well, that makes some sense, but the word believe in English often has this idea of just kind of like a vague hope. But believe in the original language meant to trust. And what that means is that you put your confidence in it. For example, if I were to say, I believe that this chair could hold my weight, but I wouldn't sit in it because I was afraid it wouldn't hold my weight, I don't actually believe that it holds my weight. The way that it holds my weight is when I trust it enough to sit in it. To believe that God sent His Son is to say, I know that I have a debt I cannot pay, and God has paid it in Jesus Christ.

  Application: Three Responses

  The second reaction here is just to rejoice, to say, God has given me the absolute best gift. And part of what Christmas is, is a reminder that God did not stay aloof, did not leave us in our sin, did not leave us in our desperation, but came to save, came to deliver, came to rescue. And so for you, for me to be able to say, I worship God freely, I can rejoice because of what he's done, is to understand Christmas.

  And then there's a third thing, and that is when somebody owes us. And it's small relative to God. It might be big, but small relative to God. By the way, 100 day wages, $20,000. Not small, but we refuse to forgive. What we're doing is we're saying, I don't totally get the grace of God.

  Now, don't misunderstand when I say refuse to forgive. I don't believe forgiveness means that you put yourself in a place where you are repeatedly taking somebody's abusive behavior or their lack of care. If you're in a relationship where somebody has been destructive in your life, forgiveness does not mean that you keep letting them. But what this passage is talking about is that you absorb the cost because God absorbed the cost for you.

  I was playing disc golf with one of my sons recently. I was still a little warmer out, and we had played several holes, and we came to a hole where I made a really bad throw. And my next best throw was to throw toward the hole. But I had to throw it over my son's parked car in order to get there. And I looked at it and I thought, I can make that throw. And so I wind up, I throw the disc, and of course the disc flies straight into his car, hits the tail light. And you could see from where we were standing behind the tail light just go poof, like that. And we had that moment where it was like, well, I just threw a disc and crushed your tail light.

  Now, here's what happens in that moment. Either he says to me, "Hey, don't worry about it. We're playing disc golf. I'll buy a new light." I say to him, "Hey, I threw the disc. I'll buy you a light." Or he drives his car with his light out and says, in essence, I guess I'll do without a light. But somebody pays the cost.

  And here's where this story becomes again, just beautiful. When you and I understand Christmas, we say, God has paid the cost. And then we can say, I can pay the cost for you.

  You know, if there's another application here, it's just to say, be somebody who's generous and resources others. Because the story of Christmas is really about incredible generosity, God's generosity to us. And then he says, your generosity to others. And when that is where you live, he says, you understand mercy.

  Conclusion

  So here's the question. Do you want to be the servant who says, I've been gifted much, I will gift much, or the servant who says, I've been gifted much, I'm not gifting you anything? Do you hear Jesus' words at the end of this parable, this story? He says, "You wicked servant. So it will be with anyone who does not forgive his brother or his sister from their heart."

  This season, when you feel the weight of all of the brokenness of your relational world from your past, somebody else, an ex, a person who somewhere in your life, a mom, a dad, a sibling, a co-worker who has wronged you, you can either say, I'm absorbing that, or they're going to have to pay. And I'm going to make sure they pay. But you know, where the real joy is isn't in saying, I absorb it or I make them pay. It's saying, God has already paid, and out of the surplus that he's paid, I can choose the path of generosity and forgiveness.

  And if we do that, I think we'll be living a little closer to the ideal of what Christmas is than if we do not. Let's pray together.

  Just before I pray, I just want to make sure today that there's an opportunity for you, if you have maybe realized that you have owed more than you thought, that there is a need for God to pay your debt, just to say you can do that today. You can say, God, I trust that you sent your only begotten son so that I could have eternal life. And I know that I owe what I can't pay, but he paid what I can, so I trust him. And you can share in that gift.

  God, I ask today that you would help us not to rush this story out of our minds, but we would sit with it and let it speak to us where we have failed to extend grace and mercy to others. And, Lord, I pray that our answer wouldn't be to try harder to extend mercy to somebody who has treated us poorly. But it would be to be so taken with what Christmas means, with the gift of Jesus Christ, that it would be natural for us to say, out of the overflow, I can extend grace and mercy. And, Father, we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

  This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and readability. Some filler words and repetitions have been removed to improve flow. The content and meaning of the original message have been preserved.