Welcome to Gateway Church's podcast. Wherever you're tuning in from, we hope you're encouraged by today's message.

If you have your Bible, I want you to go to Matthew chapter 18.

Matthew chapter 18, we're going to start at verse 21 and we're going to read a parable of Jesus.

And just as a reminder, the word parable, the Greek word for that is parabolay.

Parah, which means close beside or width, and then bolay means to cast.

And so literally what a parable is, it is something that is cast alongside something else.

And so in the case of Jesus, Jesus tells stories that are parables and these stories are cast alongside a truth

to illustrate what the character of God is like and what the kingdom of God is like.

And so in this particular passage in Matthew 18, Jesus has just finished preaching an amazing discourse on reconciliation.

And it seems like Peter, when he hears this, he's got more questions.

He's like, I need to get further clarity here. And so here's where we pick up this text.

This is Matthew chapter 18 verse 21. It says, then Peter came to him and asked, Lord, how often do I forgive someone who sins against me?

Seven times? That's a very good biblical number. Good try, Peter.

Not seven times, Jesus replied, but 70 times seven. That's 490. Some of your versions say 77 times.

The point here is that Jesus is saying to Peter, if you're counting, you've missed the point.

Then he goes into the parable in verse 23. It says, therefore, the kingdom of heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him.

In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. Some of your versions say 10,000 talents.

The idea is that it's more than this man could ever pay.

He couldn't pay so his master ordered that he'd be sold along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned to pay the debt.

But the man fell down before his master and begged him, please be patient with me and I will pay it all.

Then his master was filled with pity for him and he released him and forgave his debt. Now let's look at verse 28.

But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. Some versions will say a hundred denarius was a day's wages.

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