Matthew 18: Do Not Forget the Unforgettable

Introduction

Pierre Fauchy, pastor of Église Nice Métropole, wrote the title of his message on a sticky note: "I am capable of forgetting the unforgettable." A sticky note reminds you to pay a bill or do a chore. And yet people forget a wedding date, their children's birthdays or their parents' birthdays. "Even with God, we can forget the unforgettable."

To show this, the preacher opens two passages. First, the parable of the two debtors in Matthew 18, which he reads in the Nouvelle Français courant version. Then Jesus' letter to the church in Ephesus, in Revelation 2. Both describe people who had received a great deal and who forgot where it came from.

His message comes down to one conviction: God has forgotten your sin, but he has never forgotten the price he paid. And what you received freely, you are called to pass on.

Outline of the message

1. A debt no one can repay

"Therefore the Kingdom of Heaven is like a certain king, who wanted to reconcile accounts with his servants." (Matthew 18:23, WEB) The pastor insists: that day will come. Jesus is coming back, he will come for his Church, but he will also come to settle accounts.
We live under a gospel of grace, and grace has an extraordinary depth. But God keeps in mind that he comes to judge the nations, and to judge us too.
The servant owes an enormous sum, "colossal," "unthinkable." With nothing to repay it, he is to be sold as a slave, along with his wife, his children and everything he owns.
He bows down and says: "Lord, have patience with me, and I will repay you all!" (Matthew 18:26, WEB) At best he hopes for a payment plan or a reduction of his debt. But the master sees clearly: he will never be able to repay it.
"That's a bit like us." Even if we want to wipe the slate clean, we will never be able to change the situation by our own strength or abilities. That is why God planned the sacrifice of Jesus, announced from Genesis on: he alone can pay our debt.

2. A God who lets himself be moved

The master is "moved to the core." Pierre Fauchy loves that phrase: "I need to hear that I move my God, that my inabilities move the heart of my God."
We sometimes picture a harsh God who will apply the rule. But he is also a God whose heart can shift when someone begs him. "We deserve judgment, but because we chose Jesus, God's heart is moved."
The servant asked for a payment plan. The master goes further: he does not reduce the debt, he cancels it. It is as if your banker told you to forget about your loan.
The servant walks into the room about to become a slave, and walks out free. That is what the gospel does: you come in weighed down and in debt, you hear that Jesus died for your sins, and you walk out free, with your name written in the book of life. "You were nothing, you become an heir."
The pastor describes what grace produces: broken homes restored, families reunited, drugs and alcohol disappearing.

3. Receiving grace without letting it change us

No sooner is he outside than the servant meets a fellow servant who owes him a small sum. He grabs him by the throat: "Pay me what you owe." The other begs him with the very same words, but he has him thrown into prison.
"We can receive grace without having let grace change the way we look at others." We are ready to say "Lord, forgive me," and we stay hard when it comes to letting others live that same grace.
The parable is about forgiveness, but it goes further. It is a principle of the kingdom: "What you received freely, give freely. What God allows you to live, pass it on."
The master summons the servant: "Shouldn't you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, even as I had mercy on you?" (Matthew 18:33, WEB) I forgave you, so you must forgive. I gave to you, so you must give. "You cannot receive grace and block it behind you."

4. What makes God angry

In verse 34, the master becomes angry. For the preacher, this is rare and it should give us pause: we make God angry when we obstruct the grace we received, when we do not pass it on. "Me, I don't want to play with God's anger."
It is possible to have known God for years, to serve in the church, to know the Bible, to have changed your life, and still be hard on those who are still struggling.
We can criticize someone who falls while forgetting that we fell ourselves. We can demand of another person a maturity we did not have at the start of our own walk. We can be more demanding of others than God has been with us.
Grace shows itself through forgiveness, through an attitude, through patience. Jesus expects us to pass on what we received freely.

5. Ephesus, a solid church that abandoned its first love

In Revelation 2, Jesus begins by acknowledging the strengths of the church in Ephesus: its conduct, its labor, its perseverance. It cannot tolerate evil people, it tested those who called themselves apostles and exposed the impostors. It suffered without losing heart.
This is a church that walks in purity and has set a framework. The pastor stresses it: holiness matters, and God does not deny that.
"But I have this against you, that you left your first love." (Revelation 2:4, WEB) The consequence is serious: the lampstand will be removed. In other words: "I'm leaving."
Pierre Fauchy reads this first love in the light of 1 John 4:19: "We love, because he first loved us." (WEB) It is not first of all the love we had for God, it is the love God had for us when he cancelled our entire debt.
"Truth without love becomes hard. Demands without mercy crush. Discernment without humility ends up producing spiritual superiority." We then become like the Pharisee who looks at the tax collector and says: I am not like them.
When we forget that first love, we become dry, hard, closed, inclined to criticism and judgment. "Where is the heart that is moved? Where is the one who will take the sinner and walk with him on the path of salvation?"

6. Remember: God has never forgotten what he paid

Jesus' first word to Ephesus is: "Remember." Remember where you fell from, remember where you came from.
The pastor adds a nuance: it is not about dwelling on a sin God has forgotten. "If he has forgotten our sin, he has never forgotten what he paid." He has not forgotten that it was the life of his Son that was given.
To forget the unforgettable is to forget how much God has loved us, how much he has forgiven us, how he wiped out the debt. It is also to forget how he loved us: seeing the damage sin had done in our lives, he was moved.
Jesus calls Ephesus to return to its first works, or he will remove its lampstand. This is not a small word of encouragement but a solemn warning. The unjust servant, for his part, ends up in prison.
God is not against rigor or the spiritual walk, "don't make me say what I didn't say." But he takes more pleasure in mercy than in sacrifices. Most of Jesus' anger was aimed at the scribes and Pharisees, who had settled into a rigidity without compassion.

7. The more you pass on grace, the more you live it

"Do you want to be blessed? Bless in turn." This is God's logic: he wants us to give and to pass on.
The pastor bears witness to it: the further he has walked with the Lord, the more he has seen that sharing grace makes him live God's grace more fully. "That is the secret of living extraordinary things with God."
The Beatitudes point the same way: blessed are the merciful, for they will obtain mercy. There is a cause and effect link.
The message leads into communion, whose purpose is never to forget the unforgettable: not to go back over our faults, but to remember the vanished debt and the sacrifice of Jesus.
In his prayer, the pastor asks that hearts not shut themselves up in rigidity, that they remain able to be moved, and that the Church become a channel of this grace. "Lord, you are amnesic about our past," he says, before adding: "you remind us this morning that the price paid cannot be forgotten."

Key takeaways

Your debt to God was impossible to repay. God did not spread it out, he cancelled it through the sacrifice of Jesus.
We can receive grace without letting it change how we see others. What you received freely, give freely.
The first love is the love with which God loved you first. Without it, truth becomes hard and demands crush.
God has forgotten your sin, but he has never forgotten the price he paid. Remembering this grace keeps your heart tender.
The more you become a channel of God's grace, the more you live that grace in your own life.

Personal application

Is there someone you expect to "pay you back," when God has cancelled your own debt?
Toward whom are you more demanding than God was with you at the beginning of your walk?
Has your faith stayed able to be moved, or has it become mostly a matter of frameworks and rules?
How can you concretely remember this week how much and how God has loved you?
In what area can you pass on the grace you received: through forgiveness, patience or an act of generosity?

Verses cited

Frequently asked questions

What does "forgetting the unforgettable" mean?

For Pierre Fauchy, forgetting the unforgettable means forgetting how much and how God has loved us: how much he has forgiven us, how he wiped out the debt, and how he was moved when he saw the damage sin had done in our lives. You can know God for years and lose sight of this grace.

What does the parable of the two debtors in Matthew 18 teach us?

A servant has a colossal debt cancelled, then has a fellow servant who owes him a small sum thrown into prison. The preacher draws a principle of the kingdom of heaven from it: what God gives you, he expects you to pass on. We can receive grace without letting it change how we see others.

What is the first love the church in Ephesus abandoned?

Pierre Fauchy relies on 1 John 4:19: we love because he first loved us. The first love is not first of all the love we had for God, it is the love God had for us when he cancelled our entire debt. Without it, a rigorous church becomes dry, hard and rigid.