Many of us are familiar with the parable of the unforgiving servant—the story Jesus told in Matthew 18 about the servant who had his massive debt forgiven by the king and then went out and demanded payment of a smaller debt from someone else. We often focus on the second part of the story and how wrong the forgiven servant was to not forgive the debt of another. But today I want us to consider the unbelievable forgiveness offered by the king.
Like the servant in the story, we owe the King a debt we cannot pay. We have sinned and broken God’s law, and if we had a thousand lifetimes to do good works, we would never be able to make up for the wrong we’ve done. But the good news of the Gospel is this:
And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. (Colossians 2:13–14)
When we were dead in our sin, God made us alive with Christ. Our debt of sin doesn’t just vanish into thin air. Someone had to pay our debt—and that someone is Jesus. When His hands and feet were nailed to the cross, our sin was nailed there with Him. The King forgives our debt because His own Son paid the price on our behalf.
If you are burdened with guilt or shame today . . .
If you are trying to earn God’s favor with your good behavior . . .
If you know you can never be good enough, because no matter how hard you try, you keep messing up . . .
This is good news for you, friend.
“My sin—oh the bliss of this glorious thought!—My sin, not in part, but the whole, Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more, Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul!”(Taken from the hymn It is Well by Horatio G. Stafford)
No matter what you face this week, your sin has been nailed to the cross.
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