September 13th, Sermon & Ministry Resources

"Not Yours to Judge" (Romans 14:1-12)

Sep 07, 2026

∙ Paid

Lectionary Readings — Proper 19 — September 13, 2026

Exodus 14:19-31; Psalm 114; Romans 14:1-12; Matthew 18:21-25

Call to Worship (based on Romans 14:1-12)

Leader: Do we welcome only those whose convictions match our own?

People: No — God has welcomed them, and who are we to turn them away?

Leader: One believes she may eat anything; another eats only what conscience allows.

People: Let neither despise the other, for both give thanks to the same Lord.

Leader: One counts a certain day as holy; another counts every day the Lord’s.

People: Let each be fully convinced in their own heart, and let love cover the rest.

Leader: For none of us live to ourselves, and none of us die to ourselves;

People: whether we live or whether we die, we belong to Christ.

Leader: He died and rose again for this very purpose,

People: that he might be Lord of the dead and the living.

Leader: So let us lay down every verdict we were never called to render;

People: for we, too, will stand before the judgment seat of God.

Leader: Come, let us worship the Lord who welcomes the weak and the strong alike;

People: to him belongs the judgment, and to him alone be the glory. Amen.

Opening Prayer (based on Matthew 18:21-35)

Let us pray:

Father, before we open your Word this morning, we want to sit for a moment with the story your Son once told, because most of us are somewhere inside it.

You told us of a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves, and of one who was brought before him owing ten thousand talents — a debt so large that no lifetime of labor could have repaid it. And that slave fell on his knees and said, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ Lord, we have said that same prayer. We have knelt before you with debts we could never repay, promising to make it right, as if we ever could. And out of pity, the king released that slave and forgave him the debt. Father, that is what you have done for us in Christ. Not patience while we slowly paid it down — full release. The whole debt, forgiven, in a moment, because of mercy that owed us nothing.

And yet, Lord, you also told us what that same slave did next — how he went out and found a fellow slave who owed him a hundred denarii, a debt so small by comparison it hardly deserves the name, and seized him by the throat and said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ We confess this morning, Father, that we have done the same. We have accepted an ocean of forgiveness from you and turned around and refused a cup of it to someone else. We have remembered every hundred denarii ever owed to us while somehow forgetting the ten thousand talents you erased from our own account.

Lord, you said that when the other slaves saw it, they were greatly distressed — and we ask that our own hearts would be distressed by our unforgiveness before anyone else has to report it to you. Search us. Show us the names we have been keeping a ledger on. Show us the grudges we have been calling ‘boundaries’ and the resentment we have been calling ‘wisdom.’ We do not want to be found, like that slave, forgiven much and forgiving little.

So this morning, Father, we ask for what only you can give: hearts soft enough to forgive from the heart, and not merely with the mouth. Where we have been wronged, give us the strength to release it the way you released us. Where we owe someone an apology, give us the courage to offer it before we offer anything else. Let this church be a house where debts are forgiven the way you forgive — completely, freely, and without a second demand made at the door on the way out.

We ask this in the name of Jesus, who did not wait for us to pay what we owed, but paid it himself. Amen.