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C.S. Lewis once said,
“Everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea until they have something to forgive.” We love the thought of being forgiven, but it is such an awful thought that someone might get away with something, that they might be forgiven especially if we are directly hurt by what they have said or done.
Jesus said it is a value of His kingdom and something that everyone of His followers should possess. I know that every single person in this room has been wronged. We have things we need to forgive and it is difficult. Today’s passage stems from a question. Peter wants to know how many times he needs to forgive his brother.
21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
We reckon that is a great question. How many times? How long do I have to put up with forgiving people. It is hard. What if they repeat the offence? And we love Peter for asking the question, yeah how many times do I have to forgive my wife, husband, children, friends, parents… And we love Peter because he even chimes in with some help for Jesus, do I have to forgive him 7 times? That many? What is the cut off mark?
When can we say enough is enough? And maybe Peter is expecting Jesus to say, ease up Pete, not 7 times, that is way too many. And in some way we really want Jesus to say that. I want Jesus to say that to me, Al, you have been way to generous in your forgiving of people, knock it down a bit mate, you’ve exceeded the requirements. I love your style, I appreciate you ability to forgive but you’ve gone far enough. But this is not what Jesus says. And let me say, if you think that you forgiving the same person, for the same wrong, only 7 times you have no understanding of what forgiveness is. You don’t understand .
22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times
Wow! 77 times. And if you’re thinking what if I lose count at 36… you’ve missed the point. It is all about the heart. And he shows us this through a parable.
23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.
24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him.
This is a huge debt. It is more than even I owe. It is unbelievable.10,000 bags of gold how can anybody possibly owe that much money? Some versions say a talent, which was the biggest currency of the day.
You could not have a bigger note in your wallet than a talent and this character owed 10,000 of these little babies, 10,000 because that was the biggest number of the day. This debt is huge. A staggering amount of money. You get the picture?
25 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.
26 “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’.
I don’t know how he plans on doing that but he begs for mercy and he is released from the debt. He has a debt that is impossible to pay cancelled. His wife and kids and all they owned wouldn’t have put a dent in the debt. And yet, the master cancels the debt. What sort of a king cancels debt like this? Who has ever heard of such an absurdity? Do you know a king like that? Of course we do.
We know our God, our Lord, our King who has cancelled a debt worth way more than any miserly $1 billion. He has cancelled the debt of sin. And that is the very reason Jesus came. To cancel our debt, to cancel your debt, to cancel my debt. Jesus very name means the Lord saves. God is a forgiving God. And it is seen ultimately at the cross, where the innocent was crushed for the sins of the guilty. Our debt has been paid that we might be forgiven.
Friends we need to be clear on this. We are in debt to God, the King. We have a debt of sin, this clown in the parable doesn’t hold a candle to the debt we have built up. And we have no hope of paying off the debt of rebellion and sin. How can we pay that debt? And if we would fear being sold into slavery as this guy in the passage is, it is nothing compared to the fires of hell that face those who have not had their debt cleared. Friends to understand this parable we need to understand how much we have been forgiven. Because if we don’t we will not understand any forgiveness or how to forgive. If I was to be sent to hell for the rest of eternity that would be utterly just, morally right and perfectly fair. And here is the awesomeness of the bible. God offers another way. God offers forgiveness in Jesus name. And this forgiveness we have from God changes us. And this is the warning.
28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
Maybe $20? Not sure it was even that much?
Then the forgiven fella couldn’t show an ounce of the forgiveness he received. He had a billion dollar debt forgiven and he wouldn’t cancel $20 owed him, he couldn’t do it. And how mad do we get at this point. Then we are cheering in
32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to.
33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’
And we are saying yes you should have!
34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
And we are loving this! Justice! Yeah that’s all the good for nothing miserable bloke deserves! We want…
35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
So the question is pointed at us. Are we that servant? If we had any clue of what we have been forgiven, if the most minuscule idea of what has been forgiven us. Any thought anywhere, anytime that we wouldn’t forgive someone else would be despicable to us. It is actually disgusting. Jesus says that having entered the kingdom of heaven through the blood stained doorway it is inevitable that we will be forgiving. And if we are not then maybe we have not entered. Now at this point of preparing I was looking for a way out. I really wanted to soften the impact of this. The temptation for me was to try somehow to make that a little more palatable. But friends as I read other places in the NT I am told that we pray forgive us our sins as we forgive others, I read that I will be judged using the same measure I use on others. And I therefore can’t soften the impact of
35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
This says that truly forgiven people are forgiving people. Now don’t mishear this. We don’t earn our place by being forgiving, we don’t lose our place by being unforgiving but if we hold onto an unforgiving spirit, if we hold onto grudge, if we live in unforgiveness we do not trust Jesus. Anyone with the spirit of Jesus in them cannot abide in unforgiveness. We might drift in and out of unforgiveness momentarily but we cannot abide in it. We can’t have that as our way. We can’t accept the $billion debt and withhold from a $20 debtor. We are called to forgive as we have been forgiven. As forgiven members of the Kingdom we will forgive one another. And this is what is tough. Forgiveness is difficult, and we need to pray for this. Make us into forgiving people please Lord. Do we understand what forgiveness is? It is not seeking revenge. We don’t seek to repay evil with evil. We do not seek revenge on those who have wronged us, that is not forgiving.
We don’t want them to feel like what it is to be hurt like they hurt you. In fact to forgive someone from the heart means that you will seek their welfare, you seek their good. Romans 12 says bless those who persecute you. Jesus says that we are to pray for those who persecute us. Pray that they might be transformed, pray that God would bless them as he has blessed us, pray for their well being. This is the character of someone who is a forgiving person. Jason at college when they robbed him of his laptop. telling me the story and how he went home and he and his wife just prayed for them. I said, “you what!” and he said, “You would’ve done the same. I was thinking, I would have done a few things but praying for them wouldn’t have been one of them. But that is what forgiveness looks like. We seek reconciliation with those we forgive. Now, forgiveness is not excusing peoples behaviour and placing yourself in imposition of danger again and again. The bible doesn’t say forgive and forget. That is not a biblical teaching. Forgiving doesn’t necessarily mean that you put yourself in a position to be hurt again and again. Romans 12 that we live at peace with all people, even those who have wronged us. But what if they refuse it?
What if they don’t want it? What if they haven’t asked for it? Great questions. Are we looking for a loophole here? There is no escape hatch to get us out of forgiving someone. As forgiven people we are forgiving. We will looking for reasons to forgive.
Even when there is no repentance from the other person our tendency should be to forgive, we don’t seek their harm, we seek their good, we are praying for them. The overarching principle is love for the person who has wronged you. Their repentance is not your responsibility, your responsibility as a forgiven person is to forgive them. Now hear this, sin is never ok. Forgiving people does not make sin ok. So what do you do wives, when your husband treats you harshly? Husbands what do you do when your wife seems more demanding than thankful?
Parents how do you respond when your children make a mess of the family day out? Workers, how do you deal with the fact that your fellow-worker has been speaking negatively about you to the boss? What do you do when no one else notices how well you have served? What fills your mind when a friend has proven to be disloyal… again? How do you deal with favouritism in your family? What is the typical way you deal with being sinned against? Do you wallow in the “if only’s”? Do you seek to protect yourself against others by withdrawing? Do you strike back in anger? Do you simply refuse to deal with that particular person?
Jesus, through Matthew this morning is telling us, run to the cross, and see the forgiveness you have there. See your $billion debt has been paid. You have been welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven through the mercy of your heavenly Father. Forgiven, even though you don’t deserve it. And as we understand this, we will see forgiveness of others in a different light. The kingdom of Heaven is a kingdom of forgiveness and our Church Family is a Family of forgiveness because we will all inevitably wrong one another. You will be wronged by others here and you will wrong others as well. In your marriage you will wrong one another, within your family, household, work place you will wrong one another. But if you are a forgiven person, forgiven of the immense debt of sin, you will forgive one another from the heart. Because the language of Jesus, is I forgive you. And therefore it becomes our language to one another.
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