“Forgive me – though not how I forgive others” - Matt 18:21-35
Gladstone Baptist Church – 9/7/06 am
Forgiveness is something we know we should do, but seldom do fully.
There was once a man who was bitten by a dog, which was later discovered to be rabid. The man was rushed to the hospital where tests revealed that he had, in fact, contracted rabies. At the time, medical science had no cure for this disease and so his doctor faced the difficult task of informing him that his condition was incurable and terminal. “Sir, we will do all we can to make you comfortable. But I cannot give you false hope. There is nothing we can really do. My best advice is that you put your affairs in order as soon as possible.”
The dying man sank back on his bed in shock, but finally rallied enough strength to ask for a pen and some paper. He then set to work with great energy. An hour later, when the doctor returned, the man was stilling writing vigorously. The doctor commented “I’m glad to see that you’re working on your will.”
“This ain’t no will, Doc.” Replied the dying man, “this is a list of the people I’m going to bite before I die.”
Many of us live and die with that kind of list, written in our minds, if not on paper. We all know that we are supposed to forgive people and leave the past in the past, but let’s face it, we seldom do that. We all are like elephants – but in the wrong way. We have minds that never forget or forgive instead of skin that is thick and strong.
In our society, the motto that often dominates our lives is “revenge is sweet.” It’s like the bumper sticker that reads
“Never go to bed angry, stay up and plot your revenge.”
Come, on, we’ve all done this, haven’t we. I remember, being on camps as a teenager and when at Uni, scheming and plotting some pranks to get revenge on the other dorm or on the girls. It is totally amazing how creative you can be when you are motivated by revenge. But I don’t think I’m telling you anything new when I tell you that this isn’t how God wants us to act.
But God says that if we don’t forgive others, he won’t forgive us.
Listen to some of these verses …
Matt 6:14-15 - For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
That is pretty heavy stuff isn’t it. If we forgive others, God will forgive us. If we don’t – He won’t
Matt 6:12 – part of the Lord’s prayer Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Our society’s version goes more like – Father Forgive me, though not how I forgive others.
Luke 6:37 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.
Jesus was once asked a question by Peter. He said – how often should I forgive a person who has wronged me. Turn in your Bibles to Matt 18:21
Jesus had just been talking to his disciples about managing disputes or misunderstandings. In verse 15, he says that if one of your brothers does something against you, then go and talk to them about it. Try to resolve the problem yourselves first. I’m not going to preach on this passage now, but how often, do we go and talk to a third party first before we go and address the problem with the person who is causing us trouble. If we followed the Bible’s guidelines, most problems would go no further than this initial discussion. Jesus says, only if you can’t work it out between the two of you, do you go and get someone else involved. And then if you still can’t resolve it – get the church leadership involved.
That is all great advice, but it gets Peter thinking. How often should I forgive my brother when he does something wrong to me? Let’s read from Matt 18:21 …
21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” This sounds pretty arbitary doesn’t it, but the Pharisees believed that God required you to forgive a person 3 times. You see they knew that God had said in Amos that he wouldn’t turn away his wrath because people had sinned 4 times. So the Pharisees wrongly interpreted this to mean that God will maybe consider forgiving us 3 times, but definitely not 4. Peter, knew that Jesus expected his disciples to exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees, so he suggests a number of 7 – double that of the Pharisees, but Jesus shocks him.
22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. In the Jewish mindset, the number 77 represented a number that big was too big to count. Jesus says – don’t LIMIT your forgiveness. And then he tells this 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 talents was brought to him. 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 “The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
Let’s just pause here. This servant owed 10,000 talents. Now a talent was a measure of weight. It was actually the largest weight they had. It was equivalent to about 30kg. The value depended on the material weighed. We are not told what the material was, but we are told how much there was of it - 10,000 talents – 300 tonnes. 10,000 was the biggest number that the Greeks used and so here we have the biggest number of biggest weights. A huge amount. Just imagine it was 300 tonnes of Silver … In our economy today it would be worth $172 Million … if it was Gold, it would be worth $9.2 Billion. Those numbers are just incomprehensible to most of us and that is Jesus’ point. Jesus is not really focusing here on the amount, but in the infinite debt that this man was in. There is no way that this guy could ever repay his debt - $172 Million Dollars!!!!
Notice what the king was going to do – sell him as a slave. Well you only got 30 pieces of silver for a slave – a far cry from 300 tonnes of silver that was owed. There was no way in the world that this man could ever work off his debt in a 1000 lifetimes of service and so it was a bit ludicrous that the man begs for more time from the king. The debt would never be repaid and the king knows this.
Taking pity on this servant, the King forgives him the whole 10,000 talents. What a gift!!!
Jesus in telling this parable is drawing parallels to our lives. We are like this servant in debt. We owed a debt to God that we could never repay. We have all sinned and offended God. Nothing we can do can satisfy him. Is 64:6 says that our righteous acts are like filthy rags in God’s sight. We owe such a debt and all we can offer to pay Him back is worthless. It would be like trying to pay off your mortgage with monopoly money. The bank isn’t going to accept is as payment, because they don’t recognise it as having any value to them. In a similar way, we can’t pay off the debt we owe God with good deeds, because they have no value to him.
We owed a debt we could not pay and God paid a debt he did not owe when he gave up his son’s life to pay for our sins. He volunteered to cancel our debt and it cost him a great deal to do so. We have been forgiven an immeasurable amount, just like this servant was.
You would think that we would all be bouncing around the room with joy and gratitude wouldn’t you. This servant in the story certainly should have been. He was forgiven $171 million dollars. He who is forgiven much should love much and who has been forgiven little should love little – right? Wrong! Let’s keep reading from vs 28
28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’
30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt.
This grateful servant went out and found another servant who owed him money. Not 10,000 talents, but just 100 denarii. Now a Denarii was what a common labourer was paid for a day’s work. So it was about 100 days worth of work. Maybe the equivalent of $5,000 or $10,000. Still a lot of money, but in contrast to $171Million, it was an achievable amount. I’m sure many of you here today, have loans greater than $5,000.
It is interesting that the second servant who owed the 100 denarii had exactly the same response and used exactly the same words as the first servant – he fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ It should have reminded the first servant of his requests and the grace he was shown, but instead, the pleading of the second servant is met with harshness and he is thrown into prison until he could pay back the debt. Some have commented that the punishment of jail would have meant that this second servant would have been further hindered from paying back his debt. If he was sold as a slave, he could have worked to pay off the debt, but sitting in prison, he was powerless to even earn money to work to pay it off. The debt of the second servant was turned into an impossible debt and he would rot in jail.
If Jesus told this parable to identify us with the first servant in being forgiven, then he also means for us to identify him in his ingratitude and unforgiveness. Though we owed so much and were forgiven so much, we go out and refuse to forgive others for such petty things as - making a back handed comment about us; not keeping our confidence; failing to help us out in our time of need; taking credit where credit was not due; the list could go on. Each of us are guilty of holding grudges against people and refusing to forgive for absolutely insignificant things – not even as large as the $5,000 debt the servant in the parable was owed. In doing so we make it impossible for those people who’ve offended us to ever make it right with us. We force them into a lifetime of guilt and alienation.
Jesus’ parable ends with a correction and command
31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.
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?’ 34 In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”
The master wasn’t impressed by the attitude of his servant who owed so much, yet refused to be grateful and in turn forgive others for relatively small offenses. God likewise isn’t impressed by us who owed so much, yet refuse to be grateful and in turn refuse to forgive others for relatively small offenses.
The master was so annoyed that he reversed his decision to cancel the debt and had the unforgiving servant thrown in jail and tortured. Remember, that there was no physical way for this servant to pay back the huge debt whether he was in jail or not, so essentially his punishment was to be tortured for the remainder of his life. Jesus states clearly that God will likewise treat us in exactly the same way if we refuse to forgive our brothers & sisters.
God’s nature demands that we forgive others
Does that mean, that if we refuse to forgive, we will lose our salvation?
Matt 6:14-15 - For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Is our salvation dependant on our willingness to forgive and therefore based on works?
No - you can’t take this teaching in isolation, but it has got to be seen as part of the big picture.
Paul says in Rom 3:28 that we are justified by faith apart from works of the law. That is right. But justification doesn’t just happen. Before justification or salvation can occur, one must have faith. Faith leads to salvation.
But there is another step in the process of salvation. Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3:3 that before anyone can enter God’s kingdom, they must be born again. They must be regenerated and be given a new nature before they are saved. No one can have faith unless they already have been drawn to God by God’s Holy Spirit. It is God’s spirit that gives them the faith to declare their trust in God and upon doing this, they are justified and receive a new nature. That nature is the nature of Jesus Christ – and part of that nature it displays God’s forgiveness.
When we act in faith we are saved and receive Jesus’ nature. But the process of salvation has only just begun. Now when we receive Jesus’ nature, it doesn’t instantaneously transform us into models of Jesus does it. I mean – we still lose our temper, we still are jealous of others, we still struggle to forgive. But over time, the nature of Jesus comes to dominate our lives. We mature and become Christ like – Christian. We are transformed into the likeness of Jesus. The evidence that we have been saved is seen in our nature and our attitudes and our actions. Being able to forgive others is a proof that we are saved, because the forgiveness we display is God’s forgiveness working itself out through our nature.
If you claim to be a Christian, yet can not forgive others – one of two things can be wrong …
1) Your faith isn’t real. You haven’t received God’s nature and that is why you can’t forgive. Because you haven’t received God’s nature, you aren’t saved. And the consequences of this is that one day, you will stand before God and won’t receive his forgiveness because your faith is false. In this case, the fact that you can’t forgive is evidence of your lostness.
But there is a second option … if you claim to be a Christian, yet can’t forgive others then maybe …
2) You need to mature in your faith. If we are truly saved, yet can’t forgive, then it is obvious that we are babies and need to grow up spiritually. We may have received God’s nature, but our spiritual maturity is such that we are not able to naturally display God’s forgiveness in our lives. We need to allow God to mature us so that his nature become our nature. Some in this situation - may actually be consciously or unconsciously hindering their maturity. They may be refusing to mature by refusing to allow God’s Spirit to change them and make them grow up.
Jesus expects us to forgive others, because his nature demands that we forgive and if we are saved, we have his nature.
Our gratitude should demand we forgive others.
Forgiveness is a natural outworking of Christ’s nature in us if we are a Christian. But there are some other things about forgiveness that I quickly want to mention as we close … some things that forgiveness is and isn’t.
1) Forgiveness is a response of gratitude to God. We have had a gi-normous debt forgiven us. That should alone be enough to transform our lives.
Sadly, we don’t often dwell on the seriousness of our sin and the significance of it to God. We think grace is cheap because we can be forgiven by shooting up a quick sorry prayer. But if we really recognised the seriousness of sin, then we would recognise how huge the debt was that God has forgiven.
Our gratitude would transform us and we would willingly forgive those around us who offend us in petty ways.
2) Forgiveness is a choice. We can choose to forgive or we can choose not to. It is totally up to you.
3) Forgiveness is not about waiting till another person has recognised the seriousness of their actions. If that was the case, God would never forgive us, because we just can’t comprehend how serious our sins were.
4) Forgiveness is not about waiting till another person comes and apologises to us and says sorry. God’s forgiveness is once and for all. We don’t need to come to God every day and confess every failing to him. Don’t misunderstand me, it is good to confess things specifically to God, because it makes us think about them and recognise the seriousness of them and their negative consequences. But Jesus death purchased forgiveness for all our sins – whether they be known or unknown. I’m so glad that God doesn’t wait for us to say sorry for them individually, else, I would have so many things unforgiven …
Forgiveness is a choice that we initiate. The offended party forgives, and it doesn’t need the offending party to play any part in it.
5) Forgiveness is all about release. Release for you and the anger and the annoyance you feel. It is letting go of the right to get revenge. That means we must stop keeping that mental list of all the things that person has done against me. It is not looking for opportunities to remind them how they have hurt us. It is letting go of the right to get revenge.
There is also Release in forgiveness for the other person. Forgiveness means that you no longer expect that other person to have to try to make it up to you. You release the person from any responsibility to you.
7) Forgiveness is not the same as forgetting. We have memories and because we choose to forgive, we don’t necessarily forget everything that is happening. God does – in Is 43:25 He says, “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.” But we aren’t God. We can’t forgive and forget, but we can dethrone the memory and refuse to let it control our lives. We can detoxify the memory and refuse to let it poison our thoughts.
8) Forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation. We can forgive, without becoming best friends again. A child who is abused by their father, may never again have a close relationship with their father again. They may have to erect boundaries to ensure they are not harmed again. However, they can forgive their father for what they have done.
As we close, I want you to hear me when I say that forgiveness is not an easy thing to do. It defies everything that our human nature tells us to do. And that is why it is hard. But if we are Christians, then we have a new nature transplanted in us that is characterized by a forgiving spirit. God wants us to surrender ourselves to him and allow his nature to take the place of our human nature. This will take time and it will require us to stand up against our human inclinations. But God has promised us that he will complete the work that he has begun in us. As we want to close this morning. I want to show you a video clip of a family who really understood what forgiveness meant. As we watch this, I want you to ask God to show you where your attitudes need to change. Ask him, who is it that you need to forgive today. Ask him, what is holding back his nature from shining through your attitudes and actions today ...
An example of what real forgiveness looks like this - show Video Clip
