FORGIVENESS COMES FROM THE HEART
MATTHEW 18:21-35 - September 26,2004 - Pentecost 17
MATTHEW 18:21-35
21Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?"
22Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
23"Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. 25Since 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.’ 27The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
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. 31When 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. 33Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34In 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."
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Dearest fellow redeemed and saints in the Lord:
When we look at the Lord’s love, we discover an eternal love. We discover that the Lord’s love is an underserved love. Today we also see that the Lord treats us with love instead of anger; kindness instead of rage, forgiveness instead of revenge. And the fact is when we look at our Lord’s love for us we realize how true it is that he treats us as his children. God forgives our sins. This forgiveness that you and I receive from the Lord, comes from a divine heart that does not keep a record of wrongs. If we want to learn more about how much the Lord loves us and forgives us we will turn to PSALM 103:10-12: “God does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us". That is forgiveness from the heart of our God.
That is also what our text, our thought, our theme for today is as we look at these words of Jesus to discover once again that FORGIVENESS COMES FROM THE HEART. I. From our Lord’s heart, and II. From believers’ hearts.
I. FORGIVENESS FROM OUR LORD’S HEART
You may remember the setting of our text from last week. Last week the Lord Jesus taught the disciples to go and seek the brother who had fallen away, and restore them back into God’s Kingdom. Today Peter comes with what is a seemingly innocent question. He was going to ask Jesus some more about forgiveness. Peter came to Jesus and asks, "Lord how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Peter wanted to know how often do I have to forgive? How many times can my brother sin against me that I still would forgive him or her. Peter suggests that he might even forgive seven times. In a sense Peter is being generous. For the strict Jewish rule said you only had to forgive someone three times. After three times you don’t have to worry about forgiving again. How absurd that sounds to us today. How absurd it is when the rules of men overcome the unconditional love of God. God did not keep track. God forgives.
Jesus explains that fact right away. Jesus says to Peter "I tell you not seven times, but seventy times seven " There are some translations have seventy-seven times. It makes no difference –the point is the same, keep on forgiving. The Lord says forgive, he says forgive seventy times seven or seventy-seven times. Jesus says you can’t keep track that long, but forgive as the Lord forgives with an unconditional love, not keeping track.
Jesus continues with a parable so that Peter and the disciples and you and I would better understand divine forgiveness. "Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him.” Now ten thousand talents back then equaled millions of dollars. It took a year according to some commentaries to earn one thousand talents. So this man owed a very great debt, a debt that probably could not be paid back. This is also what we are told here. The servant was not able to pay the master. “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.” That was the custom of the day.
But the servant fell on his knees before him: "’Be patient with me,’ he begged ‘and I will pay back everything.’" This man seeks his master’s patience. He says be patient and I will pay back everything. When we look at the master we find he is exactly like God himself. For the servant’s master took pity on him, cancelled the debt and let him go. The original says the master destroyed the debt. There wasn’t anything left. The master was more than patient, he was forgiving. He didn’t say I would wait until you can keep paying me back bit by bit, even if it takes a lifetime. But instead he cancelled the debt. The huge debt was completely gone, it was eliminated. The master forgave this man’s debt.
The Lord forgives our debts. He provides us with forgiveness. And what is amazing about that when we look at forgiveness that you and I have received--is the fact we don’t deserve it. We are like the servant--we have a debt that is insurmountable. It cannot be paid back. Our sins pile up against us: Thousands upon thousands, and millions upon millions in a lifetime. It’s been that way ever since Adam and Eve sinned. And here is another amazing fact, by nature we turn away from God instead of towards him. We are born as sinful human beings. From GENESIS 6:5 we read: “The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.”
Our sinful nature opposes God and his will. Our sinful nature fills us with evil thoughts. And then they lead to evil words and wicked actions. And yet, in spite of all this evil thinking instead of good, the Lord forgives. Our Lord forgives us from the heart. We don’t deserve it. We can’t pay back God’s mercy and grace. Paul writes: "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us"(ROMANS 5:8). This verse reminds us when we were still sinners, still enemies of God Christ died on the cross that you and I might be saved forever. Forgiveness comes from the heart of our God, it is divine. It is full of grace, compassion, mercy and love. Today, every day, we stand in awe of that.
You and I do not deserve forgiveness. You and I, cannot repay our debt. You and I have a mountain of sins and find them all forgiven. The debt is cancelled. The precious blood of Christ our Lamb destroys our sins. And this is our God. He is unlike any other. You know all the false Gods in the world deal with their followers out of fear. They deal with their followers trying to make them obey or else they will get mad and take revenge on them. Our God is just the opposite. "Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy"(MICAH 7:18). Our loving Lord delights to show mercy. That is unlike any other false God. That is unlike any other human being. For we, as human beings, with our sinful nature, like to get even- to get revenge. Now the Lord says he delights to show us mercy. We heard it in our second lesson (1 TIMOTHY 1:12-17) when Paul realized he was the worst of sinners and yet the Lord delighted to show him mercy, divine grace and love.
Forgiveness comes from a divine heart. It comes first of all from the heart of our God who loves us. And then as we learn about this love of God which he mercifully shows us, then II. forgiveness comes from our hearts as believers.
II. FORGIVNESS FROM BELIEVERS’ HEARTS
Now Peter was on the wrong track wasn’t he? Peter’s question saying "how many times?" Was he really forgiving? Peter was trying to keep track of forgiveness rather than being forgiving. This servant owed millions of dollars, the debt was cancelled, and he leaves. And so you and I would automatically think that he is going to be filled with joy, rejoicing; a sigh of relief as this overwhelming burden is lifted from his shoulders. The servant doesn’t even have to pay back that debt. When that servant went out he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, a few dollars. Denarii, a few dollars, were not much at all. We would assume that this servant who was forgiven millions is going to forgive his fellow servant who owed him only a few dollars. But “he grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.” So he demanded to be paid back. “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’” He uses the exact words that this man had used just a short time before. He says: "be patient, I’ll pay you back". But he is not patient. That first servant has not learned or appreciated forgiveness. He went out and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. This first servant kept track of every little sin, of every little debt and forgot how much he had been forgiven. All of these actions were noticed. The fellow servants saw it and realized that this was an injustice. This was an injustice that God would not and did not tolerate or approve of. They went and told the master.
And the master brings him back in. He called the servant and said "You wicked servant, I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ And then he throws him into jail. The master says didn’t you learn? Didn’t you learn that I could have made you pay back that debt? Instead I forgave it all. Out of thanksgiving you would have forgiven such a small debt ". This is what Jesus was trying to say to Peter. Jesus reminds Peter "don’t you understand the debt that has been forgiven you? And why do you want to keep track if you should forgive seven times or three times or seventy-seven times, or seventy times seven." Keeping track is not the point of forgiveness. Forgiveness is forgiveness. Then our text ends with a warning: "This is how my heavenly father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from the heart". So forgiveness again is coming from the heart, from the heart of our Lord first of all and from the heart of believers. Jesus says to Peter and his disciples: "Be forgiving, or you will be cast into eternal destruction". Jesus also reminds them that the Lord is forgiving. Now this is why they would rejoice, that their debt has been cancelled, destroyed and eliminated.
Our Lord also says that to us today. Oh--we have to struggle. We have to struggle with our sinful nature. Pride doesn’t want us to admit that we are sinners. And yet we are. We know that as sinners we can come before the Lord at anytime and all the time, anyplace and everywhere and seek his forgiveness. And our gracious God provides forgiveness, he destroys that debt, no matter how small, no matter how great. No matter how little we come or how often we come our sins are forgiven. And we appreciate that. We learned that our mountain of debt has been taken away so that we might forgive others from the heart. We learn forgiveness from God’s example. “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers”(1 JOHN 3:16). We look at what Jesus has done on the cross for us. We realize Christ has done the same for others. Out of love from God and for God and for others we are able to forgive. Out of love we follow in the footsteps of Jesus.
Maybe, just maybe, you have kept track of the sins that you feel someone has committed against you. And maybe you have forgiven, but like Peter you say: well that is the fifth time he did this, or the third time. Our sinful nature kind of hardens itself against those who do us wrong. The Lord says to forgive. Part of forgiveness is forgetting. Not easy, not easy because we aren’t divine. Not easy to forget because we are still sinful human beings. As sinners we like to keep track, we like to limit God’s forgiveness, even though the Lord doesn’t limit it himself. Scripture reminds us today: “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you"(COLOSSIANS 3:13).
Again God’s word directs us back to the Lords forgiveness. Our Lord forgives. Our Lord forgives knowing that we will sin again. We would not be so willing to forgive if we knew that that person would soon sin against us again. God is always there with his forgiveness. Luther says where there is forgiveness, there is also life and salvation. There is rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents as we heard in today’s Gospel lesson (LUKE 15:1-10). We forgive because the Lord first forgave us. We pray that in the Lords Prayer. It is to be a part of our life. Divine forgiveness is all a result of love—God’s love for us then our love for God and brothers. We looked at Corinthians in our Bible study and learned that the 13th chapter talks about Gods great love for the world. This chapter describes what love is and what love does -he tells us love is forgiving. "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs"(I CORINTHIANS 13:4,5). In other words, love is forgiving and God is love.
God provides forgiveness from his heart so that you and I would learn in our short earthly lives what forgiveness really means to us. As you and I begin to learn what forgiveness from God means to us we are anxious to share that forgiveness with others. Who are we to hold back God’s forgiveness? Who are we to keep track of how many sins someone might do against us? God doesn’t keep track. Neither should we. Forgiveness comes from the heart, from Gods heart to our hearts and from our hearts to the hearts of those who seek his forgiveness. The debt cancelled no matter how enormous. Our sins are forgiven. All this is done by God’s grace and love and mercy. Paul reminds us in EPHESIANS 1:7,8: "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding". God lavishly (abundantly) pours out his forgiveness on us with all wisdom and understanding. God’s wisdom and understanding is that believers desperately need God’s divine forgiveness. God’s wisdom and understanding is that we too would be just as forgiving as our gracious and loving Lord. Indeed, forgiveness comes from the heart—first from God’s heart and the believers’ hearts. AMEN. Pastor Timm O. Meyer
