FREED BY FORGIVENESS
Mt. 18:21-35
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR
1. A story out of Fort Sumner, New Mexico, describes the power of revenge. Luciano Mare, 81 years old, caught a mouse inside his house and wanted to get rid of it.
2. He was burning leaves out in his yard, so he carried it out and threw it on the fire. According to Fire Chief Juan Chavez, the burning mouse ran back to the house and set the dry brush around it on fire. The flames spread and burned the house down. The inhabitants escaped unharmed.
3. The Chief replied that he’d seen a lot of house fires, but never one by a malicious mouse! Oh, the power of revenge! Which brings us to today’s scripture.
B. TEXT
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?” 22 Jesus 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. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold 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 “At this 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. 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. 29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’ 30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged 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 handed 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 or sister from your heart.”
C. THESIS
1. Coronavirus is having a second unexpected wave of contagion: with everyone under “stay at home” orders, spending months with each other, people are finding out they don’t like the people they’re living with. (The same thing happened in China.)
2. New Yorkers are flooding lawyer phone lines with divorce inquiries — with an avalanche of filings expected once the courts open. People are cracking under the strain of not having their job to run off to, and not being able to be selfish with their time.
3. Money problems are stressing everyone. There’s the threat of mortality. The kids are under their feet all the time. Many people have lost their jobs. People feel like they’re in a pressure-cooker! Emotions are raw; spouses tell of constant fighting.
4. It’s time we got on our knees and asked God for grace and for patience to love each other in spite of our differences! So today we’re going to look at unforgiveness: its symptoms, how it affects us, and how forgiveness frees us. The title is “Freed by Forgiveness.”
I. FIRST PROBLEM: DENIAL
A. ALMOST NOBODY THINKS THEY’RE UNFORGIVING
1. Whether it’s a blind spot, a quirk of human nature, or self-deception, almost no one thinks they’re unforgiving.
2. Researchers have discovered the “halo effect” — that most people see their good points and overlook their bad points. This gives us the misconception that we’re better than we really are. So we don’t notice that we ourselves are unforgiving!
3. We can easily see the shortcomings of our spouses, extended family, and work associates; so it’s easy to sit in judgment of them since they’re so much worse than we are.
4. But the truth is, the vast majority of people are pretty selfish, lie to ourselves, and most of us have some unforgiveness.
B. SYMPTOMS OF UNFORGIVENESS. YOU KNOW YOU’RE NOT FORGIVING WHEN:
1. You can’t think of a certain person without thinking of what they did in the past, even if it was years ago.
2. If you saw them in the store, you’d go the opposite direction or leave the store. You definitely wouldn’t want to make eye contact or shake their hand or speak to them.
3. If it’s someone in your family, you’ll either give them the ‘silent treatment’ or, if forced to talk, give them a piece of your ungodly mind and then tell them how lucky they are you’ve forgiven them!
4. Jean Cundick tells how her husband, a photographer, gets lots of requests for him to ‘touch-up’ photos – like erasing crows feet and cropping off midriff bulges. So he wasn’t surprised when one client said, “Can you take 30 pounds off me” until she added, “and put it on my sister?”
C. SERIOUSNESS
One great evangelist said, “There’s one sin Christians have, more than any other. There’s one sin which holds back the power of God more than any other. It is the sin of unforgiveness!
II. HOW DOES UNFORGIVENESS AFFECT YOU?
A. IT MAKES YOU A PRISONER OF THE PAST
1. As long as you don’t forgive, you’re shackled to the past.
2. You say, “I’m not going to let him/her get away with this; I’m going to keep them on the hook!” But you also are on the hook; they may have actually forgotten about it, but you haven’t!
3. Unforgiveness keeps the pain of the wrong alive; it keep that sore open. You go through life stirring up the pain, feeding the open wound – always angry.
4. HOW DOES THIS PROFIT YOU? It robs you of the joy of living today! Forgiving others opens the door for YOU to be set free from the past.
B. BITTERNESS WILL IMPRISON YOU
1. “I’ll just get even.” Then you’ll have to go down to their level. If you forgive, you bring them up to yours.
2. Bitterness will shape you into a negative, caustic, condemning person. Bitterness is like acid that corrodes the container which holds it. Forgive them for your own sake!
C. IT LOCKS US OUT OF GOD’S FORGIVEBESS
1. Matt. 6:14-15, “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
2. If we don’t forgive, then we can no longer be forgiven. The person who won’t forgive destroys the bridge over which he himself must travel.
3. The Lord’s Prayer is a dangerous prayer. We’re saying, “God, treat me like I treat other people. Forgive me like I forgive others.”
4. “Well, I’ll forgive her, but I won’t have anything more to do with her.” Do we want God to say, “Ok, I’ll for him/her, but I don’t want to have to do anything more with them!”
5. We say, “I’ll forgive, but I won’t forget.” Do you want God to say that? You’re praying, “God, deal with me the same as I’m dealing with others.”
III. HOW CAN YOU BE FREED?
A. FORGIVENESS = CANCELLING A DEBT
1. In the parable, sin is compared to a debt we can’t pay. We must be cast into debtor’s prison. When you forgive, you cancel the debt. So forgiveness is the cancelling of the debt. To forgive costs me. Let’s say you owe me $1,000. I say, “Never mind, I cancel the debt.” To forgive it cost me.
2. Salvation is free, but it cost the Lord Jesus. Grace = God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. It cost Jesus; He paid the debt. God doesn’t overlook my sin; Jesus PAID THE DEBT of my sin!
B. HOW CAN GOD FORGIVE?
1. “God remembers our sins no more.” God can’t intellectually forget our sins, but He has no more hostility toward us, because God’s hostility was laid on Jesus!
2. Some may be saying, “I cannot forgive them! If you knew what they did to me!” THERE IS NO HOSTILITY YOU FEEL, THAT GOD FELT; BUT HE LAID THAT HOSTILITY OF CHRIST!
C. HOW CAN I FORGIVE?
1. You may say, “I want them to suffer for what they did!”
2. God, with His all-seeing eyes, observed the sufferings of Christ. God, as the Judge, saw every sin in the world, and He watched carefully that every sin was suffered for.
3. The sin that your enemy did against you was suffered for! At last the Father said, “I’m satisfied that all sin has been accurately suffered for.” Isa. 53:11 says, “He [the Father] shall see of the travail of His [Jesus’] soul, and shall be satisfied.”
4. On what basis can you let go of your hostility toward them? Because what they did has been suffered for! The debt is paid! The scales of justice are balanced.
5. To take your pen and write across their offense, “Paid for by the suffering of Jesus!” Cut the connection and let it go.
D. ILLUS.: FORGIVENESS IS POSSIBLE
1. Corrie Ten Boom was a Dutch girl whose family helped Jews escape Germany. The Ten Booms were caught and sent to Nazi concentration camps. She and her family were the victims of atrocities in the camps; Corrie was the only one to survive.
2. She wrote her account in the book, “The Hiding Place,” and became a speaker in churches throughout Europe. Her topic usually touched on forgiveness.
3. Once when she had finished speaking in a church, a man came up to her. His face was familiar – forever etched in her mind. He was a German guard in one of the camps – and he had been one of the worst.
4. He came up to her, extended his hand, and said, “Corrie, I have become a Christian. I’ve come to ask you if you will forgive me for all that I did to you and your sister.”
5. Corrie said, “I froze. A chill went all over me. When I saw this one who represented all that was evil, I did not have the power to forgive, nor did I WANT to forgive him.”
6. “I breathed a prayer, ‘Help me God to forgive!’” She said, “AS an act of obedience, I put out my hand and when my hand touched his, liquid love began to flow, and I found out God’s grace was sufficient. I forgave him.”
7. So it IS possible for you to forgive!
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION
1. Leonardo Da Vinci, just before he commenced work on his famous painting, “The Last Supper,” had a violent argument with a fellow painter.
2. Leonardo was so bitter that he determined to paint the face of his enemy, the other artist, into the face of Judas, and thus take his revenge, immortalizing the man for generations to come.
3. Everything went well as he painted the upper room, the table, and all the different disciples around the table. But when he came to paint the face of Christ, he could make no progress.
4. Something seemed to be baffling him, holding him back, frustrating his best efforts. Finally, he came to the conclusion that the thing frustrating him was that he had painted the face of his enemy into the face of Judas.
5. Da Vinci picked up his brush, dipped it into the paint, and brushed out the face of Judas! He was then able to resume his work on the face of Jesus and this time was successful in capturing its holy nature and pure character.
6. Point: We will never be good representations of Jesus until we let go of our unforgiveness, because unforgiveness hurts our relationship with Christ.
B. THE CALL
1. Do you have some family member, work associate, neighbor, or church member who has hurt you, and you need grace to forgive them?
2. I will admit that forgiving people is often impossible – to a human; but with God ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE! God, like the master surgeon, is able to reach in and take out the offence.
3. The real question is, will you give it up? Are you ready to let go? Let’s go to God in prayer; “Heavenly Father, I have a wound I can’t heal. I can’t seem to forgive the person who hurt me. But I ask You to heal me; I give you all my hate, my hurt, my anger, and my regrets. Forgive me, forgive the other person, and help ME to forgive them. Do a supernatural work in my life to make this possible, I ask in Jesus’ name. And I believe that You’re doing it right now, and I give you praise. Thank You God, Amen!”
4. There’s some of you who also need Jesus to come inside and make you a new person in Christ. Pray the sinner’s prayer with me right now.
5. Let’s sing the first verse of Amazing Grace together. End.
