NIV Matthew 18:21 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?" 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 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. 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. 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."
Introduction: I am a competitor. I love to compete. It sounds better than saying, I am a sore-loser. I am never willing to concede and give up. I have said, “I quit,” when I was younger. I still burn inside to have a second chance, to not quit and to keep trying. I am a competitor. There is a sin that crouches at my door waiting for me whenever I compete: vengeance. During the soccer game for the Cardinals on Saturday, it became clear that our opponent was bigger, faster and better coached. I was in heaven. I was competing. We were directing the kids. Pushing our offense up the field, moving our defense around the goal. But when the other team scored goals on us, even when we were trying as hard as we could, we became frustrated. I had a fire in my chest to attack ; lash out and get them back for scoring goals on us. That burning feeling of vengeance you find when someone “gets you”, whether it is on the soccer field or when are country is at war with terrorists, is a sin. “Vengeance is my says the Lord.” God knows our weakness when it comes to being sore-losers. He knows how difficult it is to turn the other cheek. Remember Jesus is the one that controlled his anger and vengeance when his own family and country rejected him. Jesus even controlled his feelings of vengeance when the soldiers nailed his hands and feet to the cross: “Father forgive them.” Jesus is the one that teaches us to pray, “Our Father heaven, forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”
“How can I ever forgive you?”
I will remember the way God forgives me.
An environmentalist named John Muir once said, ‘everything in the universe is connected to everything else.” He was talking about our ecosystem in which every animal, mineral and person plays an integral part in our way of life and should not be thrown out carelessly but should be managed carefully. His theory also holds true in Christianity. Actually all of Christianity is connected to one central teaching: the forgiveness of sins. But what about the gospel? Well the heart of the gospel is the forgiveness of sins.
Have you ever been asked , ‘Why are there so many religions in the world; especially so many Christian religions?” All the different religions really have different ways to deal with sin and its accompanying guilt. But what about Christianity? True enough, that all the Christian denominations talk about the Gospel and the Forgiveness of sins. The key to understanding any religion is the How. How can God ever forgive me? Over the last couple centuries American Christianity has slowly been moving the Forgiveness of sins out of the heart of Christianity and molding the gospel into a beautiful work of mankind. In doing so they have left many people unanswered as they ask, ‘how can God ever forgive me?
In the bible we are met with the account of people asking this question time and time again, while every time they receive the same answer. Do you remember the story of the Ethiopian Eunuch traveling in his chariot reading Isaiah 53, when Phillip appears next to him and tells him the gospel, NIV Acts 8:35 Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.
NIV Isaiah 53:4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
What is the good news about Jesus except that he was our substitute in paying the penalty of our sins? The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. Or how about the jailer of Phillipi whose job was to guard the Christian prisoners. The Lord opened all the jail cells, so the jailer was ready to commit suicide because he would be executed for his falling down on the job. But Paul and the other Christians remained in their cells. The jailor cries out, ‘What must I do to be saved?” The good news about Jesus comes back, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.” Believing in Jesus is nothing more than trusting in what he has done. Jesus has paid for our sins and won for us forgiveness for all our sins by his perfect life, innocent death and bodily resurrection. God the father has declared us not guilty, forgiven of all our sins. Paul himself tells us bluntly in one of his sermons, “NIV Acts 13:38 "Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. 39 Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses.
How can God ever forgive me? Because Jesus life was so perfect and his death was so great that God declared all your sins forgiven, paid for, cancelled your debt. Many times we just don’t believe it. Sinful people just won’t accept the fact that God would just cancel the huge debt that we owe to him just because some Jesus Christ lived and died for us. We believe that there must be something that we do in order to earn and secure God’s forgiveness of sins.
Many people don’t realize God’s peace in their lives because something is standing in the way. Have you ever heard of unresolved guilt? It is I guess a psychological term. Some flavor of guilt in a person’s past is continuing to produce problems in the present, so we call it unresolved. People have this natural tendency to try to earn the right to be forgiven. Maybe they try “Guilt aerobics.” The guilt they feel about something in the past motivates them to live their life as a parent, a husband, a pastor, a doctor. Thinking all along that they will be forgiven as long as they continue to do a good job in their creator’s eyes. Other people try to receive their forgiveness of sins by “Guilt magic tricks”. They rationalize their guilt away by saying, ‘everyone has committed that sin anyway. I’m not as bad as everyone else. Or these days, “Heck, what I did in the past isn’t even a sin.” That one, “guilt magic tricks”, is the hardest to uncover. The last one people try do with their unresolved guilt is to pickle it. “Pickled guilt.” People can’t live with themselves because of their past sins, so they douse their guilt with chemicals. They over eat, they over drink, they do other types of over drugs to numb the sadness, pain and regret, so they are living in a false reality an altered stated of reality – pickled.
All of these ways of taking care of unresolved guilt never work for long. They never can be sure they are forgiven. Do you know why? Because God never said that he would forgive our sins because we earned it or because we forgot about them or because we are better than most people. That is all man’s ideas. No, the forgiveness of sins, the very heart of the gospel and Christianity, rests in God’s Grace, not man’s work. NIV Romans 3:22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
All sinned so all are justified. Our relationship with God rests secure because it rests in God’s hands and his Word. Being a child of God is certain. Look at the story of the two thieves crucified with Jesus. Both of the men crucified with Jesus maligned him and cursed him, at first. But one then came to believe Jesus. Just 2 short sentences show his conversion as he came to know the forgiveness of sins. 1) He confessed his guilt before God… he didn’t pickle it. He didn’t try a magic trick to make it disdappear. And he didn’t try to work it off. NIV Luke 23:41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong."
2)\He trusted Jesus would take care of his guilt and his death and his life as the king of a great kingdom. NIV Luke 23:42 Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." Wow, how could that thief view Jesus as a King as he hung there in the same predicament he was in, gasping for air ,suffocating & bleeding to death? He had faith. He trusted Jesus to pay his debt to God and win the forgiveness of sins for him.
How can God ever forgive me? The question is saturated with doubt that a holy God could forgive a selfish sinner. That doubt, fear and guilt is all taken away by Jesus Christ’s Cross. NIV 1 Corinthians 1:18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
God has forgiven the world’s sins, freely and fully by Jesus Christ’s life, death and resurrection.
Now we know how God can forgive me when I sin. Let’s ask the next question-how can I ever forgive you?
The great apostle Peter knew what it felt like to ask, “How can God ever forgive me?” After he denied Jesus three times in the courtyard, even though Jesus told him he would, Peter was overwhelmed with guilt, and remorse. How could God ever forgive him for denying him? God answered Peter’s question with Jesus Christ, “NIV 1 Peter 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade-- kept in heaven for you,
But Peter also knew that sinful people may take advantage of this great free and full pardon of sins. So Peter asked in our gospel lesson, “Is there a limit? How many times are we to keep freely and fully forgiving someone when they sin against us?” Now don’t be so hard on Peter for not understanding God’s grace and abounding love for sinners. Peter could have thought, “Ok we will keep on forgiving sinners who wrong us, but this could easily be abused by people. A sinner brought to repentance and assured of his forgiveness could easily turn around and sin again- and again – and again” Peter may have been concerned that people would take advantage of God’s forgiveness offered by the brothers they have wronged. Is there a limit to the times that I should forgive others? At what point am I to say, “Enough is enough; I can’t forgive you anymore!”
Peter’s dilemma is one we have all faced. Relationships between sinful people are often marred by sinful words and actions – some recurring over and over again. In every marriage, in every family, in every friendship, Christians will be faced with the situation in which forgiveness is requested from them – again and again. Does our forgiveness with others have limits? Our own nature wants us to limit forgiveness to protect our own interests; other people may encourage us to stand up for ourselves and not let someone take advantage of our loving forgiveness. NIV Matthew 18:22 Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
Forgiveness is not a numbers game; it has nothing to do with keeping score. A continuing and constant obligation of love is to be ready to forgive and forgive and forgive – with no limits at all.
Jesus then tells his disciples a parable to get this point to take root in their hearts: your heavenly father has a limitless heart for forgiveness, as his children you do as well. Huge debt that man owed equals our own huge debt of sin. Our inability to repay our debt equals the man’s inability to repay his debt. The great pardon by the King and by our heavenly Father. The complete cancellation of our debt and the man’s.
Have you heard of the term the great commission? Can you recite Jesus’ words to his believers before he ascended into heaven: NIV Matthew 28:19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
I think by just remembering that verse we miss the heart of Jesus request to us. Jesus Christ has already done all the work. He has paid our debt and won the forgiveness of sins. He now asks us only to preach the gospel. Which is nothing more and nothing less than preaching the forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ? Tell people that Jesus Christ cancels their debt. Jesus not only gave us a simple job but he also gave us a great power in the gospel but he also gives us power tools to use: baptism and Communion. In all three; The Word, and sacraments of baptism and communion, the forgiveness of sins is offered and given to people. Our methods and opportunities change over the years as God’s disciples, but our commission, the power and tools to accomplish the work will never change. We are simply to share the forgiveness of sins he earned already for all people. He does everything else NIV Mark 16:16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
How can I ever forgive you? It is a difficult question, but one we can answer as God’s forgiven children. The forgiven forgive, because we know the huge debt that God has forgiven us without limits and we respond with forgiveness to others without limits.
