Forgiveness

Forgiveness is one of those aspects of the Christian faith. You must believe you need forgiveness to be a Christian. We all come to God saying, I need forgiveness. And we can only find it in Jesus Christ. We come because he offers forgiveness. And then we must constantly come to rejoice more and more in his forgiveness. The Christian life is one marked by repentance, which means we're turning to be forgiven. It also means we turn towards others to forgive them.

Christian, are you growing in your appreciation for understanding of, and recognition of your need for more forgiveness. Have you, have you stopped needing forgiveness? Did you stop sinning? Have you stopped extending forgiveness because other people haven't stopped sinning either?

It's the way of life of the Christian of repenting and forgiving. There's a very important connection as we think about how we think about forgiveness with other kinds of doctrines. We're called to love one another as Christ loved us. He is the measure, the fuel, the power by which we would love one another. And one of the most significant ways we would love one another as Christ loved us is to forgive one another as God in Christ forgave us.

I try to sometimes give you a summary statement, and for this sermon, I'm going to simply quote Ephesians 4.32. Forgive one another as God in Christ forgave you. That's the simple summary statement of what Jesus is going to teach us this morning in Matthew 18. Forgive one another as God in Christ forgave you. Last three different questions. How many times should I forgive? How much should I forgive? And why should I forgive? First, how many times? We have a bit of a new scene. It's still the same section.

How many times should I forgive?

We do think about how Christ has taught that if a brother has sinned against you, you go to him to win him, which means reconciliation is taking place. That's assumed. But there's a new scene because instead of Jesus teaching in response to how to be great, and the only way to be great is to come like a little one, dependent, Well, now Jesus approaches Peter, and he is following up on what I believe Jesus just taught. There are so many things Peter could have asked Jesus.

He could have asked about the binding and loosing. What does that mean? Just as many of you have continued to ask, what does that mean? What does it mean that, how does this relate to the keys you gave me back in Matthew 16? He could ask, what is a church? Because this is only the second time Jesus mentioned the church in the Gospels. He could ask, what about two or three? How are you with us?

How do we steward this authority? What do you mean the Heavenly Father is going to do whatever we ask as we gather as two or three? No, Peter says, how many times do we have to forgive?

How often do I forgive my brother who sins against me? Is it as many as seven times?

Now, I think that sounds like a lot to Peter.

Seven times, that sounds merciful. He's seeking approval, is it seven times? There's a rabbinical tradition that said three, so he's twice as merciful as they are, plus one. Seven's a good number, that's the number of days God created. Mickey Mantle's number. There's a way in which he seems to be emphatic that seven must be a really good number.

How merciful, how many times must I forget? In response, Jesus goes nuclear. 77 times. That's significantly more. There's actually two ways to possibly interpret the text here. It could be 70 times 7, which is 490, or 77 times. Either way, he's not adding, he's multiplying. It's a significant greater number.

He's correcting the idea that you reach some level of forgiveness. Like you're in a video game and you've got this bar that's measuring the mercy. When you fill it up, you get to just exercise all your wrath. No, there is no measure. It's going to go on, it multiplies.

And a key principle here that we've seen over and over again, as a father is rich and generous, trust him to be rich and generous, and you be rich and generous. He's already taught us a father is like that shepherd with one going astray, goes out and rejoices to bring him back. The Father is powerful, abounding in grace. That's why we receive others as the Father receives them and pursue others as the Father pursues them. It means we should not be as easily offended. We should seek to have love cover multitude of sins and be quick to seek reconciliation. Here's a simple rule for relationships. If you keep score, you lose. You've heard that before, children? If you keep score in a relationship, you're losing.

If you're trying to come up with how many times I'm gonna forgive and then I'm gonna cut him off, that's not how God has treated us and is not how he calls us to forgive one another. The backdrop of this high bar, demanding bar, the daunting bar of 70 times seven is our great generous God. So he says how many times it's, let's, you're not supposed to be counting that, be generous. Our second point is how much do I forgive? Jesus here launches into clarity and to make sure we understand how Much, verse 23, therefore. So as Peter has asked how many times seven, and he's made it clear, no, it's significantly multiplied more than you can imagine.

How much do I forgive?

Therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants.

So we have a comparison, we have a story that's going to elaborate the importance and significance of forgiveness. Now, it's a king to a servant, not a brother to his brother. The context up until now has been brother to brother. If a brother sins against you, forgive him. Here, it's a great authority and a servant. And the kingdom is key. The king has authority over his servants. He has authority over his kingdom. And here he's bringing the servants in to settle accounts. The king calls one servant who owed him 10,000 talents. the largest amount, a talent is the greatest currency. Now, I don't know how much you've brushed up on your Roman currency recently, but one talent is equivalent to about 20 years of wages. One talent is about equivalent to 20 years of wages. So here it's about 164,000 years to fulfill this debt. We think about how much this is, the whole point is it would take him forever to pay off the debt. This is lifetimes of debt. So we've actually gone beyond 77 or 70 times seven.

It's an impossible number that this servant owes to the king. Verse 25. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who had 10,000 for 24,

and since he could not pay it, his master ordered him to be sold with his wife and children and all that he had.

He couldn't settle this debt. Now, at some level, we have to ask, what kind of king gives that much, loans that much?

But here, the whole point is it's insurmountable. It's an impossible number to ever pay back. So his wife and everything he owns, he's gonna lose everything. I mean, just pause there for a second. That's just, That's good. The king is acting according to his justice in this punishment. Verse 26. Having heard the declaration,

the servant fell on his knees, imploring the king, have patience with me. Have patience with me.

I will pay you everything.

The whole point is that it's impossible that he could pay it. There's no way he could ever come up with this kind of money. There's no way he could ever come back and pay this kind of debt in his lifetime, much less if he had 10 or 20 lifetimes. The servant is begging for mercy, thinking he can still do something. So he hasn't really gotten quite what mercy would be, but he's trying to plead for patience, at least, and not lose his wife, children, and all his possessions.

Forgiveness is costly

And the story turns here. The King, out of pity, verse 27,

out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.

This is what forgiveness is pictured as here for Peter, for us. A few things about forgiveness. What happened to the money? The king has decided to forever be that much poorer. The king, in forgiving the debt, is now forever has that less buying power and wealth. He has chosen a costly forgiveness. He has absorbed that loss in order to restore The servant. See, forgiveness is absorbing by definition. Forgiveness is costly.

I want to emphasize that because we still live in a world where Dietrich Bonhoeffer charged us with being weary of cheap discipleship that preaches cheap grace and cheap forgiveness goes along with that. If we act like forgiveness, we're just going to say, I forgive you, but then act like We still don't like the person or they still have this debt. That's not real forgiveness. Or we wanna make sure they feel the full pain of the sin they've committed. No, that's not forgiveness. Forgiveness is absorbing of the pain, frustration, debt.

Forgiveness is costly to the forgiver. The king did not instantly make him realize how much it was going to cost him. He forgave him. Now, as we back out, I think we need to see that the king represents God. This great authority, this great mighty authority. The father who is like a shepherd who pursues his people. Now the father is like the king who shows great mercy and forgiveness. The first thing we should do here is just pause and think, God, he is this merciful. He is this rich and he is this generous.

To be clear, he doesn't make any of us ever know, anyone who believes in Jesus, no one will ever know how much debt you owe. You'll never have anywhere near a clear understanding of even a partial amount of how sinful you are. If you believe in Jesus, you'll never know this. He absorbs that. But if you don't know Jesus, you will know.

When you see God in all of his glory, without the common grace that you enjoy right now, you will feel and experience forever. the fullness of your sin and his wrath against that sin. And the only way to not experience that is by believing in Jesus Christ. But as we think about this Christian, as we think about forgiving others, God forgiving us does not mean or does not require him to make sure we know how sinful we are. We do often want to make sure somebody knows exactly how much they send or to make sure they prove somehow they they fully experience remorse. No, it's it's absorbing. I fear we want to make people pay for their sin in other ways too often.

I once with with a dear friend, a pastor, we were. Baseball game in DC, and on the way out, somebody threw firecrackers in the street. There had just been somebody shot, or a gun was shot in that near vicinity the night before, so we were on edge, and we heard this, and we all got down, and the pastor, godly man, friend, kind of rudely talked to his wife, and, get the keys out! Urgency! We got the keys out, we got in the car, we got back to the house, And we got there, oh, thankful we're safe. It was just kids throwing fireworks.

He said,

well, you could have said it nicer.

I said,

well, I thought we were in danger. I didn't have time to, like, check my tone. I was scared.

He said,

all right, I forgive you, and I guess you don't have to pay for it this time.

So I looked, and I was like, what are the other options here?

It was a wonderful, honest moment, because we usually want to say, like, I forgive you, but there will be payment later. I will bring this back up at some point. It was a wonderful, honest moment that we don't always seek to absorb and truly forgive. It's pretty easy to see where we are in the story.

We're the servant. We may not feel like him with this great of a debt, but we must see how costly this forgiveness is. As we look to the cross, we see God absorbed our debt. Jesus Christ, the incarnate one, he was our substitute. He absorbed our debt.

Christian grace is a free gift of God. We call this unconditional love, unconditional grace. With two qualifiers, it's first for us because of our wretched condition. The condition we find ourselves in is in absolute need of God's grace. And secondly, for God, in order for him to forgive us, he must punish sin to be just. He must be true to himself as a righteous God, which is why Jesus had to come and pay the debt in full so that he is both just in punishing every sin and able to justify us, declaring us forever innocent.

So the takeaways. First, forgiveness is costly. It's costly. So we don't ask how often, how much, No, we look to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we see how much we have sinned, and we seek to be as forgiving as he has been, and we realize it was costly for God to forgive us, and it's costly for us to truly forgive.

Forgiveness, by definition, absorbs. We don't make sure they pay for it another way. We seek to absorb the pain, not make sure they experience it. That's the opposite of forgiveness. There, forgiveness is a promise. And like every promise, it's easier to make and hard to keep. It's a promise that I'm not going to let this sin continue to interfere in our relationship anymore. It's a promise that I'm not going to treat you as if you have committed this sin. It's a promise that I'm not going to bring it back up again the next time we have a discussion, fight, disagreement.

Forgiveness is a promise. And finally, forgiveness restores. Instead of losing everything and being punished, the man is restored to his rightful place. Forgiveness we receive from God restores us. Forgiveness restores a relationship. Forgiveness restores our heart and our ability to relate to God and forgiveness with another restores our relationships and how we are reconciled. The last question, why should I forgive?

Why should I forgive?

Kind of like a sequel, what happened to the guy afterwards?

When the same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him 100 denarii, and seizing him, began to choke him, saying, pay what you owe. So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, have patience with me and I will pay you. He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt.

So what happened to the guy who just received this great forgiveness of lifetimes of debt?

Did he go out rejoicing? No, he goes out and he finds a fellow who owes him just 100 denarii, and 100 denarii, that's 100 days wages. The guy who owed millions of days wages. Tens of millions of days wages. He goes and shakes down the guy who owes him 100. And he demands payment. Important, you actually see the same exact words of response. Be patient with me. I will pay you. Big difference. The first servant, that's impossible. This guy, he could repay this. He could actually do it. It's 100 days.

But instead of showing the same pity he's received, instead of showing the same mercy he's received, verse 30,

he refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt.

Anyone listening here, there's something off with this dude. He lacks gratitude, he lacks mercy, lacks reason. Someone who keeps score like this doesn't treat others well? He's keeping receipts after he's been forgiven for so much.

He goes out and bullies a fellow servant. And significant, a king over a servant forgave much, but the two fellow servants, he abuses his fellow servant. Verse 31 introduces his fellow servants. The other folks who have seen this take place, this abuse, they saw what had taken place. They were greatly distressed. They went and reported to their master.

And there at 32,

then his master summoned him and said, you wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should you have not had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you. And in anger, his master delivered him to the jailer until he should pay all his debt.

That was the correspondence. I forgave you so much. Why wouldn't you also forgive? I had so much mercy. Why could you not have mercy? In anger, he ends up in jail until he pays off all his debt.

Verse 35 is one of the most daunting passages.

So also, my heavenly father will do to every one of you,

speaking to his disciples,

if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.

That's waiting. It's not new. As we'll pray in just a little bit for

forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

And in case we missed it in Matthew 6. Verse 14 Jesus emphasizes this following that prayer

for if you forgive others their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses.

Same principle here. There is some weighty teeth in this warning. How we live matters. Let's make sure we get what Jesus is saying and what he cannot be saying.

First, we have received great forgiveness from God. The greatest amount of sin and the most significant sin is our sin against God. We are forgiven fully and completely when God justifies us because Jesus paid that debt once for all, and we believe in him. So first, we have received the great forgiveness for the most significant sin.

Second, having received such forgiveness, it's not just removal of guilt and debt. It's supposed to restore you and heal you and revive you so that you who had been forgiven are then forgiving. The whole point of forgiveness is it turns you towards the person to renew that relationship and it restores and renews that relationship. And God's forgiveness doesn't just take away the penalty of sin, but it starts taking away the corruption of sin. It turns you who needed to be forgiven to the one who now has the grace to forgive. There's an expectation that if you're forgiven, you'll be forgiving. If you've been shown mercy, you'll show mercy.

Third, we've got to linger on the significance of this warning and how dangerous it is to hold back forgiveness.

So also my heavenly Father will do to everyone of us if we do not forgive our brother from our heart.

We have to hear how dangerous it is to hold on to bitterness and withhold forgiveness. Not only does it damage to you, but here he's saying there's forever consequence of what the father will do.

Let me be real clear. You cannot lose your salvation. Nothing can separate you from the love of God. He loved you while you're a sinner. Your sin cannot separate you from the love of God. When Jesus Christ paid that penalty, it was in full. And now there is no case to be brought against you in heaven because Jesus Christ's power has forgiven you. But this warning is from that same Jesus. You don't lose it, you may just never had it.

There's a warning here to be scared of that pursuit of forgiving and being forgiven. To see that this is the heart of the gospel, to be a forgiven people who are practicing forgiveness. It's important as we think about this,

Forgive one another as God in Christ forgave you.

The basis and measure of our forgiveness is the generous and rich God of mercy. We have been forgiven much, and we should seek to forgive others.

And there's a significance here. The much to less aspect of this is very important. That doesn't mean people don't really hurt you with their sin. It doesn't mean that there's not real significant sin among brother to brother. But it's always less than we've sinned against God. The forgiveness he's asking us to give is always going to be less than the forgiveness that he's given us.

That as statement is significant. That little word carries so much weight in scripture. Love one another. as I loved you. Forgive one another as I've forgiven you. That little word removes our unjust measure and balance that we like to use to determine who's worthy of our love and what kind of sins I don't want to forgive or how many times I don't want to forgive somebody.

It's significant. That as is God's own standard that he gives us in his grace, and then it's his standard that he gives us to measure our grace and forgiveness. It's a weighty challenge. Our theology is gonna have a whole lot of tension here, because I want you to have confidence.

If you have believed in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, and you're seeking to grow that forgiveness and know that forgiveness and by faith you are forgiven, that's it. But if that forgiveness hasn't truly changed you, you might need to take a step back and ask, have you truly believed in Jesus? Or what point did you stop asking for forgiveness and how have you become more judgmental than forgiving?

For this passage, the believer is in view. It is important we see this. He says, forgive your brother from your heart. And when your brother sins against you, you go and seek to restore him. He's speaking within the church. The other professing believers are the most focused view here of who he's saying we need to forgive.

That actually should make it easier to forgive because Christ has already forgiven them. You're being called to catch up to what God has already done. If he has forgiven that sin, why would we not? It's actually really important we think about this. If a fellow believer has sinned against you and you refuse to forgive, but you want them to pay for it in some way, you're seeking payment for sin Jesus died to forgive them for. This is how we must see our relationships in light of the cross and in light of our relationship that we share together in Christ. If it's a fellow believer, he is forgiven. Extend the same forgiveness you both have rejoiced in in Jesus Christ.

Forgiveness means restoration

Now, I'm gonna enter a couple little debates here. Some say that you cannot forgive unless the person repents. My response is kinda. If I take that text, forgive as God and Christ forgave you, I am certain I am forgiven for so many sins I am unaware of, much less if repented of. If I'm going to forgive others as God and Christ forgave me, I am certain he's forgiven me of sins I have not yet been aware of, much less repented of. I'm certain that at the moment of that great declaration of justification, because of all the repentance I've had to do afterwards, I was forgiven of sins I had not yet repented of.

But there's a truth to it because forgiveness means restoration. See, cheap forgiveness just says, I forgive you, but I'm going to ignore you, or I'm going to just always remember that particular sin, and I'm not going to really trust you again. No, no, forgiveness is vulnerable and costly, because forgiveness means you're going to turn towards the person who sinned against you. Forgiving somebody who doesn't repent makes forgiveness hard, because it's hard to trust somebody who's not actually acknowledged their sin. Forgiveness isn't fully enjoyed and rejoiced in if the person hasn't repented because reconciliation requires two things of two people.

I'm sorry, I forgive you. But I believe there's much heart work that can be done here without the person saying, I'm sorry. There's a significant amount of heart work to be done that brings a balm to your heart, that protects you from bitterness, that makes you ready to say, I forgive you. Because too many of you say, well, I forgive it in my heart. Well, no. Yeah, that means you're tender hearted, as actually Ephesians 432 says. You've grasped the forgiveness of God, and you sought to extend it to them. But it must be expressed in your words, in your actions.

I want to acknowledge the reality that it is very difficult to forgive and to truly exercise the fullness of forgiveness for those who do not repent. So the warning here, again, let me be clear, I in no way believe you can lose your salvation. But when the eternal perfect judge declares this, we need to recognize he has removed our sin from as far as the East is from the West by placing it on Jesus. We make sure we understand our forgiveness is so great and therefore be terrified of having a hard heart that does not forgive others.

Christian, if you've grown cold towards God and have a hard heart to thank Him, or if you've grown hardened because you've allowed bitterness to take root in your own heart, hear this warning that calls you out of that bitterness and out of that hardness.

Look to the cross

Look to the cross and see the balm that Christ's forgiveness alone provides. Before us this morning is the Lord's supper. We observe it regularly for a few reasons. In order to remember the great forgiveness God has given us. This is a reminder that Christ's body was broken for us, that his blood is for the forgiveness of our sins. It's a reminder we are forgiven because of Christ. It reminds us that we're all united by this one Savior and salvation.

And it's also a challenge for us to remember that we are part of a body, to forgive one another as we've been forgiven. Last week, the text ended with one of the most significant passages on the nature of the church. The authority invested in the earthly local body of the church, the heavenly authority That when the church speaks with one voice, it speaks with heavenly authority as if from the father. That's why we must be aligned with the very will of God.

We're supposed to be echoing what God is communicating in forgiveness or in repentance. Churches are supposed to be little embassies of reconciliation. We're supposed to be ambassadors to the world of the God who who's proclaiming repent and be forgiven and come to Christ. Must be the people who practice this though. Church, be the church of the living God who forgives us all our iniquities. Or to be the church of the living God who is rich in grace and abounding in generosity.

There are lots of folks who have diagnoses of why the church no longer speaks with the same authority. Let me throw my voice into this. I believe the church has lost her authority as the ambassadors of reconciliation because we've lost our identity as those who have been reconciled and forgiven.

And we stopped reconciling with one another. This is supposed to be the place where reconciliation is practiced. So when we invite somebody in, reconciliation is here because we're doing it. How can we go out with a powerful message out to the world be reconciled when we're not willing to do it even within this body among other brothers? The authority of the church, one of the reasons it's lost is we don't practice this doctrine of reconciliation with one another. That weakens our voice when we want to go out to the world and tell them the solution for their sin is Jesus Christ and his reconciling power. Here, church.

The great forgiveness we have received, it's immeasurable. What we'll never know the full extent of our sin by God's grace because of the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. As others sin against us, as others we believe owe us, we must have the fuel from God's grace and his forgiveness to forgive one another as God in Christ has forgiven us. Will you pray with me? Father, we pray we will not forget what great debt we have owed. We pray we will not become hardened because of perceived sin from others or devastating sinful action of others.

Or may we as a church be a constant testimony Of your great grace. That we are ambassadors of reconciliation with one another, forgiving each other. And together being an embassy of grace to the world. But may the church show the world the true way of peace. Which is only found. By receiving that grace from you and that forgiveness from Christ by faith. And then practicing it with one another. In Jesus name we pray, amen.