Where Forgiveness Begins (Matthew 18:21-35)

Big Idea: Forgiveness is essential for spiritual growth, commanded by Scripture, and requires extending the same unlimited mercy and grace that God has shown to us.

In the next three weeks, we will discuss a common struggle that impacts everyone here. It's the area of forgiveness. At some point during the past week, it's likely that someone has offended you, and you haven't yet forgiven them. Many of us hold onto resentment and bitterness from the past, carrying these heavy burdens for years.

What makes the topic of forgiveness so important? We need to talk about forgiveness because our spiritual health depends on it. You cannot grow spiritually or receive God's blessings if you hold onto resentment and refuse to forgive others.

Hebrews 12:15 says:

Look after each other so that none of you will miss out on the special favor of God. Watch out that no bitter root of unbelief rises up among you, for whenever it springs up, many are corrupted by its poison.

Bitterness is like a small root that can grow into a massive tree. When we let bitterness or resentment take hold in our hearts, it can suffocate even our closest relationships. Bitterness brings jealousy, dissension, and immorality.

Scripture teaches that we are obligated to forgive others, and when we don't, the consequences are severe. In Matthew 6:14-15, Jesus said: "If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins." Your spiritual health depends on you forgiving others. If you refuse to obey God in this area, God plainly says that he will not forgive you.

We also need to talk about forgiveness because we do not naturally know how to forgive. It's likely that you have learned more on the subject of forgiveness from negative role models than from the Word of God. In today's society, vengeance is evidence of macho strength. Dirty Harry takes aim at the perp, challenging him to flee, saying, "Go ahead. Make my day." We're familiar with road rage, disgruntled employee rampages, drive-by shootings, and even high school shootings. People all around us are wracked with guilt, anger, and depression.

We also need to talk about forgiveness because forgiveness is the clear command of Scripture.

Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of malicious behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:31-32 NLT)

For a Christian to be willfully unforgiving is unthinkable. We have no options in the issue. Refusing to forgive is a serious sin – as serious as the sins of fornication or drunkenness. Disobedience is not an option.

The final reason I want to talk about forgiveness is simple: forgiveness is tough. Let's be brutally honest this morning. It's much easier to nurse a grudge and refuse to forgive, when wronged, than to offer the gift of forgiveness. In Luke 17:3, Jesus instructs his followers to forgive a believer who wrongs them seven times a day if that person sincerely asks for forgiveness each time. I love the reaction of the disciples; it would have been my reaction. When Jesus said this, they turned to him and said, "We need more faith. Tell us how to get it." They realized that to practice the radical type of forgiveness commanded in Scripture, you need help.

This morning we're going to look at where forgiveness begins. Next week I'll give you some clear guidelines on what to do when you need to forgive. And then, two weeks from now, we'll look at the rewards of forgiveness.

Why don't we pray as we begin? Father, you know our hearts. You know that many of us have carried around unforgiving hearts for as long as we can remember. It's so easy for a spirit of bitterness to grow within us. Forgiveness doesn't come easily to me. I pray that in these coming weeks, we will experience a breakthrough. I hope that those burdened by bitterness and anger, even for valid reasons, can find freedom and strength in forgiveness, as Jesus taught. I pray in Christ's name, Amen.

Three Secrets of Forgiveness

Please open your Bibles to Matthew 18 this morning. When confronted with the need to forgive someone, what are you to do? What should you do if someone's serious offense makes you unwilling to forgive them, even after repeated apologies? In this passage, Jesus gives us three secrets that form the basis of forgiveness.

At the time that Jesus was speaking, the religious leaders had developed some interesting views about forgiveness. They believed that individuals were justified in seeking personal revenge for all wrongs against them. For them, forgiveness was optional. They recognized that the Old Testament emphasized forgiveness, so they created a guiding principle. They said, based on the Old Testament, that a person could only be forgiven up to three times for the same offense.

And so Peter the apostle came up to Jesus one day and said, "Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?" (Matthew 18:21 NLT). Peter took his best idea and doubled it, rounding it up to a perfect 7, thinking Jesus would appreciate his generosity. "Peter, way to go! You're being twice as generous as you need to be. That's more than enough."

Pay attention to Jesus' response. "'No!' Jesus replied, 'seventy times seven'" (Matthew 18:22 NLT). I don't know if you've ever thought about Jesus' response, but it appears to be an absurdly unrealistic standard. I struggle to forgive someone who repeats the same mistake, even seven times. My tendency is to write them off, and possibly to write them out of my life. At some point, they cross the line. To forgive them for continuing to mess up again and again makes me appear to be indulgent and gullible. There comes a point where enough is enough.

And this leads us to the first secret of forgiveness.

Secret One: True forgiveness goes beyond any reasonable human limits.

Jesus fundamentally changed the standards for forgiving others. Jesus said, "Forgive any offenses up to and including offense number 490." In another passage, Jesus taught that if someone wrongs you seven times in one day and asks for forgiveness each time, you should forgive them. When Jesus said to forgive up until the tally reaches 490, he is making an important point. Stop keeping score. No one could possibly keep count of such a high number of offenses. Don't even try. Shatter any type of limits you or other people might place on forgiveness.

On December 1, 1997, twelve students gathered for their daily morning prayer outside the administration office of Heath High School in Paducah, Kentucky. As the students finished praying, a fourteen-year-old freshman walked up to the group with a .22 caliber pistol and began firing into the prayer circle, one student at a time. When the shooting was over, three students were dead and five others were seriously wounded. The students had done nothing to provoke the shooting. Some of the students in the circle had even befriended the shooter prior to the shooting. The secular media was at a loss to explain what happened. Fifteen-year-old Melissa Jenkins lay in her hospital bed a week after the shootings, realizing that her spinal cord injury would leave her a paraplegic for life. She sent this message to the boy who had deliberately shot her: "Tell him I forgive him." Melissa Jenkins exhibited a level of forgiveness that surpassed all reasonable boundaries of human compassion.

The religious leaders of Jesus' day made sense to me. I can understand forgiving others – up to a point. But Jesus said, "Shatter any preconceived notions about forgiveness. I'm calling you to a much higher standard than you could ever call reasonable."

I want to pause right here and ask you what standard of forgiveness you're following. I'm going to ask you to evaluate yourself. What standard of forgiveness are you following in your life? Are you refusing to forgive at all? Are you forgiving according to what you think is reasonable? Or are you shattering every human standard of forgiveness and forgiving others recklessly and lavishly? Whatever standards you have right now for forgiving others, forget them. Get rid of them. Jesus calls you to a much higher standard in forgiving others than any standard you might have right now.

I know some of you have a problem with what I've said so far. Jesus knew that his disciples would struggle with such a high standard. So he told a story. The story involved a king, a servant deeply in debt to the king, and another slave who owed the first servant a smaller debt. The king decided to collect all money due to him one day. He called his servant, likely a tax collector, and asked, "Where's my money?" It was time to bring the tax money that he had collected to the king. There was one problem. The servant had taken the king's money and embezzled it. It seems that he had used it all for himself, through theft, embezzlement, or dereliction of duty. There was no way to repay what the servant owed to the king.

No problem, right? I mean, we're not talking a lot of money, are we? Jesus mentions the figure of ten thousand talents. That means nothing to us now, so let me tell you how much money that was. A talent was the largest measure of money in the Roman world. One talent was worth 6,000 denarii, and a denarius was considered a fair wage for one day's work. Thus, one talent represented approximately seventeen years' worth of wages. And ten thousand talents was equivalent to 17 year's wages for 10,000 men. The Romans collected an average of 900 talents in total revenue from Palestine. All the gold in Solomon's temple – world famous for its riches – only amounted to 8,000 talents. This man was broke to the tune of 10,000 talents. In today's terms, we're talking about an amount equivalent to almost six billion dollars.

This leads us to the second secret to forgiveness.

Secret Two: Understand how lavishly you've been forgiven.

You see, the servant represents you and me, and the king represents God. Jesus compares an individual's debt of nearly six billion dollars to illustrate how much God has forgiven us. Recognizing God's complete forgiveness of our sins should inspire us to forgive others. When we don't forgive others, we are acting against what Jesus Christ did for us.

That's where forgiveness begins, friends. Forgiveness begins by understanding that you yourself have been forgiven. You are on the receiving end of God's unlimited mercy. Before you believed, your predicament was as bleak as could be. It might as well have been a six billion dollar debt that you owed. There was no way you were going to pay it. The Bible is clear about your situation: you were "children of wrath," his enemies. You were spiritually dead, enslaved to your sin. And yet you were accountable to a holy God whose justice must be satisfied. And yet God chose to display his unlimited patience toward you. Despite the fact that you were his enemy, with not an ounce of interest in loving God or pleasing him, God chose to forgive you.

"For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ" (2 Corinthians). 5:21 NLT). God made the sinless Christ to be sin on our behalf – he became our substitute – so that we might be forgiven. The servant symbolizes a lost sinner burdened by an impossible debt: the guilt of sin.

And what happens?

He couldn't pay, so the king ordered that he, his wife, his children, and everything that he had be sold to pay the debt. But the man fell down before the king and begged him, "Oh, sir, be patient with me, and I will pay it all." Fat chance – how is the man ever going to pay back such a monstrous debt? Then the king was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt. (Matthew 18:25-27)

The king in this passage was extravagantly generous. He forgave the debt completely, even though it arose out of embezzlement or extreme carelessness. He didn't even punish the man. He simply and compassionately forgave him. This image of forgiveness defies human logic. And yet it's exactly how God has forgiven us.

Think of how much God has had to forgive in your life. Think this morning of how we have to go running back to him again and again for forgiveness. The key to forgiveness is recognizing how much you have been forgiven.

Let me ask you a question. I'm asking you to rate on a scale of 1 to 10 how badly you have wronged God. You might not have been a drug dealer or a thief, but how much do you think God has had to forgive in your life? And then think of an example in your own life in which you need to forgive someone else. Rate that from 1 to 10 – the extent to which this other person has wronged you. I'll guarantee you that God has forgiven you much more than you'll ever have to forgive anyone else. That's the secret to forgiveness – understanding how much you have been forgiven. Far beyond any reasonable human limit.

But what happened in this story? Unbelievably, the forgiven slave acted in the most unforgiving way possible to those who owed him money.

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. His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, "Be patient with me, and I will pay you back." But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. (Matthew 18:28-30)

We're talking here about 100 days' wages. This man owed 0.0002% of the debt that the first slave had owed. Still a significant amount of money – almost $10,000 – but nothing compared to six billion dollars. But the man who had been forgiven so lavishly showed no mercy. Instead, he threw the man in prison until the debt could be paid in full.

Why would he do this? After having been forgiven a six billion dollar debt, why was he so merciless with a $10,000 debt? Jesus' words suggest that he went out right after being forgiven and immediately looked for the servant who owed him money. Unbelievable arrogance. Incomprehensible gracelessness. This man was free only because of an incomprehensible act of mercy that had been shown to him. Who did he think he was to deny someone else even a fraction of that mercy?

Well, the other servants recoiled and complained to the king. The king angrily imprisoned the man, stating, "Shouldn't you treat others as I treated you?" Jesus said, "That's how my heavenly Father will treat you if you don't forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart."

Secret Three: Forgive others as lavishly and completely as God has forgiven you.

Having been fully forgiven by God, we should also forgive others for their minor wrongs in the same generous way.

Jesus said in Matthew 6:14-15: "If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins."

To be forgiven by God and have your sins removed, you must also forgive others. To experience God's strict discipline, choose not to forgive others as you have been forgiven.

But make no mistake about it. James 2:13 says, "Judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy." In Matthew 18:35, Jesus warns that God will do the same to you if you refuse to forgive others from your heart.

That's the key: forgiveness can't be pretended or grudging. It means ending bitterness, getting rid of anger, and refusing to dwell on the offense once it's forgiven. It means refusing to bring it up to yourself, the other individual, or anyone else, from that time forward. It means, as much as is possible, to forgive as God forgives – to remember the sin no more. That's what we as believers are called to do.

I come from a family in which my parents split up over 25 years ago. There was physical abuse within my family. I know people in my family and friends who have experienced sexual abuse, whether as a one-time event or over several years. I have friends who have been cheated on by their spouses and have experienced extreme verbal and emotional abuse. Four years ago, a man within the church stood nose to nose with me and yelled his head off. Those who were with me thought they were going to have to pull him off me.

Jesus said: "If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others [including the ones who have really hurt you], your Father will not forgive your sins" (Matthew 6:14-15).

Oh Father, there are so many of us within this room who have been deeply hurt. Some of us have been carrying around grudges from bitterness and hurt for years. I don't pretend to know what many of these people have gone through. I can't begin to imagine the scars that are there – the damage that has been done that will never go away. But this I know. You have forgiven us, and you call us to forgive others as lavishly and completely as we have been forgiven. Forgiving others, regardless of their offenses, brings a significant sense of freedom and power.

Lord, next week we'll look at how to forgive. But this morning we want to repent. We want to apologize for accepting your forgiveness, and yet continuing to hold grudges against other people. I know that in the next two weeks you want to work to bring healing to many of our hearts. And I pray that it would begin this morning as we repent for having unforgiving hearts. In Jesus' name, Amen.