Forgiving

Good morning. If you were here last week, you know that Ramsey finished off our 12-week series on discipleship. Discipleship was ordinary people learning to live their everyday life like Jesus. Just because we are done with the series doesn’t mean that we stop learning what it is to live like Jesus. What we are planning to do this year is to continue to explore the topic of what it looks like to live like Jesus. Seeing as this is the first Sunday in December and I have a couple Sundays to fill before our Cantata and the Christmas Eve service, I thought I would spend a couple weeks talking about two topics that seem to fit the season: giving and forgiving. As we know, giving and forgiving, at least from the Christian perspective, is rooted in the love of God that manifested through God sending his son Jesus to die on the cross for us. Most of you are familiar with John 3:16 that says “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Obviously in this passage we see God’s giving nature, and even though the word is not mentioned, we also see his forgiving nature. We know that because of Christ’s death on the cross we have been forgiven of our sins. If we have received the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ we have been forgiven of our sins and consequently can obtain eternal life. But even though I think that we all understand what that is about, there are two things that are very difficult for Christians to do: give and forgive. In fact, I can’t think of two more difficult things for a Christian to do.

Although I don’t have a lot of time to prove that to you, let’s say I suddenly said that starting January 3 every member of the church would have to tithe 10% of their income from whatever source. I suspect that some would be quite comfortable with that. Others I would probably feel a little bit of pushback. Some people might even leave the church because, after all, who are we to tell you what to do with your money. Another example would be let’s say starting in January I would say that if you are a member of this church you are required to email, contact, send a card, or a phone call to every person who has ever offended you in your life and say the three words I forgive you. I might feel a little bit of pushback there too. A certain amount of pushback is normal, I think if you have a lot of pushback going on inside your heart, it is really symptomatic of a couple things. For one, it is symptomatic of maybe you just don’t know your Bible very well. You can’t read the Bible without seeing that the Bible and Christianity are all about giving and forgiving. Worse than that, it demonstrates a small heart. A heart that has failed to understand the magnitude of God’s loving grace and kindness and generosity and forgiveness towards us. What I would like to do over the next two weeks I just address these two topics of giving and forgiving. Not in an attempt to make you uncomfortable but really to help you see the biblical basis for giving and forgiving and make the call as far as what God might have you do with that.

Today, we are going to start with the topic of forgiving. To do that we are going to look at a parable that some of you are familiar with. The parable of the unmerciful servant that is found in Matthew 18:21-35. (Scripture read here.) A little bit of background on this. If we were to back up in this chapter, we would see earlier in Matthew 18 that Jesus is taking some time to explain to his disciples how to deal with somebody that offends you. We commonly refer to it as the Matthew 18 principle. It is quite simple. When somebody offends you, rather than talking about it behind that person’s back, you go to the person and say you offended me. If the person agrees, they say they are sorry, and it is done with. If the person doesn’t listen to you or doesn’t agree, bring a second person and try to convince them and it is over with. It is a great principle. When it is working in the church, it is phenomenal. But unfortunately, we are all guilty of violating that many times. When somebody offends us, instead of going directly and talking to that person, what happens is we talk to everybody else about it, and then that causes problems in the church. I am just as guilty as the next person. That is the Matthew 18 principle, and that is the background. Jesus has finished talking about that and Peter does what he often does. When Jesus gets done talking, he raises his hand and asks him a question. In this case, he asks him a question that really Peter decides to give the answer to himself. He says “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” Keep in mind in the Jewish tradition, I guess a person wasn’t required to forgive another person more than three times. By Peter suggesting seven times, he is thinking I am really generous. As Jesus often does, rather than commending Peter, he raises the bar a little bit. Jesus goes on to say “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” Some of you may have in your Bible if you are reading from the King James Version or New American Standard, it might say seventy times seventy, which would be 490 times. Whatever the case, 77 or 490 is a lot of times to forgive somebody. When Jesus says this, he is not suggesting that somehow Peter should keep an account of how many times he has forgiven somebody and when he hits the 490 or 77, he can just say I am done. I am off the hook. What Jesus is saying is in the kingdom of God, you don’t hold grudges. It doesn’t work. You keep no records of wrong.