We are in the last installment of a sermon series entitled Digging Deeper. Our goal is to answer this question: WHAT makes Christianity more “sticky” in some? What is the PROOF that determines if a person truly follows Christ? Or, What makes a Christian a Christian?
We lose a lot of items in life. I lost my car keys on occasion. Some will lose their money by misplacing inside a different pocket. Some lose their reputation or respect. Yet, one of our greatest risks is that we may loose heaven itself. Heaven is also the eternal home of anyone who obeys God and loves His Son Jesus Christ. Jesus said that we risk losing heaven itself if we hold fast to an unforgiving attitude: “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” (Matthew 6:14-15).
Forgiveness for Christ’s disciples isn’t an option. It isn’t icing on the cake of Christianity. If we don’t experience forgiveness and offer it to others, then we will perish in our sins.
What does Christ say to a person who says, “I just cannot forgive?” What does Christ say to the person who says, “I will not forgive?” According to Jesus, when you say, “I cannot or will not forgive,” you’re essentially saying, “I am thinking about going to hell.”
Today’s Big Idea: If you are a genuine Christian, you will be both willing and able to forgive others.
Today’s Scripture
Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven. 23 “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. 24 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. 25 And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. 26 So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27 And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. 28 But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29 So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30 He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. 31 When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. 32 Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. 35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart” (Matthew 18:21-35).
There are very few of us who like to chase quarrels. We would rather escape them at most any cost. Most of us long for harmony at home, …uncomplicated friendships, and unity in church. Yet, despite our longing for harmony, it often eludes us. In a 1988 Gallup poll on forgiveness, 94 percent of those surveyed said that it is important to forgive. Yet, only 48 percent said they make it a practice to forgive. A Gallup Poll determined that 94% of those polled thought that forgiveness was essential, but 85% said they would need outside help to do so.
Forgiveness is an emotionally charged subject. Forgiveness is about the resolution of conflicts. Yet, conflicts are so messy. Oftentimes, there seems little or no clear-cut solutions to the family conflicts in our lives.
Jesus offers a story on forgiveness. Jesus’ parable reinforces His words about the necessity of forgiveness for His children in Matthew 6:14-15 and in the Lord’s Prayer Matthew 6:12. Forgiveness for the disciple isn’t an option. Remember the Lord’s Prayer? “and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12).
1. Confusion on Forgiveness
Forgiveness is emotionally hard work. It’s often complicated by the fact of nagging questions. When I mention the word “forgiveness,” many of you automatically think about your abusive parents, or the sexual abuse you’ve received from an uncle… or your spouse is insensitive and they give you the silent treatment.
Should we forgiven those who don’t repent? Should we forgive those who offer no remorse for their actions?
Hank Aaron has revealed some of his personal trauma in his autobiography, I Had a Hammer: The Hank Aaron Story. Aaron recalled stories from his early days in the Negro League. On one occasion the team ate in a restaurant behind Griffith Stadium in Washington. A big Sunday doubleheader had been rained out. The team was eating breakfast while waiting for the rain to stop. Aaron said he can still hear the kitchen employees breaking all the plates in the kitchen after he and the other players had finished eating. They broke the plates to make sure no white person had to eat on the same plate a black person had used. Aaron writes: “If dogs had eaten off those plates, they’d washed them.” He described the isolation he felt as he broke into the major leagues, the motels in which he could not stay, and the restaurants in which he could not eat. He detailed with passion the death threats and hate mail that came flooding in as he approached and then passed Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record. Should Hank Aaron automatically forgive racists who show no remorse for their actions?
Jacob Neusner’s article, “It’s Too Soon to Ask Forgiveness,” appeared in the Los Angeles Times on March 31, 1998 shortly after the shootings in Jonesboro, AR:
If you lost a daughter to the pre-pubescent snipers in Jonesboro last week and came to church for solace this past Sunday, you found only confusion. The message being preached was not why does a loving and just God permit evil in the world? It was a demand for Christians to forgive the children's murderers.
Surely the grieving families, the community of Jonesboro and the nation are puzzled over the enduring mystery of monotheism: Why is there such evil in the world of the one and only, the all-powerful, loving and just God? The preachers didn't deliver the message that we cannot explain what happens but have to accept and be grateful for what we have had--the lost children and heroic teacher, the legacy of memory.
No, the message the preachers offered the grieving town and the world beyond was that right now, on the spot, we have to forgive our children's murderers. How brutal.
Dennis Prager recorded the following commentary in the Wall Street Journal on December 15, 1997: “The bodies of the three teenage girls murdered by a fellow student at Heath High School in West Paducah, Kentucky were not yet cold, let alone buried, before the students of the prayer group that was shot at announced, ‘We forgive you, Mike,’ referring to Michael Carneal, 14, the murderer. This message of immediate and automatic forgiveness of a murderer is angering and depressing, but not surprising. Over the course of the past generation, the idea that the central message of Christianity is to forgive everyone who commits evil, no matter how great and cruel and whether or not they repent, has been adopted by much of Christendom. The number of examples is almost as large as the number of heinous crimes. But one other recent example stands out. In August, the pastor at a Martha’s Vineyard church service attended by the vacationing President Clinton announced that it was the duty of all Christians for forgive Timothy McVeigh, the man who murdered 168 people when he blew up the Oklahoma City federal building. ‘I invite you to look at a picture of Timothy McVeigh and then forgive him,’ the Rev. John Miller said in his sermon. ‘I have and I ask you to do so. Considering what he did, that may be a formidable task, but it is the one that we as Christians are asked to do.’”
“Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him” (Luke 17:3-4).
Please note that to repent means to do a 180-degree about-face. It’s a change of actions where you no longer do the sin in question. You may sin in new areas (where you’ll need frequent forgiveness). But you quit sinning in the same area where you repented. Or at the very least, you’ll work toward stopping the very sin with great intensity.
Complete forgiveness can only take place when there is repentance. Jesus says you must offer forgiveness. But where there is no repentance, there can be no forgiveness.
1.1 You should not seek revenge (Romans 12:17-21);
1.2 Leave Room for the Wrath of God;
1.3 Love Your Enemies (Matthew 5:38-42).
Don’t lie in your bed picturing how you might retaliate. Don’t lay in your bed picturing how God will rain down fire upon them in the Last Day of Judgment. Instead, use your mental energy to creatively plan a response that will end the cycle of violence. For an illustration of this I invite you to Google “Amish at Nickel Mines” where you’ll a great picture of this. Now, if repentance isn’t required, then how else do you account for the following?
“When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, ‘O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?’ Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been” (Revelation 6:9-11).
2. The King’s Forgiveness
Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:21-22).
Peter was often the leader among the Twelve Disciples. Peter has just learned from Jesus’ teaching that forgiveness is vitally important and wonders aloud about the frequency of forgiveness. Surely, he believes that there is a limit to forgiveness – how long should one keep on forgiving? Rabbis in Judaism around the time of Jesus taught that one should forgive only three times. Peter had more than doubled this quota. So kudos’s to Peter.
Can you think of anyone you have forgiven as many as seven times? Peter had clearly learned something from Jesus for he now understands that retaliation is not the right path for a disciple. Jesus offers a story to show the unbreakable connection between God’s forgiveness of us and our forgiveness of other people.
Followers of Christ should be frequently forgiving people. Jesus offers us the story in three scenes:
1) The king’s compassion;
2) The servant’s lack of compassion;
3) The king’s anger.
In the first scene the king forgives. In the second scene, the forgiven servant lacks compassion for his fellow servant. Instead of forgiving, the servant imprisons his fellow servant. And in the third scene, the king’s anger is quickly kindled when he learns of the servant’s lack of compassion. In response, the king revokes his forgiveness and punishes the unforgiving servant.
“Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. 24 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. 25 And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. 26 So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything’” (Matthew 18:23-26).
To get some idea of the some of the amount of money this man owes – Herod the Great’s annual revenue from his entire kingdom was about 900 talents during this time. This amount also exceeded the taxes of Samaria, Judea, Syria and Phoenicia together. He would have had to work roughly 193,000 years to pay back what he owed. The amount of money he owed would have weighed 750,000 pounds. This is nine million ounces of gold. An ounce of gold was selling for $1,168 on the New York Mercantile Exchange earlier this week. Once you multiply this out, the man owes $10.5 billion.
“And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt” (Matthew 18:27).
This is an astronomical debt. For the king to be able to write off this loan, he must be loaded. In those days, bankruptcy was real simple. There was no chapter eleven. The king would just take the wife, the kids and sell them into slavery and put the man in prison. Simple! That's how they dealt with bankruptcy in those days. Yet, the King takes pity on the servant. We are astonished at the generosity of the king.
God is the king in the parable and you are the servant. The debt the servant owes represents the debt for sin that you owe God. Jesus works hard to tell us that all people have amassed AN UNPAYABLE DEBT TO GOD. Life has been loaned to you from God and He intended for you to use it for His purposes. You have taken your life from God, and, rather than returning it to Him in worship, you have squandered it on your own selfish desires. When we add up all the things we have done to fall short of God’s infinitely perfect and holy standards… combined with all the things we have not done that could have pleased Him… then we see our sins as enormous in God’s eyes as a multi-billion dollar debt. There is no way in the world we could repay Him. The work of Christ on the cross was God’s forgiveness of sinners. This is a crucial first scene in Jesus’ parable.
How you believe God forgives shapes how you forgive others. “and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Matthew 6:12)“For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:14-15).
What does it mean for a husband to forgive an unfaithful wife? God expects believers to forgive others in the way he forgave them. If you are trying to figure out the first step of forgiving another person, then concentrate on how God forgives at the cross. God’s forgiveness is conditional. Only those who repent and believe are forgiven. God’s forgiveness is a commitment by God Himself to pardon those who repent and believe in His Son.
The work of Christ on the cross absorbs the wrath of God like a sponge does water. The Son soaks up all of God’s rightful anger to Himself. God’s forgiveness reconciles sinners to Himself so that God is now their adopted Father (Romans 8:15; Ephesians 1:5). Yet, this doesn’t eliminate all the consequences (Proverbs 3:12).
King David is an example of sin’s consequences after God’s forgiveness. Forgiveness does not mean the elimination of all consequence. David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. 14 Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die” (2 Samuel 12:13-14).
3. The Heartlessness of the Just-Forgiven Man
The servant would agree with King Louis XII of France when he said: “Nothing smells so sweet as the dead body of your enemy.”
“But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29 So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30 He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt” (Matthew 18:28-30).
One hundred denarii roughly amounts to four months work. This was a significant debt. But it was but a pittance in comparison to what he had owed. The servant was forgiven 579 times the amount he refused to forgive. Peter asks, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times” (Matthew 18:21)?
Peter doesn’t realize how much God has forgiven Peter. The servant isn’t amazed at how much the king has forgiven him. He simply forgot. After he had been forgiven of “zillions” of debt, he couldn’t forgiven someone else of “peanuts.” This is hypocrisy pure and simple.
I was recently sent the following email that you need to hear about Christians and hypocrisy. It refers to the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic church: “I have a message for my believing friends and it’s something that believers should really listen to and think about. As a realist who doesn’t believe in God I am often challenged to open my heart and let Jesus in. I am reluctant to do so without any evidence that God exists. I am told that when one becomes a believer that they have a personal relationship with God and the God transforms you and you become one with the Lord. So from my point of view I should be able to see the difference in the behavior of those who believe as compared to those who don’t believe. But I’m not seeing it. Especially in the latest news coming out about the sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church.? So let me be clear and direct about this so you Catholics listen up. If there is an omnipotent God and a person or a religious group has a personal relationship with God then you wouldn’t be raping children – period! The Catholic Church would not be covering up for those priests who are raping children. Admittedly, this doesn’t prove that God doesn’t exist, but it does prove that the Catholic Church does not have a personal relationship with an omnipotent God, because if they did this sort of thing simply would not occur.…you can show us that God actually has transformed your life in a way that is observable to the reality based world. Even if God can’t be observed directly, if you claim God has changed your life then those changes should be observable in your life and in your religious group as a whole. And if these changes aren’t observable then we in the reality based community aren’t going to listen to what you have to say. If you are going to convert Atheists you are going to have to pass your “Fruit Test” to get our attention.”
Powerful words from an atheist.
4. The Destiny of Those Who Fail to Forgive
When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. 32 Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt” (Matthew 18:31-34).
In the third scene, the other servants are horrified by the glaring hypocrisy. He had hypocritically accepted mercy but is not willing to grant it to another. His pleas for mercy before the king were a hoax. In the end, the king reverses his decision and sends the man to the merciless jailers. These torturers treat the man as he treated his fellow servant.
Let me careful here. I’m not talking about someone who struggles to forgive but keeps on trying. I’m talking about someone who is unwilling… I’m talking about someone who doesn’t want to forgive.
Forgiveness is very difficult. You’ll need Christian friends. You might need professional counselors. You need to practice the spiritual disciplines (look for more at our 10 for 10 campaign).
Listen carefully to Jesus’ conclusion statement: “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart” (Matthew 18:35).
If you separate your forgiveness and God’s forgiveness, you cannot count on God’s mercy. If you try, then you show you never had God’s forgiveness in the first place. Those unwilling and unable to forgive should fear for their salvation. God’s forgiveness isn’t something that is cut and dried that you receive only once in life. Instead, God’s forgiveness at the cross is a persistent power that pervades all of life.
When a person says “I will not forgive,” he believes they are offenses that are so serious they do not deserve to be forgiven. Jesus teaches us that whatever someone has done to offend us always pales in comparison to what we have done to offend God. According to Jesus, when you say, “I cannot or will not forgive,” you’re essentially saying, “I am thinking about going to hell.” Forgiveness for Christ’s disciples isn’t an option.
