It seems to me that there is nothing quite so pure, quite so noble, quite so priestly as the act of forgiving and forgetting. My suspicion is also that most of us would say nothing is more difficult and requires such a risk than forgiving and risking being hurt again.
Lee Strobbel in his book, Thirteen Discoveries That Can Revolutionize Your Life: God’s Outrgeous Claims, reminds us about Associted Press repoter Terry Anderson who was held hostage in Lebanon for nearly seven years. He was chained to a wall in a filthy, spider-infested cell. He suffered through sickness. He endured mental torture. He longed for his family. He was grounded down by a dull ache of boredom. Through it all he was given only one book, the Bible, and one phrase kept coming to mind "Love your enemies and pray for those who persscute you." Finally Anderson was released on December 4, 1991. People quickly clustered about him and one question qucikly came up - can you forgive your captors? Anderson paused. Before he could come to a response, the Lord’s Prayer ran through his mind: "Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us". This is the victim talking and no matter how hard it was he knew he had to forgive not necessarily forget, but forgive his captors.
I can hear you saying, "You don’t know what he did to me. He hurt me; he violated my rights." I know how natural it is to feel anger and hatred towards our tormentors, but we need to learn is to forgive.
Forgiveness seems to be a isolated occurance in our society, marriages, family, churches, and the local community. I say this for we often hear a year ago, three weeks ago, or yesterday I forgave someone. It appears to only come out of a crisis situation or in the dramatic events in our lives. It seems odd that we have to think back in order to attempt to remember the last time we forgave someone. Why does happen so infrequently? If we really want to enjoy life it needs to be a habit or a way of life. As I began to think about the topic of forgiveness I came across a few questions which I think we need to deal with this morning.
Question: What do we mean by forgiveness? - I believe Jesus answers this in Matthew 18. Ask you look drop down in Matthew 18 to verse 21 where we get the answer to this difficult question..
V21 "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?’"
Forgive how many times? It is a fair question to ask I think. I’m sure we’ve asked that question once or twice ourselves. We can often forgive a person once, maybe twice, but come the third time we really have to think about it, right?
As the verse unfolds Peters answers his own question. Forgive up to 7X’s. It appears as though Peter wants a pat on his back, watch for a smiling face, or wants to hear good job. You see Peters’ 7xs comes from the Jewish law on how many times we are called to forgive another person. It is as if Peter is asking do I go the whole 9 yards Lord. The point is not the number of times you forgive, but make it a lifestlye. Jesus uses the error or Peter to create a teachable moment.
v22 "Jesus answered, ‘I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
Jesus responds. If you try to multiple and figure out how many times it is mathmatically you missed the point. The language is that of keep on doing it.
Lewis Smedes writes in, The Art of Forgiving, - He was telling us not to make forgiving a matter of numbers. He was talking about healing our memories of a wound that someone’s wrong etched in our cemented past. Once, we have stopped, we can forgive however many times it may take us to finish our healing.
But back to Peter’s question. It was simply the wrong question, and to give a straight answer to it would have been to give it a standing it did not deserve. The question is never how many times we are supposed to forgive, but how many times we need to forgive. Forgiving is a gift, not a duty. It is meant to heal, not to obligate. So the only good answer to Peter’s question is: Use the gift as often as it takes to set you free from a miserable past you cannot shake.
Why? Its a parable in v23 - "The kingdom of heaven is like..." This is how the Christian life ought to be - a forgiving community, a forgiving people. Through that showing what God is like. This is how the kingdom is like, and how we ought to live in the kingdom.
v23-24 "Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to
settle accounts with his servants, As he began the settlement, a
man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him."
In this parable, we see that the man owed 10 thousand talents.A talent was worth roughly seventy five pounds, so ten thousand talents would roughly be 750,000 pounds. Then we must ask were they gold or silver. In Troy there were 12 ounzes to a pound so now we have 750,000 X 12 = (gold 4,000 an ounce) what that comes out to roughly 3 million 6 hundred (3,600). That was before the loonie took a dive or course. What we do know for sure is that it is not nickel and dimes and can be best said through the words of the articulte Don Cherry when he would say "you owe them a ton of dough." More money then the poor man could afford.
v25-27 "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.
The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he
begged, ‘ and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took
pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go."
He cancelled the debt, he let him go, now that is the very nature of forgiveness. Yet, we see the servant still go through the 3 step process
1) hurt, 2) debt - he wronged me and therefore he owes me, 3) forgiveness-- the canceled debt. The man killed the IOU, wiped the slate clean, pressed delete on the computer, released the person from obligation. This is what forgiveness is all about. This leads us to the next question we can come across as we look at our passage.
Question: What if I dont?
What about those cases like sexual abuse, physical abuse, spiritual abuse, or being scammed it is not easy to forgive. Our passage continue to deal with how we are to respond when we read:
v28-32 "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. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. Then the master, called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said ‘I canceled all that debt of your because you begged me to."
The amount this servant owed was pocket change in relation to the first case. Nickels and dimes in comparrison to the large amount the first man owed. Yet what was wicked about what he did? He only wanted what he was owed. One gets 1 denarius a day which means the man owed him roughly 100 days wages, which is 1/3 of a person’s anual wages. It is a large amount but nothing compared to what the first man owed.
v33-35 "Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I has on you? In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."
Question: What do you do with a verse like verse 35?
Wayne Rice commented - "If you don’t forgive others God will not forgive you"... "One of the reasons we may have a hard time accepting thr forgiveness of God is that we find it hard to forgive others. That’s why Jesus said, "If your forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you" (Matthew 6:14-15). If we want our relationship with Jesus to be all that it should be, forgive your enemies and do all you can to demonstrate Christ’s love to them." Sounds true according to this verse doesn’t it. This draws us to the Lord’s Prayer - "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors". The only comment made is on these two lines. From all that is said the only comment is on forgive your fellow man and God will forgive you and if not you will not be forgiven. Yet, is it really that clear?
Now for the biblical scholars and theologians hold on one minute. It is by grace that you have ben saved and you cannot earn your salvation. Yet, how do you handle a verse like this? I believe we are not talking about your once and for all forgiveness, but our daily sins. If I want to enjoy harmony with God I need to have a forgiving spirit. When we do not forgive someone we sin. When we sin our fellowship with God is inturrupted so therefore it only logically follows that we need to become forgivers. It is a Christian virtue.
Hebrews 12:15 " See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. When hurt and we do not forgive it festers and grows and produces trouble.
It not only affects you but others. It enters into our marriages, spills over to children, the church, friends, community, and affects our relationship with God. When your angry don’t sin. Righetous anger can have its plan. Don’t let it turn into unrighteous anger. Deal with anger before sun goes down.
Ephesians 4:26-27 "In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold."
Don’t let the devil get a foothold. One of the greatest ways to have problems in our spiritual life is to be a unforgiving person.
Question: How do I do it?
This is where we put together all the parts of the story together. Motivation for this comes out when we are overwhelmed that God has forgiven you a ton of sins. Can we handle the small change in sins that have been made against us.. We always want to make people pay, it is human nature, while it is a whole lot easier in the long run to learn to forgive. Can we let the Lord handle it.
Romans 12:19 "Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge: I will repay,’ says the Lord."
We don’t know much about Alexander the Coppersmith, but we do know he was a thorn in Paul’s flesh.
2 Timothy 4:14"Alexander the metalworker did me a great deal of harm. The Lord will repay him for what he has done."
Alexander the Coppersmith caused him much harm and yet delcared the Lord will repay. He hurt and he owes me, but I will forgive, and let the Lord handle it. Paul goes forth with a forgiving Spirit.
The complaint is that forgiving violates our human impulses. Everyone has a natural instinct for getting even, a drive to settle scores, a desire to attack back. Forgiving strifles natural instinct. I believe that when we break into the cycle of unfair pain and forgive the person who has created it, we are following the ideal set out for us. If forgiving feels unatural for us, perhaps we do not do it often enough or never have. The answer to this difficult area called forgiveness is that forgiving is the only way to get ourselves free from the trap of being stuck in the rut, holding onto pain we need not to, or being unfair.
Matthew 6:14-15 "For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."
We can come and:
1) Give a detailed daily confession and repentance.
2) Receive ponder what God has done
3) Go out and forgive again and again.We must learn to love with agape love, the love that comes to us only when Christ, who is that love, comes to dwell within our hearts. To be forgiven we must forgive, and that is a condition of forgiveness that only the power of Christ can enable us to fulfill.
Forgiveness from the Father depends on forgiveness amongest the family of God. We need to learn to forgive one another. Our forgiveness of our fellow man and God’s forgiveness for us cannot be seperated: they are intertwined and interdependent. Appreciate, accept, and understand you have been forgiven a ton of sins--he keeps on cleansing from all of our sins. Forgive.
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Many ideas have been borrowed from Dr. William McCrae’s Message given at Tyndale Seminary. This has been revised and adapted.
