Cultivate Forgiveness

Matthew 18:21-27

Welcome to Mountain View Baptist Church today. Make yourself at home as we are worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ. If this is your first time, God bless you for coming.

If this is your first time or you have missed a week or two, welcome to our church. Our theme this year is Fortify the Family.

As we study the Bible on how to fortify our family, we are learning there are certain virtues we must cultivate in our lives. If you have missed any of the messages this month, let me catch you up. Two weeks ago, we learned you must cultivate love. This is agape love which is found in God’s love. Jesus shows us the other centered love that we are to cultivate. Last week, God showed us to Cultivate Kindness taken from Col. 3:12 in which we are to put on. The first two seems straight forward, but today’s lesson is much more challenging. We are to cultivate forgiveness?

For a Christian, forgiveness is the foundation of our relationship with Jesus Christ. Forgiveness is not only granted to us when we receive Christ as our Savior, but it is our entire way of living. Since we have been granted forgiveness from the Lord, we are also to give forgiveness to others. It is a command from a forgiving God.

Is there someone you need to forgive right now? Is there someone who has said or done something to you that you need to forgive them?

Oddly enough, many of the things we struggle to forgive are small things.

A man once decided to completely forgive his coworker who always borrowed his favorite pen and never returned it. One day, he gifted his coworker a pen with a note that said, 'Just so you know, this one is yours now!' They both laughed, and he realized that forgiveness often begins with a light heart and a wise choice to let go of petty irritations, just as God forgives us.

Many times forgiveness can be simple as buying an annoying neighbor a pen. I had one of those fellow students in grad school. He sat next me and borrowed a pen everyday until one day, I bought him a pen. He lost it and sought borrow another pen.

Peter asked Jesus in this passage how often should I forgive my Christian brother? In other words, Jesus, when can I stop forgiving someone. Is there a time when your spouse or your children or your Christian brother does something to you, and you have permission to no longer forgive them. It seems people have tons of excuses on why they are not to forgive someone; yet, they want God to forgive them.

Jesus answers Peter with the reasons we are to forgive.

Reason 1. . .

God commands us to forgive

As Peter is searching for a human answer on forgiveness, he projected that 7 times for an offense should be good enough. Jesus says 70 times 7=490. Jesus is saying stop trying to put a limit on forgiveness. God doesn’t put a limit on His forgiveness and it is a good thing. So Peter, are we actually going to count the number of times to forgive?

As Jesus was instructing in the famous sermon on the mount by the Galilean seashore on forgiveness, He made an astounding statement for the ages

Matthew 6:15 “But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

He is saying, don’t presume you are forgiven, if you are unwilling to forgive others.

It will take humility to forgive others. At this point in Peter’s life, he didn’t have humility and so he is asking for an excuse. His heart was revealing his spiritual immaturity. It is a mark of pride for someone to be unwilling to forgive others when God commands it. To be unwilling to forgive is bringing judgment on the other person.

A pastor shared how he forgives his neighbor who is always borrowing his tools and returning them covered in mud. One day, he decided to surprise his neighbor by delivering a gift basket with a new set of tools and a card that said, 'May these serve you better than mine!' It taught them both that forgiveness leads to a joy-filled bond that mud can’t ruin!

God forgives talents; we cannot forgive pence. God forgives a hundred thousand; we cannot forgive a hundred (Matthew 18). We look that God should forgive us, and we will not forgive others.

Thomas Manton

Colossians 3:12–13 “Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.”

If God forgives us, we must forgive others. Otherwise it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than him.

C. S. Lewis

It is not easy to forgive others as God commands, but it is necessary. Forgiveness is not for the other person, but forgiveness is for us.

It is most interesting in the passage, that Peter was sure his brother would sin against him but not he against his brother. Jesus is putting his misunderstanding of the situation into a proper way of viewing forgiveness.

Reason 2 . . .

Jesus demonstrates forgiveness

He gives this parable regarding a king who calls his servants to pay his debt. He did not have the ability but pleaded forgiveness for his debt and the king forgave him. The forgiven man found others who owed him a debt and demanded they pay him. The debt was to high that he could not pay, so he had them put in jail. Here was the man who had received forgiveness, unwilling to forgive other debtors.

The King is Jesus and He paid for the debt so we could be forgiven. Even as He hung on the cross, he said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Jesus forgave those who abused Him, hated Him, and mistreated Him.

Jesus demonstrates we forgive others as He forgives. Our target and model is not to forgive as people forgive or as the world forgives, but to look unto Jesus. Forgiveness like Jesus means we release them of the wrong they have done.

Forgiveness doesn’t relieve others of the consequences, but of the infraction. For example, a person may steal from you and you forgive them, but that doesn’t mean you give them the key to your house.

We also must learn to forgive ourselves. This could be the biggest challenge is to forgive ourselves when we do wrong, when we fail to follow the Lord.

I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves.

C. S. Lewis

First, remember how many times each day Jesus forgives you. Second, if you’ve really forgiven, it isn’t the seventh time, it isn’t the fifth. It isn’t even the second. It is always the first.

Jay E. Adams

Reason 3. . .

Unforgiveness hinders spiritual growth

Without the forgiveness of Christ, we cannot have a relationship with HIm. This forgiveness comes when we turn from our sin and accept Him as our personal Savior. He died on the cross to pay for our sins, so we could be forgiven.

Imagine someone lying in a hospital bed, running a high fever. Their body is being ravaged by a hidden infection. On the surface, things might not look too serious—but underneath, bacteria are multiplying, poisoning the bloodstream, threatening life itself.

Now imagine the doctor arrives with a course of powerful antibiotics. These aren’t just bandages. They don’t just numb the pain or lower the fever temporarily. They go deep—targeting the infection at its root, attacking the bacteria, cleansing the body from the inside out.

That’s what God’s forgiveness does. It doesn’t just treat the symptoms of sin. It’s not a spiritual Tylenol. It’s a radical, cleansing grace that reaches into the deepest places of our lives—places where guilt and shame have been festering—and brings healing.

We who have received forgiveness through Jesus Christ must also forgive others. There are three dangers that are lurking when we are unwilling to forgive others. For a believer, unforgiveness affects our lives.

Hinders our prayers Matthew 5:23–24 “Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.”

Carry unnecessary guilt Psalm 51:8–10 “Make me to hear joy and gladness; That the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sins, And blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God; And renew a right spirit within me.”

Hurts our relationships 1 Peter 3:7 “Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.”

When you have an unforgiving heart, it will turn into bitterness

Hebrews 12:15 “Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;”

Forgiveness is not easy but it is necessary. Quite honestly there is pain in forgiving just as Jesus suffered the agony and pain of the cross we could be forgiven. Who is it that God wants you to forgive? Are you carry unforgiveness in your life? When you forgive, the burden will be lifted?

Life is challenging enough. Don’t carry the load of unfrogiveness towards others or towards God. Some have never forgiven God for something they thought He did or should have done. Come to HIm, lay it at His feet. Decide right now, you are going to Cultivate Forgiveness.

In 2015, the world watched in horror as a young white supremacist walked into Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, joined a Bible study… and then opened fire. Nine believers were killed. The attack was hateful, tragic, and deeply personal—it happened inside a sanctuary. A place of prayer.

But something even more shocking happened just days later. At the killer’s bond hearing, several family members of the victims stood and spoke. No one would have blamed them for rage. No one would have faulted them for demanding justice.

Instead, one by one, they offered forgiveness. “I forgive you,” said one woman, through tears. “You took something precious from me, but I forgive you,” said another. “May God have mercy on your soul.” The world was stunned. News anchors wept on camera. Commentators couldn’t explain it.

But the church could. These weren’t just nice people. They were forgiven people. People who had been shaped by a gospel that says while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And because they had received grace, they extended it. That doesn’t mean it was easy. Or that it erased the pain. But it showed the world what supernatural forgiveness looks like. And it pointed, unmistakably, to Jesus.