Sermon Tone Analysis

Big Idea

Tension: How should Christians forgive?

Resolution: In the same way that God has forgiven us: unlimited in quantity and boundless in quality.

Exegetical Idea: Christians should forgive limitlessly and boundlessly as God has forgiven us.

Theological Idea: Christians should extend to others the same forgiveness God has given them.

Homiletical Idea: As God forgave us, so we forgive others.

Introduction

Dylann Roof walked into the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

The church enthusiastically took him in.

It was only a few minutes later that Dylann pulled out his gun and opened fire on those there.

Nine people lost their lives and Roof fled.

Eventually, Roof was captured and brought before the

Dylann Roof walked into the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

The church enthusiastically took him in.

It was only a few minutes later that Dylann pulled out his gun and opened fire on those there.

Nine people lost their lives and Roof fled.

Eventually, Roof was captured and brought before the court and the relatives of those slain were given an opportunity to address Roof before his sentencing.

To everybody’s surprise, member after member of the families stood up to address Roof.

Rather than condemnation, they offered forgiveness.

Rather than hatred, they offered mercy.

“I forgive you,” Nadine Collier, the daughter of 70-year-old Ethel Lance, said at the hearing, her voice breaking with emotion.

“You took something very precious from me.

I will never talk to her again.

I will never, ever hold her again.

But I forgive you.

And have mercy on your soul.”

“We welcomed you Wednesday night in our Bible study with welcome arms,” said Felicia Sanders, her voice trembling.

“Tywanza Sanders was my son.

But Tywanza Sanders was my hero.

Tywanza was my hero….May God have mercy on you.”

“I acknowledge that I am very angry,” said the sister of DePayne Middleton-Doctor.

“But one thing that DePayne always enjoined in our family … is she taught me that we are the family that love built.

We have no room for hating, so we have to forgive.

I pray God on your soul.”

-

Charles Roberts was the local milkman deliverer.

He was well known tot he Amish community where he regularly delivered.

One day, Roberts walked into a one room school house and opened up fire, killing ten school girls before killing himself.

The community was rocked, weeping for the fallen.

There was much media attention on the day when the ten girls were buried.

But to everyone’s surprise, something incredible happened.

The next day, when teh killer himself was buried, the Amish community came.

At the end of the service, the families of those whose little children had been killed came up and embraced the widow of the man who had killed their little girls.

The Amish families continued to come togerther, taking up collections so that the woman and her three children would be cared for.

-

It was Palm Sunday in the Egyptian heat when a suicide bomber walked into a church and exploded himself.

The security guard who was checking him for weapons was killed in the blast saving dozens of people.

Later that week, the media approached the widow of this security guard and her children.

She looked up at the news camera and said,

“I’m not angry at the one who did this,” said his wife, children by her side.

“I’m telling him, ‘May God forgive you, and we also forgive you.

Believe me, we forgive you.’”

Perhaps teh largest talk show host in Egypt, a muslim man, was stunned into twelve seconds of silence on national television as he watched this.

Finally he turned to his national host and said, “These people are made of steel.”

-

There is somethign about these stories that is disjarring.

It is hard to understand.

It seems wrong.

It seems unjuust.

It seems unfair.

It is unearthly, unworldly, alien, and odd.

The reaction of the Muslim man is what rings in our heart, “If this happened to me, I could never say this.”

Yet, these people, these true stories, understood something about the gospel, something profound, something that this story teaches us.

Why do Christians forgive?

This is what our scripture is about today.

The Parable

Setting

Context: Now, it is important in this passage that we remember the context.

Remember, last week, we dealt with the difficult topic of church discipline.

We talked about how if someone is perpetually unrepentant after the church going to them one, two, three, four times, over time, and they still refuse to listen to the church, they are to be excised from teh church’s memberhsip roles.

Well, it is only natural to ask, What happens after that?

What do we do with the person who comes back who repents?

And this is a question that Paul will deal with in 2 Corinthians as well.

How do you find forgiveness.

How many times must I forgive?

Now, Peter asked, “How many times must I forgive?”

Now, the Rabbis of first century Judaism had said “Three times.”

So Peter thinks, “Okay, I can figure this out.

Everywhere else, Jesus has said that the Jews haven’t gone far enough in applying the law.”

So Peter says, “Seven times?”

Now that’s a pretty good guess.

After all, seven, in teh Bible, is the number of wholeness and completion.

So you would think that to after seven times forgiving, Jesus would say, “Okay, that’s it.

That’s the perfect number.”

But that’s not what Jesus said.

Jubilee forgiveness: Jesus says “seventy-times seven.”

Now, this is an interesting number.

For starters, Jesus is clearly not giving Peter license to list it out.

No, Jesus is saying, “Peter, think of the number you wnat, and make it infinite.”

SO Jesus is clearly saying, your forgiveness hsould be unlimited.

But, this also has a certain kind of quality.

Now in the Old Testament, specifically, in , God had set down what were called years of Jubilee.

In the OT, every seven years, those who were Jewish slaves were to be released, and some other provisions were given.

That was called Sabbath year.

But after seven groups of seven years, not just were slaves to be released, but all debts were to be removed and all people were to be given back any land that they had had to sell away.

This was called the year of jubilee.

And God’s instructions about the year of Jubilee ends with God saying, you will provide forgiveness of every debt and release every slave because I have brought you out of your slavery in Egypt.

Now, here is what is very interesting, there is no record in the Old testament that the year of Jubilee was ever celebrated.

So, the Old Testament began to promise that when the Messiah comes, he will usher in the Jubilee, and that he will bring in this great release and great forgiveness.

THey will extend the Exodus and finish it to what it should have been.

So when Jesus says, Peter, forgive them seven times seventy, which is ten times 49, what he is essentially saying is that he has inaugurated the jubilee of jubilees.

He has completed the Exodus.

He is the Messiah.