Jesus on Forgiveness

Matthew 18:21-35

J Vernon Mcgee tells the story of an Irish boxer who was saved and became a preacher. He arrived in a town where a tent was being set up for him to reach an evangelistic event. He was greeted on the street by two thugs who did not know him and began to antagonize him. He turned and looked silently at them. One of them took a swing and hit him right in the jaw. He shook it off and stuck his jaw back out. The other fellow took a swing at him hitting him on the other side of the jaw. The boxer turned preacher took of his coat, rolled up his sleeves and said, “The Lord has given me no further instructions.” Whop!

The Lord has given us further instructions and we see them here in our text. This last section concludes chapter 18. Chapter 18 has focused on the behavior of God’s children.

We should humble ourselves as a little child to become saved.

We should not cause God’s children to sin.

We should go after God’s children when they stray.

We should confront God’s children when they settle into a life of sin.

Finally, we should forgive God’s children when they sin against us.

We’ll be looking at three things this morning:

1. Peter asks a question (21-22)

2. Jesus gives a parable (23-34).

3. Forgiveness reveals that we belong to the kingdom of God (35).

1. Peter asks a question (21-22).

A. This is a follow up question to what Jesus says in 15-20.

The context is important to remember:

A brother sister strays and begins to live a life of sin.

Believers pursue and confront the person living in sin.

Peter’s question assumes the person has repented and been restored.

Remember:

Peter is the guy who is going to say everyone else might forsake Jesus, but he never would.

He is also the guy who is going to need to be restored to the other disciples because three times in one night he denies he even knows Jesus.

He’s going to have to be confronted and forgiven again in Acts because he engages in a level of prejudice against the Gentiles.

It turns that Peter is actually a guy who needs to be forgiven himself on multiple occasions.

B. Peter probably thought he was being generous.

He asks the Lord if they should forgive people up to seven times.

Peter probably felt really spiritual when he said that. The Rabbis in Jesus day taught that a person should be forgiven three times. That was the limit.

Peter more than doubled the limit. Human nature suggests that there must be a limit on forgiveness. Peter wanted to know what that limit was.

C. Jesus answers the question.

He tells Peter he is wrong. Then he says 70 x 7.

The numbers are obviously symbolic. Who can keep up with 490 sins from a single person? 1 Cor. 13:5 says love does not keep a record of wrongs. Jesus isn’t suggesting we do the math. As the parable will show, Jesus is saying forgiveness should be limitless.

When it comes to forgiveness we shouldn’t draw a line in the sand and say if you cross this I can’t forgive you anymore.

We can’t say:

What we will forgive.

When we will forgive.

How often we will forgive.

2. Jesus gives a parable (23-34).

“kingdom of heaven is likened unto” this is people who belong to the kingdom look like.

A. A compassionate king (23-27).

Probably a Gentile King. He was collecting the money owed to him by his servants. These are likely civil servants who have a responsibility to take up taxes in their respective regions. These are royal taxes owed to the kingdom. That would justify the large amount owed we are about to see.

There was a particular servant who owed him 10,000 talents. This is an unbelievable amount of money.

The talent was the highest level of currency in that day.

A denarius was a days pay.

It took 6000 denarius to equal one talent.

In twenty years you could make enough money to pay back one talent.

10,000 talents was more money than you could earn in a 1,0000 lifetimes.

The problem was the servant didn’t have the money to pay. He had obviously stolen the money he was supposed to give the king for the taxes of the people.

The king gave a harsh sentence.

He and his entire family would be sold into slavery to work to pay back the money he owed.

The servant did the only thing he could do. He fell down on his knees and begged for mercy. He begged the king to have patience with him and assured him he would repay him.

The king knew he couldn’t repay him. That was too much money. Surprisingly the king forgave the man’s debt. He was moved with compassion when he saw the pitiful state of this sinner.

B. A wicked servant.

Evidently this situation convinced the servant he needed to get out of the business of loaning and owing money. He decided to settle up with all of his accounts. He had people who owed him money.

There was a particular servant that owed him 100 pence. A pence is the same thing as a denarius. He was owed 100 days wages. This was essentially nothing when compared to what he owed the king.

It was equal to about 1/600,000Th of what he had owed and been forgiven.

Look what he does. Before he says a thing to him he takes him by the throat. This is a vicious man.

The debtor reacts in virtually the same way he had done with the king.

He fell down on his knees

He begged for patience

He promised him he would pay him back

This man would not forgive this small debt. He cast the man in prison until the debt was paid.

C. A day of reckoning (31-34).

There are some other servants who witness these sinful actions. They report the matter to the king. They’re like the bothers who brought the matter to the church in verses 15-20.

Their motive was sorrow. They felt terrible about what this sinful man did to his servant.

The king summoned this wicked servant back before him. He said:

You’re a wicked man!

I forgave you everything you owed me.

Shouldn’t you have forgiven your servant in the same way I forgave you?

The wicked servant was delivered to the tormentors until he could repay the debt. In other words, he got a life sentence.

3. Forgiveness reveals that we belong to the kingdom of God (35).

This is the main point of the parable. I want to spend some time talking about this. What do we learn about forgiveness from this parable?

A. The debt God has forgiven us is far greater than what He requires us to forgive.

Greater in two ways:

1. The amount of sin God has forgiven us is greater. Peter asked Jesus about forgiving a person seven times. Peter would sin three times in one night, denying Jesus.

The volume of our sin is greater than we even know.

In terms of dollars the wicked servant was forgiven for more money that you could earn in multiple lifetimes but wasn’t willing to forgive what you could earn in less than a year.

We have committed far more sin against God than anyone has committed against us. It’s not even close. Our sin debt is so much that we have no idea how high it is.

2. The One we have sinned against is greater than we are.

It is worse to sin against God than it is to sin against man.

We haven’t given life to people.

We don’t sustain a person from day to day.

We don’t send the rain.

We don’t give blessings.

We’re not owed much at all by our fellow man.

We also don’t have the power God does.

There’s not much we can do to those who sin against us.

God is so good we should have loved Him enough to not sin against Him.

God is so powerful we should have feared Him enough to not sin against Him.

Whatever we need to forgive someone of cannot compare to what God has forgiven us of.

B. Unforgiveness can turn us into ugly people.

Look at what this man did in verses 28-30.

Physical violence- grabbed him by the throat.

Threats- Pay me or else!

Revenge- threw him in jail.

We do some awful things to people that hurt us. Slander them, shun them, hope against them. We become a little devil to those that wrong us. We become what we would not want someone to be to us. It hurts our relationships. With one another, with the Lord.

This man was just forgiven. You would think at first that perhaps he is seeking out those who owe him so he can forgive them. But he does the exact opposite.

We should deal with people in the same way God has dealt with us. We should be seeking people to forgive just as God sought us out and forgave us.

You read this story and you’re disgusted with this wicked servant. It isn’t difficult for us to turn into the same type of person. Which person do you want to be in this parable? The king or the wicked servant?

C. We should not expect people to pay us back for the sins they have committed against us.

The wicked servant’s debt was fully forgiven. When we come to Christ we are saved by grace through faith, not works. No one should have to earn our forgiveness. They may have to earn our trust but they should never have to earn our forgiveness.

We forgive in the same way we have been forgiven- freely.

Sometimes in a marriage one person does something wrong. They ask forgiveness and are told it is given.

But then the next hours or days are filled with

Snarky comments

Silent treatments

Cold shoulder

The offender works to do what he/she can to earn the forgiveness from the spouse.

That’s not how forgiveness should be. That doesn’t appear to be forgiveness from the perspective of the one who asked for it.

We shouldn’t place people in our little purgatory until we feel they have suffered enough. That’s not how forgiveness works.

Listen to me, I’m about to say something.

When we are forgiving people, it is actually helping us as well. It is aiding us on the road to sanctification. We are becoming more like Christ when we forgive.

When we are asked to forgive someone we are then faced with the question: Will I do what God has said? Will I forgive this person as Christ has forgiven me?

Will I allow bitterness and pride to keep me from forgiving?

Will I hold a grudge more tightly than I hold to Christ?

Will I obey my feelings more than I obey the Lord?

Every time someone sins against us we have the opportunity to be like Christ.

D. Unforgiveness can lead to torment.

This wicked servant was tortured for his behavior. As Christians we’re not experiencing the torture of hell. But if we refuse to forgive someone there can be a torturing of your soul. The Holy Spirit can bring such great conviction upon us that we become miserable. Our spiritual life gets stagnant. We can become spiritually depressed.

Sadly, many start off the Christian life as humble little children and end it as bitter old adults. This isn’t the way of God.

You may isolate yourself because you’re avoiding the people you refuse to forgive.

You may limit yourself because you can’t serve God properly with bitterness.

You may even begin to hate yourself because you don’t like the person you see in the mirror.

I know there have been many times in my life that I could not rest because of unforgiveness. Whether it was forgiveness I needed to receive or forgiveness I needed to grant.

E. People know we profess Christ and they are watching.

The wicked servant had servants watching him. They knew he had been forgiven of a debt. They were appalled to see him act the way he did. They told the king.

You can’t even describe what Christianity is without the word forgiveness. If we claim Christ but don’t forgive it’s a contradiction.

It’s like claiming to be a football player but refusing to play football.

It’s like claiming to be a carpenter but saying you don’t handle wood.

Our message to the world is that we have been forgiven a massive debt through Christ. This wicked servant who had been forgiven a massive debt should have run to the one who owed him and said:

“You will never believe what has happened to me! I have been forgiven a massive debt! I am here to forgive you of the debt you owe me!”

What do people see in me? Do they see a person who is bitter and unforgiving? Do they see a person who is harsh and unloving?

Or do they see a person who is overwhelmed with their own forgiveness and willing and ready to forgive others?

F. Forgiveness is granted when we humble ourselves and ask for it.

That’s what the wicked servant did. He fell on his knees and asked for mercy.

I want to clarify something.

In order to be granted, forgiveness must be asked for. If someone sins against you they need your forgiveness. It’s like a debt they owe you. Because they owe you, you have the power to cancel that debt through forgiveness.

If they refuse to humble themselves and ask for your forgiveness that doesn’t give you the right to be bitter or angry. In your heart you must have a forgiving attitude toward them. You must be eager and ready to forgive them. In other words, we must have a forgiving spirit.

But technically you can’t give them the forgiveness they need until they ask for it.

I say this because we have to keep all of this in context. This section is about encouraging people who have sinned against God and man to repent. Our attitude toward sin shouldn’t be:

“Who am I to say anything? God has forgiven me for far worse.”

Verses 15-20 is all about talking to people about their sin and encouraging them to repent and ask forgiveness.

Just as the forgiveness of God is granted when we humble ourselves and ask for it through Christ, we are also to grant forgiveness when someone who has sinned against us humbles themselves and asks for it.

There may be someone you need to ask to forgive you. That is a very difficult thing to do. But it will do more from your spiritual life than you can imagine. Sin is ultimately against God but it is often against people to. When we sin against people we should ask forgiveness of both God and whoever we sinned against.

G. Forgiveness reveals if we belong to the kingdom or not.

The wicked servant was not a changed man. Mercy meant nothing to him. Jesus is clear that this parable is meant to show what people who truly belong to the kingdom do not look like this wicked servant.

Suppose I gave you a sponge and told you to take it over to a spring, dip it in the water and then return. You take the sponge, leave and return a while later. I ask for the sponge. I take it in my hand, and I squeeze it. No water comes out.

My conclusion is that you didn’t dip the sponge in the water. If you had, when I squeezed it water would have come out.

Let me ask you a question:

You claim to be a Christian.

You claim to have been to the springs of living water that flow from Christ.

When you are squeezed, does forgiveness come out?

If you have been filled with the mercy of God then that mercy will reveal itself in your life. This parable highlights hypocrisy. There is nothing more hypocritical than a person who claims to be a Christian but refuses to forgive.

Watch this now:

Verses 15-20 show that the person who will not ask for forgiveness does not have the grace of God in their life even though they claim to be a child of God.

Verses 21-35 show that the person who will not grant forgiveness when it is asked for does not have the grace of God in their life.

There is a beautiful balance here.

Asking for forgiveness

Granting forgiveness.

Is that balance in our life?

Do we repent when we should?

Do we forgive when we should?

This is a mark of the child of God.