Matthew 18:21-35

Matthew 18:21-35
“Forgiving Others”
September 14, 2008

Last week we began looking at some of Jesus’ teaching from the Gospel of Matthew. We began by looking at Matthew 18::15-20 – and saw how Jesus teaches us to deal with conflict – while walking in love. Today we are going to continue in the 18th chapter of Matthew as we look at Matthew 18:21-35 – and see how Jesus teaches us to forgive others – and how we can do that.

Listen to God’s word in Matthew 18:21-35:

Have you ever notices that Jesus places a great deal of emphasis on our need to forgive others?
You probably have – for having a forgiving heart is one of the most important of Jesus’ teachings – and on of the keys to living the Christian life. In fact, Jesus even goes so far as to say that if you’re not willing to forgive others, you can’t experience the fullness of God’s forgiveness in your life.
Jesus said:
For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (Matthew 6:14-15)
Jesus teaches this same principle in the parable we have before us today. In today’s passage we learn a lot about forgiveness—how much we’ve been forgiven — and how much we need to forgive others.
We also learn that being forgiven and forgiving others are inseparable concepts. They go hand in hand. And in this passage we learn what it means to forgive those who have sinned against us — we learn what true forgiveness is.
Now, the big idea of this lesson in forgiveness is this:
we are to forgive as we have been forgiven.
Remember that phrase—
we are to forgive as we have been forgiven.
If I were to ask you to think of someone you’ve had to forgive recently, or someone you need to forgive, it probably wouldn’t take very long for you to come up with a name. It’s a fact of life – as we live we have many opportunities to forgive others. If you’re married, if you have a job, if you have neighbors, if you go to Church, if you ever eat out, if you have in-laws—many opportunities to forgive others will come your way. And – guess what – you will give many people – your spouse – your co-workers – your neighbors – fellow Church members – your in laws – people you meet every day – many opportunities to forgive – you.
Opportunities to forgive are a part of life.
So the question is: how do you do it? How do you forgive others as God wants you to forgive? There are two examples you often see, neither of which is right.
The first extreme example is
“I’ll forgive but I won’t forget, and I’ll make certain you never forget either; I’ll remind you of what you’ve done every day for the rest of your life, and when I bring it up you better act like you still feel guilty about it or I’ll withdraw my forgiveness.”
Obviously, this isn’t forgiveness at all. The principle is that we’re to forgive as we’ve been forgiven, and that is not how God forgives us.
On the other end of the extreme are those who think forgiving others means giving someone permission to walk all over you again, and allowing yourself to be victimized. That is not the case, either.
So, how are we supposed to forgive others?
What does it mean to forgive as we have been forgiven?
Today we’ll look at four guidelines for forgiving others. When someone comes to you seeking reconciliation, here are four things to keep in mind. And let me warn you, these are tough to do. First of all…
1. Forget about keeping count.
(v. 21-22) 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?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times”
Where did Peter come up with the “seven times” figure? Well, in the Jewish belief system, seven was the perfect number — the number of completion. Therefore, forgiving someone seven times “completed” your obligation to forgive, and you weren’t required to extend it further.
Jesus said, however,
“Not seven times but seventy-seven times,” – the point being that we are not to keep track of the number of times we forgive someone. In other words, each and every time they come to us seeking reconciliation, we are to offer them forgiveness.
Jesus isn’t talking about people who sin against you without remorse and make no effort to reconcile — Jesus is referring to those who come to you seeking forgiveness – those truly sorry for what they have done — and He makes it clear: we are to forgive them as many times as they come, as many times as it takes.
Early in his marriage, a friend of mine offended his mother-in-law. He truly regretted it and went to her with an apology and asked her forgiveness. Since she had been a Sunday school teacher most of her life, her response took him by surprise. She said, “No. I will not forgive you.” I had never heard of anyone—especially a Christian—being so forthright in their unwillingness to forgive. Usually we at least say that we’ll forgive – even if we have no intention of doing so.
I asked my friend, “What in the world did you say when she said that she wouldn’t forgive you?”
My friend laughed and said, “I told her, ‘OK, then, don’t forgive me. It’s now your problem – not mine,”
Eventually she dod forgive him when she found out that holding a grudge against him was hurting her – not him!
When it comes to forgiving others, we’re sometimes guilty of playing games and using the situation to get leverage on the other person so that we can use it to our advantage later. That’s not forgiveness. God doesn’t do that to us; we cannot do it to others.
Jesus said we’re to forgive others an unlimited number of times.
Why?
Because that is how God forgives us. God forgives us innumerable times. He does not keep track.
Maybe you’re afraid that God won’t forgive you anymore because you’ve struggled with one particular sin for too long, and you think He has given up on you. Maybe you’re thinking:
There’s no way he’ll forgive me again; I’ve failed too many times.
But that’s a lie.
There IS a way he’ll forgive you again. If you come to Hm in repentance and ask his forgiveness—he’ll give you all you need.
Now — I’ve heard people say, “If you’re truly sorry for a sin you won’t commit it anymore.” Maybe you’ve heard that also.
Well — it’s not that simple.
We might struggle with a certain sin for years—and sometimes it seems like we’ll never get victory.
Now — I’m not talking about leaping into sin and loving it; I’m talking about lapsing into sin and loathing it. And we struggle with the same sin again and again, and we repent again and again, and we continue to struggle.
Friends — don’t ever believe the lie that God withholds His forgiveness.
Jesus made it clear to Peter that we are to forgive others an unlimited number of times – and God doesn’t expect us to do more than he’s willing to do Himself. The truth is that we’re to forgive others an unlimited number of times because He forgives us an unlimited number of times.
Forget about keeping count; if you need forgiveness from God, ask for it— regardless of how many times you’ve asked in the past.
Forget about keeping count; if someone asks for forgiveness, give it—regardless of how many times they’ve asked in the past.
We’re to forgive as we’ve been forgiven, so forget about keeping count.
Here’s the second guideline…
2. Cancel the debt.
Sometimes when we forgive others we have the power to cancel their debt—to let them completely off the hook—and we need to do that whenever we can.
In our passage before us today Jesus tells the parable of a man who owed his king a huge sum of money—millions of dollars—and since he was not able to pay, the king ordered that everything the man owned be sold—including his wife and children, and himself into slavery—so that he could repay the debt. The man fell on his knees before the king and begged for more time to pay the debt. And…
(v. 27) “The servant’s master took pity on him, cancelled the debt, and let him go.”
Just like that, with just a word, millions of dollars of debt was wiped away.
This man had gotten in over his head and he owed far more than he was able to pay back, but the king understood something about forgiveness, and so he cancelled the debt and let him go.
There are some times when you forgive others that you simply have to cancel the debt and let them go. When someone does something wrong, they should do whatever they can to make it right. But sometimes people sin to such an extent that they can never make it right. If they come to you seeking forgiveness, and you have the power to cancel their debt, then cancel their debt. Let them off the hook.
Forgive them completely.
The Bible says when God forgives us He…
…hurls our iniquities into the depths of the sea. (Micah 7:19)
The Bible also says about God’s forgiveness…
I have swept your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. (Isaiah 44:22)
When God forgives us, He forgives us completely. As far as He is concerned, our sin is gone forever. The debt has been cancelled. This is the way we need to forgive others: we need to cancel their debt and let them off the hook.
Sometimes we’re reluctant to do that because we want leverage over the other person. We want to make them squirm. We want them to suffer as we have suffered. That’s not forgiveness. That’s not the way God treats us; it’s not the way we should treat others.
One of my ministry friends sometimes works as a technology consultant, and he tells how one day he was in a woman’s office working on her computer while she and a co-worker were having a conversation—as if he weren’t there. At one point the woman said,
“So I told my husband, ‘There’s no way you can ever make up for the amount of pain you have caused this family. It’s a little too late for you to come crawling back.’”
The other woman pointed at my friend and said,
“He’s a preacher; why don’t you talk to him about it?”
Well, she began telling him about her marriage and her philandering husband and all the grief he had caused her over the course of their marriage. And now, after ruining the family financially and running off with another woman, he had come back asking for forgiveness. She told my friend that she loves her husband and wanted things to work out, but she couldn’t go through again what she’s been through already. She asked my friend:
“So, what do you think I should I do?”
He told me that he said:
“There are two things you need to do. First, you realize that there is no way you can repair your marriage by getting a few words of advice from me; if you’re serious about restoring your marriage, then both of you need to get marriage counseling. The second thing is—and if you’re not willing to do this second thing, getting all the counseling in the world won’t help—but if there really is no way he can repay the wrongs he has done, then you need to cancel his debt. Let him off the hook. Wipe the slate clean. Give him a brand new start.”
She said, “Are you serious? Are you saying I should let him off the hook so he can come in and wreak havoc in our lives again?”
My friend told me he replied:
“No. That’s not what I’m saying. With forgiveness comes accountability, and he needs to make an effort to prove he means business. That’s why you need to do counseling together. But if he owes you more than he can ever repay, forgive the debt and let him start over.”
Now — this brings us to the third guideline for forgiving others.
In addition to canceling the debt you need to…
3. Keep them accountable.
In this parable, the king forgave the servant’s debt, and then listen to what the servant did.
(v. 28-34) “When the servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. [A small amount of money compared to what this man owed the king.] 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 cancelled all that debt of your because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In his anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.”
What’s the lesson here?
That if, after you forgive someone, they do something you don’t like, you’re free to torture them?
Nope.
The lesson here is that along with forgiveness comes accountability.
The king didn’t cancel the servant’s debt and give him free reign to run up more debt;
neither did he give him free reign to treat his fellow servants ruthlessly.
He forgave him—cancelled the debt—and he also held him accountable.
In forgiving others, this is the area where we often drop the ball. When someone comes to you asking forgiveness, the best response is to say,
“Absolutely, I will forgive you. I will cancel the debt. Now, what can we do to make sure this doesn’t happen again?”
When we forgive others, even though we completely wipe out their debt from the past, we need to help them establish terms of accountability so that they will be able to overcome their past and move on toward being the people God wants them to be.
In the NFL if you get caught using steroids, they don’t kick you out of the league; they give you a second chance, but they also hold you accountable—you have to submit to random drug tests.
I read of a woman who developed an inappropriate relationship with someone on the internet. She confessed her sin to her husband and he forgave her, but he also holds her accountable; he frequently looks over her shoulder when she’s chatting with someone online. That’s forgiveness – and accountability.
I also know of a man who caught his teenage son in a lie — he said he was going one place and went another. The father forgave his son, but he also began holding him accountable—he calls the place the boy said he would be frequently to make sure he’s really there.
This is the same way God treats us.
He forgives us absolutely and completely, yet he has made us accountable to one another for our actions. With forgiveness comes accountability. When someone comes to you asking for forgiveness, give it to them. Also, give them the opportunity to establish terms of accountability so that their striving to be the person God wants them to be can be complete.
So – we have 3 guidelines in forgiving others –
Forget about keeping count – cancel the debt – and keep them accountable.
There’s a fourth guideline to forgiving others.
4. Consider God’s mercy in your life.
God wants you to forgive others – Jesus teaches us to forgive others – because we have been forgiven.
Your debt to God is much greater than anyone’s debt toward you. And yet, God forgives you – and because of that, you can forgive others.
None of us deserve God’s love and forgiveness, but He forgives us anyway.
All of us fail again and again in the same areas of our lives, and yet God continues to forgive us again and again.
There is no way we could ever need to forgive anyone else more than God has forgiven us.
When we consider God’s mercy in our lives, we may find ourselves compelled to show mercy to others.
The wicked servant in this parable was punished because he was willing to receive mercy but wasn’t willing to give it.
Jesus said,
(v. 35) “This is how my heavenly father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”
God takes forgiveness very seriously. He expects us to forgive others completely, because that is how He forgives us. He takes forgiveness so seriously that he was willing to send Jesus into the world to die on the cross for our sins, to pay the debt for our sins — a debt that we could never pay ourselves.
God’s forgiveness is not because we’re worthy, but because He’s merciful. He doesn’t keep count of our offenses. He cancels the debt completely. He makes us accountable to one another so that we can become more holy, more like him.
Do you need to forgive someone?

Forgive them as God has forgiven you.
Forget about keeping count.
Cancel the debt.
Help them establish terms of accountability.
And most of all, never forget how much God has forgiven you for – and share the forgiveness God has shown you with others.

That’s how live a life of forgiving others.
Amen.