Matthew 18:21-35
The Church God Wants:
A Church that That’s Quick to Forgive!
21Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?”
22Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
23“Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. 25Since 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.
26“The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
28“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.
29“His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’
30“But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.
32“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
35“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.” (NIV1984)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
One of the truths that the Bible teaches very clearly is also a truth that many people simply reject. That truth centers on the fact that each and every human being— save One!— is “conceived and born in sin” (Psalm 51:5). This means that each and every human being— save One!— was and is born with an old sinful nature. Over the course of the years I have had long discussions with many people when it comes to the Bible’s teaching that we have all inherited our old sinful nature from our parents. Whenever someone is having difficulty realizing that truth I ask them to look at their children. We don’t have to teach our children how to be selfish. All by themselves they will grab onto one of their toys and say, “Mine!” We don’t have to teach our children how to be disobedient. All on their own they will look up at us and say, “No!” We don’t have to teach our children how to talk back to us or how to hit someone when they are mad or how to lie. Their old sinful nature automatically knows how to do all these things. Our goal as Christian parents is to teach them to share, to teach them to be obedient and follow the rules, to teach them to not hurt other people and to always tell the truth.
Our sermon text for today reminds us of another very important truth: by nature we do not know how to forgive— in the way God expects us to forgive! Since God-like forgiveness does not come to us naturally it must be learned from God Himself. As we conclude our sermon series entitled The Church God Wants let’s see how Jesus teaches us that the church that God wants is: A Church That’s Quick to Forgive!
Our sermon text for today is a continuation of last Sunday’s Gospel Lesson. (Matthew 18:15-20) Jesus had just spoken to His disciples about what He wants and expects us to do if a brother or a sister in the faith sins against us. Jesus’ instruction on what is now known as the “Steps of Church Discipline” leads the apostle Peter to ask Jesus, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” The rabbis had taught God’s people that they were required to forgive someone three times. If that person sinned against you a fourth time— they don’t deserve to be forgiven!
If Peter thought that Jesus was going to commend him because instead of being willing to forgive someone three times— as he had been taught— he was willing to forgive someone who had sinned against him “up to seven times,” well, Peter was undoubtedly quite surprised when Jesus responded, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” This could also be translated as “seventy times seven times.”
Peter’s question may have flowed from a concern that someone could take advantage of Jesus’ instruction on forgiving someone who has sinned against you. Is there a limit as to the number of times we are willing to forgive someone? At what point do we say, “Enough is enough! I can’t and won’t forgive you anymore!”? That’s a dilemma that sooner or later each and every one of us will face, isn’t it. Whether it’s in our relationship with our spouse or with our children, whether it’s in our relationship with our family members or our friends, we will be faced with a situation where someone asks us to forgive them, or we ask them to forgive us— again. Our old sinful nature will want us to limit our forgiveness. Others may encourage us to not let them take advantage of us. How do we handle situations like that? We remember Jesus’ words, “I tell you not seven times, but seventy-seven times”— or “seventy times seven times.” What Jesus is teaching us here is that forgiveness is not a numbers game. Forgiveness has nothing to do with keeping score. As Christians we live under a continuing and constant obligation to love our neighbor as ourselves. This is a love that is ready to forgive and to forgive again— without any limits!
To understand the kind of forgiveness that God wants His church to have, our Lord gives us a parable— a parable that is both easy to understand and easy to remember. Look at verses 23-27 of our text. The Son of God says to us, “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. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all 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.”
There are two words that are critically important here. The first word is the word that is translated as, “took pity on him.” This is the word which when translated more literally means, “His heart went out to him.” (See Luke7:11ff) The servant had begged his master for “patience.” Instead of “patience” the master granted him “pity” or “compassion.” Why did the master do this? Because he knew that there was absolutely no way that the servant could ever pay back the tremendous debt that he owed to his master! So out of “pity,” out of “compassion” what did the master do? That brings us to the second critically important word!
Jesus tells us that the master “canceled the debt.” The word that is translated as “canceled” very literally means to “send away.” It can also be translated as to “acquit” or to “release from a legal bond.” In an instant the man who owed his master “ten thousand talents” walked out of the presence of the king “debt free.” But what happened to the debt? Does that mean that this huge debt simply “evaporated” into thin air? No. It means that the king paid the debt for his servant!
The application here is one that we cannot overlook. The king in this parable is Jesus— the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Just as the king in the parable wanted to “settle accounts with his servants,” so also our King has selected the day on which He will “settle accounts with His servants.” We are those servants. Like the servant in this parable we owed our King a debt that is so astronomical that we could never pay back that debt. On our own the only option we have is to beg our King to be “patient.” Instead, our King’s “heart goes out to us.” Since He knows that there is nothing we can do to pay back the “debt” we owe to Him, and since He doesn’t want us to spend eternity in the clutches of that cruel prison warden named Satan, our King “cancels” our “debt.” He “sends it away— as far as the east is from the west” as we heard in our Psalm this morning. (See Psalm 103) He has “released us from the legal bond” that we owed— to Him! (Pointing to the cross) But what about our “debt”? Did it simply vanish into thin air? No! Our King willingly paid our “debt” for us— right there on the cross of Calvary’s hill! Through faith in what Jesus has done for us we are now “debt free” in the eyes of our God!
How do we respond to this glorious gift? In the second portion of our parable Jesus describes how we are not to respond! Look at verses 28-34. Our Lord continues, “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 yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master turned him over to the jailors to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.”
This portion of our text is as powerful as it is simple. The first servant owed his master “ten thousand talents.” This was the equivalent of millions upon millions of dollars. The second servant owed the first servant “one hundred denarii.” While this was not a paltry sum— it was about three months wages— it was an insignificant amount compared to the millions upon millions of dollars the first servant owed to the king! The first servant begged the king, “Be patient with me and I will pay back everything.” The second servant begged the first servant, “Be patient with me and I will pay you back.” The first servant experienced the king’s “compassion” and heard him “cancel” that tremendous debt. The second servant experienced the hands of the first servant “choking” him and then had him thrown into prison “until he could pay the debt.” When the king found out what the first servant had done, he was so furious with this “wicked servant” that he had him thrown into prison where he would be “tortured, until he could pay back all he owed.”
If this parable were to end right there we might respond by saying, “Good! That ‘wicked servant’ got exactly what he deserved!” But the parable doesn’t end there, does it. Jesus goes on to say— to His disciples!— “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”
Gulp! The power of those words can easily take our breath away! Our heavenly Father expects that we will “forgive” each other “from the heart.” The word that is translated here as “forgive” is the exact same word that was translated as “cancel” at the beginning of this text. It is the word that means “send away.” When someone sins against us we are to “forgive” them. When someone sins against us we are to take that sin and “send it away.” When someone sins against us instead of considering that sin a “debt” which that person now owes to us, we “cancel” that debt. All of this is to be done “from the heart.”
Now what might lead us to want to “hold onto” that sin instead of “sending it away”? Many times it boils down to a sinful desire for control. We are so hurt and so angry with what that person did to us that we convince ourselves that they now “owe” us. The longer we can keep them in debt to us the more we can get from them.
Sometimes we are slow to forgive because as far as we are concerned that person does not deserve to be forgiven! They need to suffer for at least a little while. Even if they recognize that what they did to us was wrong, they need to squirm a little bit before we consider forgiving them.
Sometimes we don’t want to forgive someone because we want some ammunition that we can use against them in the future: “Remember when you….”
No matter what might lead us to not forgive someone, Jesus’ warning remains the same: “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from the heart.” Our motivation to forgive someone who sins against us is right there— the cross on Calvary’s hill! When we stop to realize that the debt of sin that we owed to the Almighty was beyond our comprehension, when we stop to appreciate that God’s compassion for us is so high and so wide and so deep that He willingly paid that debt for us— at the cost of His only begotten Son!— then we understand why our God expects us to take the forgiveness we receive from Him and freely share that forgiveness with others— “from the heart.”
So what do we want to take home with us today, my friends? Let me suggest four things:
- When you are reluctant to forgive someone, recall what God has done for (Pointing to the cross) Through the perfect life, the innocent suffering and death, and the victorious physical resurrection of Jesus the Christ, God has showered you with full and free forgiveness for all of your sins. Share that same forgiveness with others!
- Forgive sooner rather than later. Slowness to forgive can lead to even greater conflict and can plant a root of bitterness in your heart— a bitterness that can infect other parts of your life. Many of us have probably known someone who is bitter about something that someone did or did not do; bitter about something someone said or did not say— years ago!
- Forgive as often as necessary. Always remember how many times God has forgiven you. Always remember that when Peter tried to put a limit on the number of times he should forgive someone who sinned against him, Jesus taught Peter— and us!— that forgiveness has nothing to do with keeping score.
- Forgive completely. Since our forgiveness in Christ is total and complete, since the word that Jesus uses for “forgive” here in our text means to “send away,” we need to strive to forgive others as we have been forgiven.
While our old sinful nature will always struggle to forgive others in the same way that God has forgiven us, we would do well to lift up our eyes to the cross on a regular basis so that we will always remember that the church God wants is the church that is quick to forgive!
To God be the glory!
Amen