The Power of Forgiveness

  

Text: Matthew 18:21-35

Focus: Forgiveness

Function: to help people forgive

²¹Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if my brother or sister sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” ²²Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

²³“For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. ²⁴When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him, ²⁵and, as he could not pay, the lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions and payment to be made. ²⁶So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ ²⁷And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. ²⁸But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him by the throat he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ ²⁹Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ ³⁰But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. ³¹When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. ³²Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. ³³Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ ³⁴And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. ³⁵So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

Good morning to God’s beloved. Your name is carved on the palms of God’s hands and they will never forget you. Praise God!

I am glad we are focusing on forgiveness this morning because I got notice on Friday that I am to lead the forgiveness ceremony during the Kairos weekend. And in order to prepare for the weekend, we are going to do a forgiveness ceremony during our team meeting.

And conducting that is similar to what we are going to look at this morning during worship.

I sometimes think that forgiveness is what distinguishes Christianity over the other religions that I have studied. Many religions teach some sort of vengeance, but God demands that we trust God to do the correct and fair judgment because human anger does not bring about God’s just outcomes.

Forgiveness is mentioned in this passage and it is kind of funny. Peter is always the first to speak and I believe he thinks he is being spiritual when he says that we should be willing to go beyond Jewish tradition and forgive up to seven times.

And Jesus’ answer, “seventy times seven” is a hyperbole meaning don’t even keep count; Just forgive.

Then Jesus launches the parable, again using hyperbole, and helps us see ourselves in our sins in relationship to God.

God is holy. That means that God is separate from creation. God is above creation and we believe that God dwells in some sort of state of perfection.

That state of perfection is awesome. When Moses encountered it on the mountain, his body reflected the brilliance of God’s light for days.

Think about whom God is for a bit. Because God is awesome. I mean think about it, God holds every single human in God’s hand and knows them better than they know themselves. And God is eternal. We will exist forever, but we had a beginning. God is different, God has no beginning, God simply is and always has been and always will be. God is eternally awesome.

And we, compared to God’s majesty are much less.

We are created in God’s image, but we don’t compare.

So Jesus goes into this hyperbole about a man owing 10,000 talents, that is $53,612,224,000 dollars at yesterday’s prices. Jesus uses an absurd amount to illustrate that there is no way any person can ransom their own soul.

Psalms 49:7 says that we cannot save ourselves our our brother. We need God’s salvation.

And Jesus, in this passage gives us a contrast to the majesty of God and ourselves by making the debt so large to the one we might refuse to forgive.

God forgave everything for us, we need to forgive the simpler matters in our own lives.

So God dwells in this majesty and God is the one who purchases our salvation. We cannot. Jesus is calling us to have faith in his transforming power through the Holy Spirit.

For me it was 1978, I was strung out on drugs and was spiritually thirsty. My mom gave me a copy of the New Testament, NIV version so I could easily understand it.

I was on my day off, and I was reading the gospel of John and I saw this majesty that I mentioned about God in Jesus. Jesus was God and left the throne of heaven deliberately to be mistreated by us. And I realized that God’s own self, the creator, gave his life for his creation.

I saw that in context with the majesty of God and realized just how great God’s salvation for us is and how great a sacrifice that God made to redeem us.

This parable brings out that greatness when we look at the size of the ransom that Jesus gave for each and every one of us. When I came to that realization, that is when I decided to give my life to the ministry of the gospel. I thought, if God could do that for me, then I can live for God.

Jesus tells this parable to help them appreciate the tremendous price he paid for our salvation.

And, he tells the parable to give a warning about forgiveness.

In Matthew, we read the Lord’s prayer and we pray that we be forgiven to the extent that we forgive.

For some of us, that might be terrible.

In Matthew, Jesus explains only one part of the prayer, and that is the line of forgiveness.

He says, God is serious, you are forgiven, so forgive others. Don’t worry about whether or not they deserve it or have changed their behavior.

In one sense, because we are promised to be forgiven since we forgave, it is a contract that God has made with us.

And for me it goes beyond that. I believe it is a spiritual discipline. So make forgiveness a matter of regular practice. I am convinced that when I refuse to forgive someone, somehow it blocks my connection to God in prayer.

When we don’t want to forgive, it is because of some injustice. We want justice. When we refuse to forgive, however, I believe that it limits the power of the Holy Spirit to do the justice that our unforgiveness desires. The path to God’s perfect justice is through our forgiveness.

Do the rice paper forgiveness ceremony.