Matthew 18:21-35, “Forgiven and Forgiving”
  by Rev. David McKinley

Matthew 18:21-35, “Forgiven and Forgiving”
Subject: What forgiveness involves.
Complement: Forgiveness involves mercy, obedience and self-preservation.
Date: March 29, 2009

INTRODUCTION
James Garfield was a lay preacher and principal of his denominational college.  They say he was ambidextrous and would simultaneously write Greek with one hand and Latin with the other. 

          In 1880, he was elected president of the United States, but after only six months in office, he was shot in the back with a revolver.  He never lost consciousness.  At the hospital, the doctor probed the wound with his little finger to seek the bullet.  He couldn’t locate the bullet.

They took Garfield back to Washington, D.C.  Despite the summer heat, they tried to keep him comfortable.  He was growing very weak.  Teams of doctors tried to locate the bullet, probing the wound over and over.  In desperation they asked Alexander Graham Bell, who was working on a little device called the telephone to see if he could locate the metal inside the president’s body.  He came, he sought, and he too failed. 

The president hung on through July, through August, but in September he finally died- not from the wound but from infection.  The repeated probing, which the physicians thought would help the man, eventually killed him.  And so it is with people who dwell too long on the wrong that has been done to them in their lives, and choose not to forgive and release it to God. 1

          Today’s message is on the subject of forgiveness; probably the most difficult and the most challenging personally.  It goes against our will to forgive.  We like revenge.  We like justice and we like to be the one who deals it out. A pastor once told his angry parishioner, after he was approached about a wrong done: “I could tell you how to get them back.”  It does no good to get someone back.  What are we to do as God’s people?  Jesus’ words shed light on our predicament.
 
          Interesting is how this subject connects with church discipline.  Certainly the goal is restoration and forgiveness.  Any repentant person who asks for forgiveness should be given it.  The story of the Prodigal Son comes to mind.  And there are times when forgiveness needs to be practiced regardless if deserved or asked for. 

Peter asks a question concerning forgiveness.  Matthew 18:21 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?" 22 Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. “Then” is what scholars call a plastic term.  It can mean something immediately following or a different time and/or occurrence.  The rabbis of the day taught that you should forgive your brother up to three times.  Peter thought that he was being especially generous when he offered the number seven. Seven is a complete number in the Bible.  There are seven days in a week, seven churches of Revelation, etc., etc.  Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”  The Greek verb to forgive is avfi,hmi which means “to cancel, forgive, or remit (of sin or debts); to allow, let be, or tolerate.  It carries with it the idea of the cancellation of a debt.  That is why we pray in the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our debts; as we forgive our debtors.”  Forgiving involves cancelling the emotional and spiritual debt others owe us!

The basis for the forgiveness we practice is the grace that God gives us in Christ.  God is forgiving.  From our Scripture Lesson in Isaiah 55, we see that one of the communicable attributes of God is that He is forgiving!  By communicable, we mean those qualities that we can mirror by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.  Yet, sometimes in the church, members have grievances against the other.  They go unresolved for years.  Other times, one party doesn’t have a clue that they’ve offended another.  In order to move on, one action is necessary: forgive.  Regardless if it is asked for; regardless of the entitlement.  Just forgive.  It is a mindset in the way of Christ.  Colossians 3:12 gives us a mindset in the church.  Listen to the apostle Paul: “Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” 

          But forgiveness is hard.  The challenge is to lay aside what you feel entitled to.  Someone wrongs us we want justice.  We want revenge.  We want an apology.  Most of the time, we don’t get any of that.  What’s been done to you?  Have you been wronged, insulted, hurt?  Maybe you’ve been mistreated in some way that makes forgiveness humanly impossible.  The longer you hold on to your hurt, the more it seems to damage you.  It creates a hole in your core that hurts and drives you further into bitterness and pain.  I remember a family member, relating to me how they were wronged.  And they honestly said: “My Christian faith is not deep enough to forgive them.”  How is this done?  We must ask for God’s help. 
         
Jesus teaches on the necessity of forgiveness by using a parable.  "Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. Verses 23 and following tell the story of a King and his servant who owed an enormous amount of money.  Settlement time came and there was simply no way that this one could pay back his debt.  So he asked for mercy.  And mercy is what he received.  The king “took pity” on him, cancelled the debt and let him go.  This was an extreme act of compassion.  Certainly this was a cultural connection.  At the time of Christ, among the Roman Empire’s population, over half were endentured servants.   

But then the servant felt he need to settle the accounts with those who owed him.  He did so, finding a fellow servant who owed him just 100 denarii.  The amounts comparable to each other: 10,000 talents to 100 denarii was so enormous that it was incomprehensible.  One commentator notes: “The sum owed by the second servant to the first is nothing compared to the debt of the first servant to the king; it was less than one part in a hundred thousand.”2   What ensued was a clutch to the throat and the orders for prison time.  When the king discovered this behavior, he said to his ungrateful slave in verse 32: 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?'  Can you imagine the look on the servants face when he was faced with this discovery of his hypocrisy?  He was quickly dealt justice, something he did not want, yet deserved.  Notice verse 34: “In anger his master turned 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."  Jesus applies this parable to the lives of the disciples.  The last statement is somewhat shocking.  We would hate to be treated like this.  But here comes the assurance in verse 35: "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."  One scholar stated: “Those who know God’s mercy must operate on the principle of mercy.  If they do not show mercy but insists on justice, they will not receive mercy, but justice.  An unforgiving heart is an unforgiven heart and is subject to torment; a truly forgiving heart is one result of spiritual rebirth.”3  

CONCLUSION
We must practice forgiveness out of mercy and obedience to God.  It is godly to forgive.  We also do it because it is self-preserving.  To harbor bitterness and anger is self-destructive.  Nothing speaks of forgiveness more than the actions by the Amish community in the wake of the West Nickel Mines tragedy.  On October 2, 2006 Charles Roberts did what many would consider unforgivable.  John L. Ruth wrote a small book entitled simply Forgiveness.4  Listen to these words.