Forgive from Your Heart

Have you noticed that our culture is very unforgiving? We talk about public shaming, particularly if the person is well-known. We seem to enjoy exposing the faults and the foibles and the failures of people.

Faults and failures apparently are to be called out and they are to be called out publicly. Even if someone apologizes, even if they ask for forgiveness, even if they delete that tweet or that post, people still want to go talking about it. Particularly if we don't like the person, particularly if their politics or their opinions are different from ours, rarely is there forgiveness.

Have you noticed that? What's the teaching of Jesus on forgiveness? Christians, followers of Jesus, should be specialists in forgiving others. The Psalmist asked this question, if you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?

Which one of us could stand before a holy God? The answer is given, but with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared. Those of us who are following Jesus should have an acknowledgement that all of us mess up.

The Bible calls that sin. And that none of us by ourselves could stand before a holy God. And so, Christians, we rejoice in redemption. We rejoice in forgiveness. We rejoice, as we saw last week, in the restoration of the brother or sister who has fallen. We rejoice in the grace of God. And forgiveness then is one of the most beautiful words of the Christian gospel.

Just think of it. Our guilt, our failures, our inadequacies, our sins, our shame are all gone, obliterated, washed out, eradicated, remembered no more through the sacrifice of the only perfect one, the Lamb of God who comes to take away our sin. Our subject this morning then is forgiveness.

You will recall that our Savior taught us to pray this way and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. All of us sin against God. Every single one of us here, every single one of you listening by live stream need God's forgiveness.

All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But I ask you today, are you a forgiving person? Is there someone in your life that you have not forgiven? Is there a limit to forgiveness? How often are we to forgive someone?

That person who offends us over and over again, is there a limit to the number of times we forgive that person? To help us understand this important subject, forgiveness, Jesus tells a story. We call it a parable. I ask you to open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 18. We're going consecutively through this gospel and today we come to the last verses of Matthew chapter 18 where Jesus tells a story.

We thought last week of restoration, we thought earlier in the opening verses of Matthew chapter 18, the importance of becoming like a child and receiving the kingdom of God. And now in verse 21, Peter came up and said to him, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? We saw last week that Jesus is talking about the brother who offends another one and perhaps this prompts Peter to say, all right, well, how often have I got to forgive this fellow? As many as seven times, that's a lot of times to forgive someone, isn't it? Seven times? Verse 22, Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times, or seven times seventy.

Here's the story to illustrate the point. Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold with his wife and children and all that he had and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees imploring him, have patience with me and I will pay you everything. And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. And when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him he began to choke him saying, pay what you owe. So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, have patience with me and I will pay you. He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, you wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me, and should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you? And in anger, his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt." Verse 35, so also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. Isn't that an amazing story? A story of forgiveness which impacts all of us.

First of all, think of the cost. This servant has an immense debt. We read that the servant owed the master 10,000 talents. Now a talent was in that economy was the most valuable of all coins. This was a huge sum, 10,000 talents.

It's been calculated that it was as much as 275,000 years of labor for an average worker. The point of the story is a parable, remember. The point of the story is this, that this debt is so big, it is so immense, it is impossible for the servant to repay. And so when he asks as he does in verse 26, have patience with me and I will pay you everything, the master knows that I could give him several lifetimes and there is no way that he could pay this.

So the man out of mercy, out of kindness, out of compassion, what does he do verse 27? He released him and forgave him the debt. The debt is immediately canceled, fully and finally discharged. The 10,000 talents no longer have to be paid. The servant is now totally free of his debt.

That's awesome forgiveness, isn't it? The king, the master gives up his right to collect the debt and he turns the debt into a gift. You are now free. It's gone.

Just think of it. Imagine if you are, were in debt, are in debt, say $100,000. And your creditor calls you and says the debt is totally forgiven. Someone has stepped in and has paid your debt.

It's totally wiped out. Your immense debt, which worried you and fretted you, not only is it forgiven, it's forgiven at no cost to you. That's forgiveness. Forgiveness is the canceling of a loan.

It is the raising of a debt. It's the cleansing of the record. It's the expunging of the record. It is the letting go of the wrong.

It is the release of the offender. An immense debt is totally paid. What's one of the points of the parable?

It's an obvious one, isn't it? That in God's eyes, we are in debt because of our sin. Our debt is an immense pile, sin after sin after sin after sin.

It piles up between us and God. And it is so big, you have sinned so often that it is impossible for you, yes, utterly impossible for you to repay that debt. The Bible says our sins are like scarlet. We cannot wash them away. Our sins are like chains. We cannot free ourselves. Our sins are like a disease that we cannot heal ourselves.

We don't have the drug to heal the disease. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death, and we cannot give ourselves new life. Our sin, you understand, is an insurmountable debt. So when we talk about forgiveness, let's not cheapen it. An understanding that God in His grace through the sacrifice of His Son offers you total forgiveness, that is an act of stunning grace.

You say, how is that accomplished? We can't stand before a holy God. No, God in His love sends His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. And through His death on the cross, God's Son fully pays the price for our forgiveness. Paul puts it this way, Colossians 2, verses 13 and 14, having forgiven us all our trespasses by, notice this, by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside nailing it to the cross.

Our sin is presented as a debt. Some of you are as old as I am, and you can remember the days when you would go to the store and there was the bill, and on the counter there was a piece of wood and a spike coming out of it, and when the bill is paid, it was put on the spike. Do you remember that?

Not the college students. There was a time when there was no computers, can you believe that? And that was the way that the debt was forgiven. It's over. God takes that huge, huge debt of your sin, when you depersonalize it, don't think of others, of your sin, of my sin, and Paul says He cancels it. How does He cancel it? It's nailed to the cross of our blessed Redeemer, fully, freely, and finally forgiven through the sacrifice of our Savior Jesus Christ. That's why we call Him Savior. The debt of our sin is canceled. It costs our great God the giving of His Son, but it comes to us freely, no cost. We sometimes think Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe. That God's forgiveness of our sin is beyond human calculation.

Writing in Ephesians 1, Paul says it is according to the riches of His grace, the cost. Do you understand this? That when your sins are forgiven, they're gone, and they're gone forever.

Our society, they want to remind us, particularly on social media now, they want to remind us of someone's failures, to public shame them. That's not the way God does it. When God forgives you, the debt is completely canceled. It's gone, and it's gone forever. The Bible says He remembers our sins no more. They are washed away, they are eradicated, they are eliminated, they are discharged. As the chorus says, gone, gone, gone, gone, yes my sins are gone.

Gone forever. This is the awesome forgiveness of the immense debt of our sin, only through trusting in Christ, the cost. Secondly, the comparison.

We read the comparison. What a difference. One debt, a huge debt, is totally forgiven. On the other hand, a tiny debt.

The creditor refuses to forgive. The first man, the debtor, had been forgiven 10,000 talents, like a billion dollars. Someone owes him 100 denarii. That's a tiny debt.

That's like, say, five bucks. You've been forgiven a million dollars, and yet you will not forgive that person five bucks. Notice verse 28, when the same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him 100 denarii, and seizing him, think of the wickedness of this man, he began to choke him saying, pay what you owe.

And he refused to allow him time to pay it, and he put him in prison until he should pay the debt. The master describes this man in verse 32 is as wicked. And his lack of mercy and his lack of forgiveness are contrasted with the magnificent mercy and bountiful forgiveness of the master. This man's attitude, his actions are dreadful. So the master is angry and hands this man, this ungrateful man, who had been forgiven this huge debt, but refuses to forgive a small debt.

He hands him over to the jailers. What's the point? It's an obvious point. Point I think we sometimes forget, though. Refusal to forgive is very serious with God.

Do you understand that? Your refusal to forgive that person, whoever he or she is, it's very, very serious. And Jesus in this skillful story is contrasting one man's magnificent forgiveness with another man's lack of forgiveness of a tiny, tiny debt. See, the Word of God helps us to forgive, because the motivation of our forgiveness and the pattern for our forgiveness is God forgiving us. Ephesians 4 verse 32, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ has forgiven you.

That's it. Be kind, be forgiving, be tenderhearted. God has forgiven you, therefore you forgive that person. Colossians 3 verse 13.

I had the privilege of officiating at a marriage during the week and refer to this verse. As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Your sister, has God forgiven you?

Yes. As God has forgiven you, so you also must, must forgive. And so we pray, forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. That is, forgiving others is the gracious overflow of God forgiving us. See, that offense, that wrong that that person committed against you is trivial compared with the immense debt of your sin against God.

What do we do? We tend to minimize our own sins, excuse them, rationalize them, and we exaggerate the sins of others. Today we're going to be breaking bread in a few minutes. I want you to reflect on God's awesome forgiveness of you. And I want you to forgive as the Lord has forgiven you. The cost, the comparison, the choice.

Yes, a choice is to be made. Every single one of us, I guarantee, has been wronged by someone. Some of you have been hurt and wronged very, very badly, perhaps by a parent. Perhaps you were abused by your father.

Perhaps you were betrayed by your husband or your wife. You're wronged by a teacher or an employer, a coach, a close friend, a business partner, a church leader. And your pain and your hurt are very, very deep as you sit here today. The sense of betrayal may be devastating. You're overwhelmed with, perhaps outraged by, the hurt and the injury, and we don't want to minimize that.

That is true. It causes you tremendous pain and sadness, anger, resentment, bitterness. Perhaps it happened a long time ago, but that wrong committed against you is deep within you, and you live with it.

Day in, day out. So read this parable. Jesus is saying, now you've got to make a choice. You have to choose to forgive that individual. You say, they don't deserve it, John. If you knew how badly I was treated, you would be careful as to what you're saying.

Well, here is the Word of God. I know your initial instinct is to seek revenge. I want you to listen to Jesus. I want you to let that wrong go. I want you to discharge the debt. I want you to release that person.

I want you to stop keeping a record of that wrong and constantly talking about it. There is to be, in true forgiveness, there is a total letting go of the wrong. A letting go of any thought of retaliation, of reprisal or revenge. You see, forgiveness is a choice. You say, well I have forgiven them, but they keep coming back and doing the same thing over and over again. Is there any limit to forgiveness? Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven. Now I understand in many cases reconciliation with that person may not be possible, particularly if that person is unrepentant.

I understand. I'm not talking here primarily about reconciliation, I'm talking first for forgiveness. There can be no true reconciliation unless first there is forgiveness. And you say, what do I do if they don't listen to me? I find it interesting that Jesus ends the parable in verse 35 by saying this, so also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.

Not just lip service, from your heart. Didn't Jesus teach us that we're to love our enemies? In Matthew 5, love your enemies, that means I'm to seek the good of that person who is my enemy. Even that person who hates me. Even that person who wants something bad to happen to me, there is to be a conscious choice to forgive that person even though you don't particularly feel like forgiving them. Is there someone you have to forgive?

Is there someone you need to ask for forgiveness? Make the choice. Do it.

Do it today. God will bless you with freedom, with peace, with joy. You choose to receive God's forgiveness? Don't you love it, God's forgiveness? How wonderful it is that your sins are totally gone.

Isn't that incredible? I think how wonderful it is, particularly as we come to communion, we can walk out of here and think, I am totally forgiven. All of my sins have gone.

That tremendous through the grace of God. So you receive God's forgiveness, I'm saying to you and to myself, we must practice forgiveness. To receive it and to give it. Forgiving, even as God in Christ has forgiven you.

The cost, the comparison, the choice, for the consequences. Notice what happened to the man who refused to forgive the small debt. He was handed over to the jailers. This man should have been rejoicing, having a tremendous party, rejoicing that his huge, incalculable debt, which he never, ever, ever could repay, that it had been graciously forgiven. Instead of enjoying that forgiveness, he now finds himself imprisoned. Think of the agony. Can we say yes, the very torture, the imprisonment of unforgiveness?

You know what that is, don't you? You choose not to forgive that person that impacts your prayer life. It impacts your communion with your heavenly Father.

It poisons your relationships. Unforgiveness produces a very torture of the mind. In fact, in unforgiveness, we are drinking our own poison. Think of the tears, the wrecked relationships, the divided families, the divided churches, the sleepless nights, the ulcers, the self-destructive behavior, the inner conflict, the psychosomatic diseases, the heartache, the shattered relationships when people refuse to forgive.

You know what I'm talking about. Perhaps you've evidenced that in your own family, perhaps in a business partner, perhaps in a church you were in, perhaps in the ruptured relationship of a close friendship. This eats us up, doesn't it? What torture of the mind when we do not obey the teaching of Jesus and refuse to forgive. You picture that man who had been forgiven so much. He comes to this man with his tiny head, and he takes him by the neck, filled with his own self-righteousness, and forgetting the wonderful forgiveness that was given to him. You ever acted like that?

Possibly. You're so censorious with others. You're so quick to tell everyone about their faults. You, as it were, choke the life out of them and grab them by the neck, as it were. See, to refuse to forgive is destructive, very, very destructive. During World War II, Corrie ten Boom, many of you know her, was confined in a concentration camp at Ravensbrück for her part in sheltering Jews from their Nazi oppressors. Her father died in another camp, and in the dehumanizing conditions of Ravensbrück. She not only was humiliated and degraded, but she watched the life of her sister Betsy ebb away. Yet, God in His grace was real in the middle of the suffering of that terrible camp. And after the war, God gave her the grace to go to Germany and preach about God's forgiveness. She was speaking one day, and after she spoke, a man came forward whom she immediately recognized. She said that one of the worst experiences in the camp had been the delousing showers when the women were ogled and taunted by leering guards. This man was one of the SS guards, a man who'd been one of the cruelest towards them, particularly to her sister.

Now he stood right in front of her, Corrie ten Boom said, and he held out his hand. Yeah, Fraulein, it's wonderful that Jesus forgives all of our sins, just as you say. Corrie said she froze as all of the memories flooded back.

But the man carried on. You mentioned in Ravensbrück I was a guard there, but since that time I've become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me, but I'd like to hear it from you as well. Fraulein, will you forgive me? Corrie said she stood there paralyzed. She couldn't forgive.

Betsy had died there. She had been humiliated there. At the same time, she was ashamed that she could speak about and preach about forgiveness, but couldn't or wouldn't forgive.

Lord, forgive me. I can't forgive, she cried inwardly. She said as she prayed, she felt not only forgiven, but set free. The glazier of hate melted within her, she said, and her hand unfroze.

As she reached out her hand and spoke her forgiveness, she said she felt another burden of the past fall away. Have you ever done that? That person who's really been very bad to you. Perhaps a colleague at work who's betrayed you, spoken against you. Someone who's stabbed you in the back. Someone who's abused you.

Someone who's hurt you, betrayed you. Perhaps in your own family. Perhaps here at Calvary Church. Do listen to the teaching of Jesus. See, there are two challenges for us here today at least. This comes, as Jesus said, to every one of you, verse 35.

The first challenge is to those of us who are following Jesus. We are forgiven. It's one of the greatest joys of being a Christian, isn't it? To be forgiven. To have an understanding of the depth of our own selfishness and self-absorption and rebellion against God, and to know that through the grace of God, and it's all through His grace, that I am 100% forgiven.

How wonderful. And that there is no limit to God's forgiveness. His forgiveness comes, as Paul would say, to the cheapest of sinners. To the worst of people.

The most nasty person here, the most depraved person here. God's love and His grace comes down and down and down. There's always more grace in the Lord Jesus than there is sin in you. God's grace comes down to us. We revel in that, don't we? We sing about it.

We sang about it today. There is no limit to this. But here's the challenge.

A very direct challenge. Forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And the more we receive God's forgiveness, the more our understanding of the forgiveness of God, the more we will forgive others. This is one of the reasons, I think, why the Lord's Supper should be so central to the life of the church, because it is as we take the bread and the cup that we are reminded of the wonderful sacrifice of our Savior so that you and I can walk out of this totally cleansed, totally clean, 100 percent pure in the eyes of God, the wonder of it. Now, you praise God for that.

I praise God for that. Will you forgive that person? Will you forgive them? I'm asking you.

Perhaps someone comes right to your mind. Perhaps a group of people, will you forgive them? From your heart.

Here's the second challenge. Some of you sitting here have not yet personally received God's forgiveness. You understand it. You're here with your guilt, with your shame, and with your many, many sins. In fact, these sins are stacked so high that you've lost count. And they stand between you and the Holy God.

And they stand between you and eternal life in heaven. And you long to experience that forgiveness, but perhaps you think God will never forgive you. Listen, this man had this huge debt. It's exaggerated in the parable to demonstrate the point that there was no way he could possibly pay off his own debt.

No, you can't pay your debt. If you tell me you're a terrible sinner, I'm not going to argue with you. I believe you. Because all of us are terrible sinners. No wonder is this, that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Will you receive Christ? Will you look to Him, see Him on the cross paying the price for your sins? And yes, you need to respond from your heart to receive Christ, to thank Him for this forgiveness, and to receive Him into your heart. And He will cleanse you, and you will be totally, 100 percent cleansed.

I bring you to the cross of Christ to see the Lamb of God, God's wonderful Son on the cross discharging the debt of our sin. Yes, there is awesome forgiveness for you. All of your sin can be put away and put away forever. And God will remember them no more as our Lord Jesus Christ paid the price. Gone. The debt totally gone. That's awesome forgiveness.

And this is why Jesus taught us, forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debts. Simple message. A convicting message coming to you and me. You know, maturity in the Christian life is not just knowing about the facts of this book. We're committed. I'm committed to preach and teach this book, but I'm committed to it because of its transforming power as we humbly understand it and obey it.

You know what you are to do. Perhaps you need to make a call. Perhaps you need to email someone. Perhaps you need to text someone. Perhaps you need to have a conversation with someone.

You say this is very difficult. God will give you all of the help, all of the strength, all of the wisdom you need as you humbly obey His Word and do what Jesus told us, that we are to forgive one another, even as God has forgiven us. Father, help us we do pray. We thank You and we're reminded of it as we turn to the Lord's table of Your great forgiveness for us. We think of the love that You had for us and for the grace of God that brought Your love right down to us in the person of Jesus. And all of us here need Your forgiveness, Father. And all of us have been wrong to a greater or lesser extent by others in our lives, and so I pray that we who have been forgiven so much will forgive one another and so bring glory to You and so live lives of freedom, lives of joy, lives not of bitterness, not of resentment, but lives radiating the beauty and the forgiveness of our Savior. We ask it in His name. Amen.