Matthew 18:21-35 • January 23, 2025 • g1310
Pastor Skip Heitzig from Calvary Chapel Albuquerque, New Mexico, teaches a message through Matthew 18:21-35 titled “I’m A Christian But It’s Hard To Forgive.”
I’d like you to turn in your Bibles tonight to the gospel of Matthew, chapter 18. I began a series at our church on weekends a few weeks ago called, “Help.” The reason I did that is because I discovered that there are areas of the Christian life that we find more difficult. When I was first a brand new believer…so I was saved in 1973, and when I was saved, I was so excited. I wanted to grow. I wanted to learn more, and the Bible that I had was a New Testament paperback edition of Good News For Modern Man. It was easy to read. I’m reading Matthew 1, the birth of Christ; I’m reading about John the Baptist, and the next chapter. I’m going into the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, and I’m learning. I’m so excited until I got to the very last verse in Matthew 5 which says, “Therefore . . . be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” That’s when I first thought, I’m gonna need a lot of help to live the Christian life, and I think we’ve discovered that, right? We’ve discovered that there are just certain areas that become difficult, roadblocks. I need an extra bit of grace to get through certain things. So, in this little series that I’ve done, the first week it was “I Love God, But I Have A Hard Time Loving My Neighbor,” and I need help for that. The second week, “I Love Coming To Church, But It’s Hard For Me To Read My Bible,” and last week was on forgiveness, so I wanted to talk to you a little bit about that tonight, forgiveness—“I’m A Christian, But It’s Hard To Forgive.”
Some years ago there was a boxer in Ireland. He was a very famous boxer. Everybody in the country knew him, he was a familiar face. But two things happened to him: 1) he gave his life to Christ; 2) he entered the ministry. So, you have this famous boxer, he’s now in the ministry, and he went from town to town in Ireland setting up his tent and doing tent revivals. He was in one town setting up his tent, getting ready in the afternoon for the evening service, two thugs walked in the tent not recognizing the pastor—boxer, championship boxer. They don’t recognize him. They’re walking through the tent looking around mouthing off saying inappropriate things. The pastor just has his nose to the grindstone, pays no attention to them, busy about his business. The thugs get a little closer, get a little mouthier saying more inappropriate things. They look like they want to fight the pastor, the pastor does nothing. They walk up to him, and one of them hauls off and hits him right in the face. The man stands back up after being struck, turns his cheek, and the thug hits him on the left side of the cheek. At that point, the preacher took his jacket off, rolled his sleeves up, leaned in and with a smile said, (in an Irish accent) “The good Lord has given me no further instructions,” right? “Turn the other cheek.” Well, the thing is the good Lord has given us further instructions, and the instructions are forgive.
We are called to forgive, and it’s something some of us struggle with. If you were to close your eyes, you would see on your eyelids the image of somebody that perhaps you have held grudges against, bitterness against, for a number of years. It’s not uncommon. I came across a study by a group called The Fetzer Institute, and they did a survey of love and forgiveness. That got my attention. Who does a survey of love and forgiveness? In this survey they published, they said, “Fifty-eight percent of Americans agree that there are instances where people should never be forgiven.” There’s just certain crimes that people can commit, that if they commit them, you do not forgive them—ever.
Then, there was a study by The Barna Research Group, you may be familiar with them, they look at churches and Christian values. They stated, “One in four practicing Christians struggle to forgive someone.” They polled a thousand people, and they wrote 23 percent has a person in their life who they just can’t forgive, “Can’t do it! Can’t forgive that person. I’ve tried, can’t get over it.” The head researcher of that little study from the Barna Research Group wrote this: “Forgiveness is essential to Christianity. It’s what distinguishes it from any other religious faith. If Christians struggle to extend forgiveness, not only do their relationships suffer, but the church’s witness is marred.” Here’s what you need to know: In God’s curriculum, forgiveness is not an elective, it’s a require course.
In the New Testament, if you’re familiar with the teachings of Jesus, you have noticed that Jesus Himself brings up the topic of forgiveness several times. It’s peppered throughout the teachings during His earthly ministry. Here’s a few examples, the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the merciful, For they shall obtain mercy.” Implied in that is forgiveness. Then, He taught His disciples in the Lord’s Prayer, “And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors.” When Jesus was asked the most important commandment in the law, He also made a statement that implied forgiveness when He said, “And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart . . . soul . . . mind, and . . . strength.” And, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Implied in that statement also is that we extend forgiveness.
On another occasion, Jesus said to His followers, “ . . . bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you.” Then, here in Matthew 18, the passage I’ve had you turn to, right before the passage we’re going to deal with, which is in verse 21 by the way if you want to get that ready, but the paragraph before that Jesus says, “Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault”—just—“between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother.” So, obviously then forgiveness was a big deal to Jesus Christ because He teaches a lot about it and because He taught His disciples to pray a prayer to be able to forgive others. So, (in an Irish accent) “The Lord has given us further instructions.”
Now, why is it so important? Why is it such a big deal? Because not only, as the researcher pointed out, does forgiveness set us apart from other belief systems, but if you do not find a way to deal with your past, you are not going to be able to move forward in your future. It’s hard to go forward when you don’t make a right choice about your past. You cannot change the past, it’s happened. It’s over. But you can choose to forgive, and thus be unencumbered with the bitterness that comes with unforgiveness.
We’re going to look at a very, very familiar passage in Matthew 18:21-35, but because it’s a lengthy passage, instead of reading it all in advance, we’re just going to sort of make our way through it. Let me give you a few facts about forgiveness. I’m going to give you four facts about forgiveness. Are you ready for the first one? It’s so obvious. Are you ready for this? Here it is: Forgiveness is difficult. Profound, isn’t it? No, it’s not. Forgiveness is difficult. We’ve already established that it is difficult for a great number of people; but watch Peter here, it was difficult for him, verse 21, “Then Peter came to Him”—Jesus—“and said, ‘Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?’ 22 Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.’”
First of all, let me just speak on Peter’s behalf for a moment because everybody disses Peter for something. I love the fact that Peter personalized the truth that he heard. He just heard Jesus talk about forgiving a brother who had sinned against you, going to him, telling him, and resolving it. That is in Peter’s mind. He’s thinking about that and he is personalizing it, he’s applying it to himself. He comes to Jesus when there is an open moment and asks Him this question…so something in that got Peter’s attention when He said, “If your brother sins against you,” and that got Peter’s attention.
I don’t know what’s going on with Peter, we’re not told. Maybe he’s mad at James or John or both, remember because they wanted to be at the right and the left hand in the Kingdom? None of the disciples liked that whole disagreement. Maybe Thomas snored at night and that really bothered Peter or Judas had bad breath. We’re not told. But something gets Peter’s attention, bothers him enough to come to Jesus and ask Him this question. What this tells me is that forgiveness was hard for Peter, and here’s what you need to know: Forgiveness was hard for Peter because forgiveness is hard. It’s difficult to do.
Why is it hard? Well, for a few reasons. First of all, forgiveness is hard because it involves confronting painful emotions. If you’re going to forgive a person, you will come to grips with the emotions that you felt, or still feel, when you were hurt—maybe a betrayal, maybe you were abused, maybe you were lied to—but you are dealing again with those emotions that you would like to put to rest.
The second reason forgiveness is difficult is because when you forgive a person, it feels like you’re letting go of your right to see justice done. “Look, if I just let this go and forgive this person, that’s just not right. That person needs to be accountable. We need to see justice served.” Here’s another reason it’s hard to forgive people because when we forgive somebody, we are risking getting hurt all over again, and it’s hard. So, what people often do is they decide, “I’m gonna just toughen my heart. I’m gonna live with such a rough, tough exterior that I’m not going to get too close to people and let them hurt me.” Is that a good decision? Is that a good way to live? It’s not. (You can talk. It’s church, you can talk.) It’s not a good way to live. It’s a bad choice.
If you ever get ahold of a book by C.S. Lewis called, The Four Loves, get a copy of it and read it, The Four Loves. In his book, and I think we’re going to put this up on the screen, this is what he writes, “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it up carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love is Hell.” It’s a powerful statement.
Now, back to the conversation with Peter. Peter comes up and says, “Okay, so You said that whole forgiveness thing about my brother, umm, what’s the limit of forgiveness? Give me a number, here, Jesus, that I can walk away with.” Does forgiveness have a limit? I mean, if somebody blows it once, okay, I understand that. But if he does it again? And then, again? And then, again? Peter says, “So, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?”
Now, you gotta know something. When Peter said this, he was feeling very generous. This was very generous. He thought, Okay, Jesus is really going to like what I have to say. He’s such a generous Person and a Savior and He loves forgiveness, so I’m going to say a number that is going to make Him so proud of me. I’m sure, I believe Peter was waiting for something that happened to him two chapters prior to this in Matthew 16 when Jesus said, “Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven,” you know, and renamed him ‘Peter.’ That was a wonderful moment. He is waiting for one of those kind of compliments from Jesus, but it never came.
So, here’s why I say that. The going rate for forgiveness was three times. There actually was a number the Jews had in which they said a person can be forgiven, and it was three times. It’s like baseball—three strikes and you’re out. What Peter did is he doubled the number, the going rate, and added a 15% tip and came up with seven times. One rabbi, Rabbi Jose ben Hanina, wrote this: “He who begs forgiveness from his neighbor must not do it more than three times.” Another rabbi, Jose ben Yehuda said, “If a man commits an offense once, they forgive him. If he commits an offense a second time, they forgive him. If he commits an offense a third time, they forgive him. But if he commits an offense a fourth time, they do not forgive him.”
So, Peter says, “Seven times?” thinking Jesus will be impressed. Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” Now, that’s my version. Not every translation of the New Testament says, “ . . . seventy times seven.” You might have a translation that says, “ . . . seventy-seven times.” So, there is a dispute, a translation dispute. It’s funny to read commentaries on this dispute because some will say, “What He meant was 490,” another will say, “No, what He really meant was 77.” Let me tell you what He really meant, “Stop counting.” That’s what He really meant. That’s the idea here. If you’re forgiving a person this many times, you have stopped counting. Whether it’s 77 or 490, He’s not giving a quota like, “Okay, if somebody is really bad to you and sins 490 times, but on 491 you can deck him.” No, it’s you keep on forgiving. First Corinthians 13 says, “Love keeps no record of wrongs.” You’re not keeping count.
Here’s another passage Jesus gave that speaks to this. This is Luke 17. He said, “If your brother sins against you, rebuke him.” I wish more Christians would do this. If somebody says something offensive to them that in the moment they would say, “Excuse me, that was offensive. I did not appreciate that.” That’s a rebuke. But that would do a lot of correction if we could just nip it in the bud and be that candid. So, He says, “If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.” But listen to this, “And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him.” And the apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith.’” That’s what I’d say, too. It’s like, “Are you kidding me? Seven times in a day? Oh, I’m going to need a lot more faith to deal with that than I have now.” That was the right response, “Increase our faith.”
So, that’s the first fact, forgiveness is difficult; the second fact, forgiveness is divine. God loves to forgive people. He’s in the forgiving business. So, Jesus launches into this familiar story. Look at verse 23, “Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. 25 But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made. 26 The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, ‘Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’ 27 Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt. 28 But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’”
Okay, as you work your way through this story, it’s pretty easy to figure out where Jesus is going with this. The king who forgave the debt is like God who forgives our great debt, but who are we, once we’re forgiven, to not forgive other people. The parable is divided into two distinct sections. The first section is what I’ll call vertical forgiveness between God and us, He forgives us. The second part of the parable is horizontal forgiveness, how we treat others. It’s the first part that gives us power to do the second part. In fact, it’s the first part that requires the second part because God forgives us, we should forgive others. But, notice the amount that the first guy owes the king. The servant owes him, it says, “ . . . ten thousand talents.”
I’d like to explain that because it really represents an unpayable debt. It’s a vast, uncountable number. The word for “ten thousand” is the Greek word mýrioi where we get our word “myriads,” like bazillions. It’s kind of an uncountable number, just myriads. It’s translated here, “ . . . ten thousand talents.” Is that a large number? It’s a huge number. In the Bible there’s a region of the country called Galilee. Some of you have actually traveled overseas and have been to Galilee. Galilee is like a county—think of like Riverside County. The whole Galilee region, their total annual revenue was three hundred talents. This guy owes a king ten thousand talents. One talent was worth 20 years of a working man’s wages, one talent. So I’m going to throw a number at this. I’m going to go all Elon Musk on you here or Jeff Bezos. I’m going to set this at around, if I calculate it right, $60 billion.
So, Jesus launches into a story, “Yeah, there was this dude who owed the king $60 billion,” and He tells the story. He owes him this much money, the king gets ahold of him, the servant throws himself at the king’s mercy. He knows he’s guilty. He offers no excuse. He makes no defense, but he does say this—I find it humorous—“I will repay all.” Really. You owe a guy $60 billion, you’re a middle manager, and you’re going to pay him back? You’ll never pay it back. It’s impossible. But he’s begging for his life, and when we are in a tough situation, we’ve even made promises to God that are outlandish, “God, get me through this. Help! I promise You I’ll do whatever,” and then we don’t follow through. He says, “I will repay all.” This man, this servant, at this point is what Jesus described in the Sermon on the Mount when He described us as being “poor in spirit” and “mourning” because of it. This is like the tax collector in Luke 18 who stood afar and beat his breast and said, “Lord, be merciful to me the sinner!” This incalculable, unpayable debt represents our debt of sin before God.
Back in 1977, a song was written, I had a debt I could not pay, He paid the debt I did not owe. I needed someone to wash my sins away. I’ve always loved that song. It’s an incalculable, unpayable debt. But He didn’t owe it, and He paid it. I could never pay it. Martin Luther said, “We are all beggars before God. We can never hope to pay.”
When Jesus hung on the cross, do you remember what His first words were? “Father, forgive them.” (I told you it’s okay to talk in church when I ask you a question.) “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” Of all the things to lead with as your first statement, isn’t that an amazing statement? I don’t know that you and I would be saying, “Father, forgive them.” If it was me, I’d be saying, “Father, get even with them.” But His first statement was, “Father, forgive them.” Why would that be His first statement? Because that’s our greatest need. Forgiveness is mankind’s greatest need, so Jesus led with the statement, “Father, forgive them.” Forgiveness is divine. Forgiveness is difficult; forgiveness is divine.
When Jesus taught His disciples to pray, taught the Lord’s prayer, there’s that little phrase, “And forgive us our debts,” He’s not referring to our debts that we have with other people but our debt before God. It’s not like you are unable to pay your car payment for six months and you just go home and fold your hands and say, “Oh, Lord, forgive us our debts.” Wouldn’t that be nice, but it doesn’t work that way. No, it’s our debt that we have before God. It is the debt of sin. The fact that Jesus tells His disciples to use that phrase when they pray to God tells me that we need regular forgiveness, that this is something we need regular stops for, we need regular times of forgiveness. I bring that out because some people might think, Well, I don’t need to ask God to forgive me, I’m already a Christian. He has, past tense, forgiven me. I’m a new creation in Christ—old things have passed away, all things become new. So, why should I keep asking God to forgive me?
Well, I hope you have noticed that you still have a sin nature; and if you’re not sure, ask your spouse, they’ll confirm it. We have a sin nature—we still commit sin—and we need to deal with it every time we know about it. How many of you didn’t sin today, raise your hand. You didn’t make one sin. Yeah, see nobody’s going to volunteer that. John said, in 1 John 1, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins,” he’s speaking to Christian brethren here, believers, “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Let me take you back to the upper room the night Jesus shared Passover with His disciples. You remember how after the supper was done, Jesus put a towel around Him, got a basin of water, and He did what? He washed His disciples’ feet. They were all stunned by this because He’s on the floor like a servant would, and He starts washing feet…until He gets to Peter, the same guy in the story dealing with forgiveness. He comes to Peter, and Peter asks what I think is a dumb question because Jesus is obviously washing feet and Peter goes, “Are You gonna wash my feet?” Like duh, you’re next in line. Jesus says, “Look, Peter, I know you don’t understand this right now, but you’ll get it later on.” That’s not enough for Peter. Peter then says, “You will never wash my feet!” Mr. Holy, and so Jesus said, “If I don’t wash your feet, you will have no part with Me.” Then, Peter does a pendulum swing in the other direction and says, “Then, wash my head, my hands, and everything.” This is what Jesus said, and this is key, “A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet, for he is completely clean.”
Listen, when you come to Jesus Christ, you get a bath. You are made completely clean. You are washed whiter than snow. Old things pass away, all things become new. But, as you walk through this world every day, you and I, we get dirty feet, and so we need to be forgiven again and again and again. That’s the daily confession of sin. We don’t need to be born again, again. I had a guy come to me at an altar call saying, “This is the fifth time I’ve been saved, pastor.” I said, “No, it hasn’t. You’re only saved once.” But we do need to be reconciled with the Father, and God forgives not just the first time but the second and the third and the fourth and the fifth and the sixth and every single day.
Forgiveness is difficult; forgiveness is divine. Here’s the third, and it gets progressively harder: Forgiveness is demanded. Forgiveness is demanded. Go back to verse 28. The servant is forgiven by the king, “But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat,” so he first sees the guy, grabs him, then I’m picturing he’s on top of him to get a hold of his throat saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’ 29 So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’ 30 And he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt.”
Did you notice that the second servant said the exact same sentence as he himself had said to the king, “I’ll pay you back. I’ll pay you all. Have mercy on me.” It should’ve been a little ding! ding! ding! when he heard that. Verse 31, “So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done. 32 Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. 33 Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?’ 34 And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him.” I’m guessing at this point Peter’s just kinda going, “Whoa!” That was heavy.” But the last verse is even heavier, verse 35, “So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.’”
Okay, now, what’s going on here is unthinkable. This guy has just been forgiven a bazillion dollars and he finds a guy who owes him a fraction of that, and he refuses to forgive. It says he owes him “a hundred denarii.” One day’s wage was a denarius, a Roman denarius; a hundred denarii then would be a hundred days’ wage for an unskilled laborer, so I’m just going to throw a number at it—$5,000 for a hundred days wages of labor, $6,000? Okay, let’s do California wages, $10,000. Let’s be generous. The guy owes $60 billion and he refuses to forgive a $10,000 debt. It’s unthinkable. It is shocking behavior. That’s the point. The point Jesus wants to get across is it is unimaginable that a follower of Christ would refuse to forgive his brother. Which leads me to make a couple of conclusions here based on this text. First, to refuse to forgive is hypocritical; and second, to refuse to forgive invites torment. Now, let me explain that.
First of all, it’s hypocritical. Forgiveness received should translate into forgiveness granted because I’ve been forgiven, lavishly forgiven, an unpayable debt, therefore, having received and enjoyed the forgiveness, I would be a forgiving individual. To refuse to forgive is hypocritical. It’s true, but we also know from the Scripture and church history, it doesn’t always work out that way. Sometimes Christians have very, very poor behavior toward one another. Even the church at Corinth, you remember, in the book of Corinthians, the wealthier Christians coming to the Lord’s table, did not consider the poor, but they grabbed the food first and let the poor go home hungry. Also, in the church at Corinth, some were taking believers to secular pagan law courts and suing them instead of resolving the conflict. So, it doesn’t always work out that way.
Okay, now we’ve read through this parable. You have your Bible, turn back in Matthew to chapter 6, to the Sermon on the Mount. Go back there, and I want you to look at a very, very familiar passage, that is, the Lord’s prayer, Matthew 6:9, “In this manner, therefore, pray:” and if you’d like to you can follow along and read it out loud with me, “Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
Go back to that phrase, “And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors.” I don’t know anybody that prays that way, do you? Do you know anybody who says, “Lord, I want you to forgive me the way I forgive other people.” How many of you want God to forgive you better than the way you forgive other people? I do. “And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors.” He gives them the Lord’s prayer, but Jesus also knew that the hardest part of that prayer would be that phrase on forgiving others, so He gives what I’m calling an addendum to the prayer. Look at verse 14. It’s the only part of the prayer He explains, “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
Let’s not argue about how many times the person blew it or if the person is really worthy of forgiveness. It says nothing about brooding over it first for a long period of time or punishing that person with silence or waiting to see if he’s really sincere when he asks for forgiveness. It just says forgive. There’s no qualifications. I do have to say this because it can be misinterpreted; and it does not mean this, He is not saying that you get saved by forgiving people. It’s not what He is saying in either the Matthew 18 or the Matthew 6 passage. That’s not the intention. Jesus is not saying you get saved by forgiving, He is saying those who are saved will be forgiven. If you’re a saved person, if you’re forgiven, you will become forgiving. Listen, you ought to be the most forgiving person in your office. You ought to be the most forgiving person in your clinic. Whatever company you’re a part of, people should say, “You know, that guy is like, he never holds a grudge. He doesn’t like keep things in. He’s not bitter. He lets things go. He’s a forgiver. He’s not a scorekeeper.” To refuse to forgive is hypocritical.
The second point that comes from this “forgiveness is demanded” is to refuse to forgive invites torment, verse 34. “And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him.” I need to explain that. The word “torturer” means to suffer great pain. Some people say, “Well, does that mean we’re not saved, we’re going to hell?” He doesn’t say he’s going to turn them over to the executioners but to the torturers. You won’t lose your salvation. If you’re not a forgiver, you won’t lose your salvation, but you will lose your peace. You will lose your peace. And, if you refuse to forgive, God will chasten you. Doesn’t the Bible say, “For whom the LORD loves He chastens.” “Chasten” means He spanks you. He spanks you. He’ll turn you over to the torturers.
One commentary writes, “The Christian who harbors grudges, bitter feelings toward one another will be turned over to torturous thoughts, feelings of misery, and agonizing unrest within.” This is how it works: You hold on to something somebody has done, every single time you run into that person, whether it’s at work or at Thanksgiving or you drive next to them down the street and you see them through your car, all those feelings come back. All that bitter acid of resentment comes right again boiling to the surface. You are handed over to the torturers.
The application of this whole parable is God is King. All of His servants owe a huge debt we can never pay, we are freely forgiven of that debt. If we refuse to forgive others, we are hypocrites and we will experience torment as God’s hand of chastening. I remember a song we used to sing. It’s a verse of Scripture. Do you ever sing, Ephesians 4:32? Do you remember that song? Be ye kind…I’m not going to even go there because I can see it’s not ringing a bell with some of you, and I would ruin it if I sang it all the way through so I’ll quote it, “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”
So, forgiveness is difficult; forgiveness is divine; and forgiveness is demanded. Here’s the fourth, and I want to leave you with this: Forgiveness is doable. He would never give you a command and tell you to forgive people if it were an impossible task. He doesn’t do that. He would only give you a command if He enabled you by His Spirit to fulfill that command. In verse 33, as part of the parable, “Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?” In other words, forgiveness is a choice that you make. How do you do it?
I’m going to give you a couple principles in closing to tell you how to do it, and I want to try to make it memorable. You start upward, you move inward, and then you reach outward. I want you to pick up on that. You start where? Upward. You move where? Inward, and then you reach outward. Now, let me explain it to you. You begin upward. You begin by praying for that person that you are having an offense toward or has offended. You pray for them. You go, “Well, what should I pray for? Should I pray that they run into another car on the way to work?” No. “Should I pray they get food poisoning at lunch? That’d be nice.” No, you don’t pray that. You pray for their good. Jesus said, “Do unto others as you would have others do to you.”
Pray that God will bless them. I will guarantee you, if you put a person like that on your prayer list every day, eventually those feelings of bitterness will be impossible to reside in your heart. You won’t be able to hold a grudge when you pray for that person on an ongoing basis. So, you start upward. You ask God to help you love that person like He loves you. He’s forgiven you way more times than you can count. Psalm 103, “As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.”
So, you start upward, and then you move inward. You go to the heart. You go to your mind, your thought life. What do you do there? Well, you reason. Here’s a thought, I want you to maybe write this down, have you ever imagined what it’s like being on the other side of you? It’s a good exercise. What’s it like being on the other side of me? What do I sound like? What does my body language give off? How are my responses to people? What is it like? Imagine what it’s like being on the other side of you.
Now, you begin upward, you move inward, and let me explain forgiveness in a nutshell. Ready? Forgiveness is two things, it’s both a crisis as well as a process. It’s a crisis and a process. It’s a crisis—an event, a choice, a decision. You’re making a decision to forgive, a choice to let it go. You’re not going to play those old tapes over and over again in your head, that’s backward motion, you want to move forward. You are releasing that person…you’re making a choice to release that person from any obligation. That’s the crisis, the crisis of forgiveness.
A lot of people never get there. They have crises every day, but it’s a crisis of unforgiveness and it sounds like this, “You owe me! I’m gonna make you pay! You are going to regret you ever did or said that, and I’m going to recruit others to my cause.” That’s a crisis of unforgiveness. But there is a crisis of forgiveness, and it sounds like this, “You don’t owe me anything. I’m writing it off. I’m writing it off. I am letting it go.” Now, that’s a crisis, that’s a decision, that’s an event. It’s a choice you make, but I said it’s not just a crisis but it’s a process. Let’s just say because tonight’s Wednesday night, right? So, it’s Wednesday night, you’re hearing this and you’re going, “Okay, man, I’ve held onto this thing so long for that other person, I am letting it go tonight!” That’s good. That’s your crisis, but it’s just Wednesday. On Friday, you’re going to run into that person, and when you see that person and those feelings start bubbling up again, you are going to be tempted to say something and perhaps fail in the process. You’ve made a crisis, decision, but you fail in the process.
So what do you do? You go back to the crisis. Here’s the principle: When you fail at the process, always go back to the crisis. You’re at the crisis moment, “I’m gonna let it go. I’m gonna forgive in Jesus’ name. You don’t owe me. It’s over.” Then, you see them. You fail, and you go back to the crisis. You make the same commitment, you go through the process, you’re doing a little bit better, a little bit better, but you fail and you go back to the crisis. Always go back to the crisis, and then you’ll eventually make it through the process. It’s both a crisis as well as a process.
So, start upward, move inward, and then finally reach outward. This is where you graduate. This happens to be the hardest part of it, to deal directly with it—to go to a person and resolve the conflict. You don’t want to do it. You don’t feel like doing it, “No, I’m just going to go home, fold my hands, and say a prayer and forgive them.” Well, that’s a cop-out. Jesus said, “If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go . . . . First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” It’s the only time I’m aware of in the Scripture where God commands you to interrupt your worship for something else. That’s how big of a deal forgiveness is.
You begin upward, move inward, you reach outward. How do you reach outward? Personally is best, eye to eye is best; by phone, if they live far away. I don’t like texting. People read weird stuff into texts. It’s like the lowest form of communication, and I know you’re asking questions like, “Well, what if they refuse to meet? What if they refuse to resolve it?” With some people it takes time. With some people it also is a process. You want to let them go through that process. The bottom line is you are only responsible for you, not for them. End of the day, you do what God tells you to do, and you leave the rest with Him. You’ve tried. You can’t fix it because there’s two people, but you can do your best to resolve it.
You start upward, you move inward, you reach outward. When it comes to forgiveness, remember this: Debtors should never become collectors. That’s sort of the whole point here, debtors should never become collectors. Jesus on the cross said, “Father, forgive them,” yet people all the time that I talk to will say, have you ever heard this, “Well, I can forgive, but I can never forget.” Are you kidding me? What? Amy Carmichael wrote, “If I say, ‘Yes, I forgive, but I could never forget,’ as though the God who twice a day washes all the sands on all the shores of all the world could not wash such memories from my mind, then I know nothing of Calvary love.” That’s a very powerful statement. God can do this. It’s doable. Yes, it’s just a fresh thing for some of you, it’s a crisis, but it’ll become a process and eventually…and I could tell you stories of people that I’ve been at odds with, it was ground zero, and there was restoration. Unforgiveness is cancer to the soul.
Whenever I travel, especially to the United Kingdom—England and Scotland—I love going to the cemeteries. I know that sounds really weird, but in old cemeteries in England and Scotland where people have been dead like four hundred years, in some cases five hundred years, and the tombstones are still pretty much intact, it’s just fun to go and read them. A guy has his name there, his date of birth, death, who he was married to, children he had, what he did, sometimes almost like a whole few paragraphs can be put on a tombstone. That always fascinates me. There is a cemetery in upstate New York with a gravestone with only one word on it, and the word is “Forgiven.” Isn’t that great? One word. No name. No date of birth or date of death, just “Forgiven.” You might say, “Yeah, that’s pretty awesome. Nothing could be better than that.” I could only think of one thing to add to that, forgiving. “Forgiven,” and because forgiven, forgiving.
Now, as believers, we cannot refuse to forgive. It’s just a choice we have to make. Whether we feel like it or not, we make a choice to forgive because God said, “Do it,” and He wouldn’t tell us to do it unless you could do it. For some of you, you just need to let it go, and this is a good place to do that.
Some of you perhaps you’ve never asked God to forgive you personally. You’ve never made a relationship with God on a personal level. This would be a good time to do that. You say, “Well, I pray to God all the time.” If you have never repented of your sin and turned your life over to Jesus Christ, there’s really only one prayer God will hear at this point, that is, “Father, forgive me. I give my life to You. I repent.” That brings you entrance into a relationship with the living God who will forgive you of everything you have ever done in life, make you His child through adoption, through justification, and on top of that at the end promise you His home in heaven forever. Now, come on, that is a deal nobody should ever pass up.
I remember the first time I heard the gospel. Billy Graham preached the gospel, and I was thinking, I don’t know why God wants me. He’s like getting a bad deal. He wants my life, He’s getting a very bad deal because He wants my life and He’s going to give me all that?! He’s getting a bad deal, but I’m getting an awesome deal and I’d be an idiot to pass it up. Those were my thoughts, and right then and there I prayed. Maybe that’s you.
Pastor Skip Heitzig from Calvary Chapel Albuquerque, New Mexico, teaches a message through Matthew 18:21-35 titled “I’m A Christian But It’s Hard To Forgive.”