The Gospel and Forgiveness

The Gospel and Forgiveness

“The Gospel and Forgiveness”

(Matthew 18:21-35)

Series: The Gospel for Real Life (3 of 8 )

Team Preaching with Rev. Todd A. Linn and Rev. Rich Stratton

 

Words in Black: Todd A. Linn

Words in Red: Rich Stratton

 

  • Please open your Bibles to Matthew, Chapter 18.

 

We are continuing our special 8-week study on the Gospel.  If you’re visiting with us we are reading through this book by Jerry Bridges, The Gospel for Real Life, in our Sunday School classes.  I am hearing a lot of good things from Sunday school members who are enjoying the deep discussions about their readings through this book which means our Sunday School teachers are doing a great job and this is no surprise.  Thanks to each of you for your commitment to faithfully teaching God’s Word.  Each week in our worship time Bro. Todd and are preaching through a passage that reinforces what we’re reading in the book and talking about in Sunday School.  This morning we want to talk about, “The Gospel and Forgiveness.”

 

  • Please stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word.

 

21 Then Peter came to Him 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.

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!’

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.

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.

35 “So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”

 

  • Pray.

 

Introduction:

 

I read a story this week that made me think of my own children and also caused me to reflect upon the subject of forgiveness.

 

A mother ran into the bedroom when she heard her little boy scream. She got in the room and saw the little boy’s younger sister pulling his hair. She gently released the little girl’s grip on her brother’s hair and told him, “There, there. She didn’t mean it. She’s only two.  She doesn’t know that hurts.”  The little boy nodded his head and the mother left the room.  As she started down the hall and then heard the little girl scream.  She rushed back in and said, “What happened?”  The little boy said, “She knows now!”

 

We are continually faced with the challenge of forgiving others.  Forgiving others is not always easy.  It is much easier to seek revenge like the little boy seeking revenge upon his sister.  But as Christians we are called to a higher standard.  We are to forgive others continually, compassionately, and completely.  The Gospel empowers us to do just that and we want to talk about that this morning.

 

In Matthew 18 Jesus has been talking about what to do when someone sins against us.  He says when that happens go privately to the one who sinned against you.  Tell him his fault between you and him alone.  If that doesn’t do the trick, take one or two others with you, and so forth.  So Peter then asks this question: “Lord, just how many times should I forgive someone who sins against me?”  And that question prompts Jesus to tell this parable we read a moment ago.  Let’s walk back through this text and discover some actions we must take if we’re going to forgive as God teaches.  First,

 

1. We must Forgive Continually (21-22)

 

21 Then Peter came to Him 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.

 

The Jewish people thought it was a noble thing to forgive an offender three times.  Peter figures Jesus raises the bar and that for him (one of Jesus’ chosen disciples) the “forgiveness limit” is probably more than three, so he suggests, “Up to seven times?”  Jesus says, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.”  Some translations have “seventy seven times.”  It matters little how you translate it because Jesus’ point is that there is no limit to forgiveness.  It is continual.

 

The immediate context concerns our forgiving a believer, a Christian brother or sister, who sins against us.  Unfortunately, I have heard believers say things like “I know I am supposed to forgive her but I just can’t, I’m just not strong enough.”  That may very well be true, but because we are forgiving this person on the strength of the Gospel, we therefore do have the power to forgive anyone who sins against us.

Jesus commands us to, “Love our enemies.”  He says, “Bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you (Matthew 5:44).”  We must forgive and we must forgive continually.  So we might ask:

Lord, how many times shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?  Continually.

Lord, how many times shall my sister sin against me, and I forgive her?  Continually.

How many times shall my father or my mother sin against me, and I forgive her?  Continually.

How many times shall my husband, my wife sin against me, and I forgive? Continually.

How many times shall my pastor sin against me, and I forgive?  Continually!

How many times shall my minister of education sin against me, and I forgive him?  Continually!

 

Now forgiveness doesn’t mean that we agree with another’s sin against us or dismiss it as unimportant.  Nor are we to compromise our Christian convictions or become a doormat and allow people to just walk all over us.  What forgiveness does mean, however, is that we will choose not to bear a grudge against someone for their having offended us.

 

Now maybe you’re asking, “How in the world is that possible?  How can I forgive and not bear a grudge against this person?”  We’ll get to that in a moment but first let’s note a second thing about forgiveness.  The Gospel and forgiveness means we must forgive continually, secondly:

 

2. We Must Forgive Compassionately (23-33)

 

Jesus tells about a king who had a servant brought before him who owed the king a huge sum of money, “ten thousand talents.”  In Bible days ten thousand talents was a debt no one could repay.  Today we might say the servant owed the king “a trillion dollars,” an amount the average person could never repay.  The king threatens to throw the servant into debtor’s prison so the man falls down on his knees and begins to beg.  He cries out to the king, “Please, have patience with me and I will pay back every single penny.”

 

And this moves the king—or master—to compassion.  See it there in verse 27:

 

27 “Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.

 

Such compassion from the king!  The servant could never repay the king.  The servant had gotten in too deep, he had done something that could not possibly ever be undone, but the king forgives his debt anyway.  And the king forgives him at great cost to himself.  I mean, it cost the king a trillion dollars.  He would never get that back.  Forgiveness was costly to him, but he forgave the servant with no strings attached.  There was nothing in it for him and that is what makes it true and compassionate forgiveness.

 

Does this servant appreciate the compassion of his master’s forgiveness?  Does he understand the great cost to this king in his forgiving him this huge debt?  If so, then he will extend the same forgiveness to others.  He will forgive just as he’s been forgiven.  But what do we discover?  He goes out and finds someone who owes him “a hundred denarii.”  Compared to a trillion dollars, a hundred denarri is like “20 bucks.”  This servant had done something that was comparatively minor, what he had done could be remedied, it could be fixed, it could be paid back.  But look at what the servant who had done the unfixable thing did.

 

The servant himself had been forgiven a trillion dollar debt and the first thing he does is find someone who owes him 20 bucks.  And he takes him by the throat and says, “Pay me what you owe me!”  Then this man falls down and says, “Be patient with me and I’ll pay it all back,” which sounds familiar.  But the ungrateful servant has no compassion.

 

Now I want to say something here because I just feel like someone needs to hear it.  This kind of attitude is ugly on a Christian.  It is ugly to see a Christian hold a grudge against another for something that is really petty.  So if you are doing that stop it and if you are sitting there being offended by being called ugly and petty don’t get mad at me, because you’re not made at me.  You’re mad because you don’t like the way conviction feels.  So whoever that was for, just get it right so we can move on.

 

So after this ugly, petty, servant shows no compassion, the king summons the servant and says, “You wicked servant.  I forgave you all that debt because you begged me.  I had compassion on you!”  Then, in verse 33:

 

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.

 

Jesus’ point is clear: Just as the king had forgiven compassionately, so should the man have forgiven compassionately and so should we forgive others compassionately.

 

So we must forgive continually, we must forgive compassionately, and thirdly:

 

3. We Must Forgive Completely (34-35)

 

34 “And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him.

35 “So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”

 

Jesus calls us to forgive “from the heart.”  He says elsewhere, “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil (Luke 6:45).”  Forgiveness, complete forgiveness, flows from the heart.

 

What happens if we don’t forgive others completely?  According to the parable, we are “delivered to the torturers.”  Whatever else this means we can infer that it is a punishment we bring upon ourselves, maybe in the form of physical or emotional pain.  When we fail to forgive we hurt only ourselves.

 

Now, if we walked out of this sanctuary today trying to forgive others on our own strength we would fail because in our own sinful strength we can’t do it.  If we decided that we were going to do a “better job” practicing forgiveness, but totally missed the basis of our forgiving others, then again, we would fail.  This parable provides the proper basis of our forgiving others.  It gives us the proper motivation.

 

Ephesians 4:32 says, “And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”

 

So I’m to forgive others how or on what basis?  Answer: “Even as God in Christ forgave me.”  I look to the cross and remember that I have been forgiven a huge debt that I could never repay and on that basis I forgive others.  See, we are the wicked servant in the parable.  God is the King, the Master.  When He forgave our huge debt we could never repay, He forgave it at great cost to Himself.  It cost God the death of His Son, Jesus Christ.  It cost God to forgive you and me.  The reason we can forgive others continually, compassionately, and completely is because God in Christ forgives us continually, compassionately, and completely.

 

You studied this truth in chapters 5 and 6 of Bridges’ book.  The Bible teaches that we are all sinners, sinners by nature and sinners by choice.  While our sin hurts others, our sin is chiefly an offense against God.  It’s kind of like, if I spill ink upon the carpet in your recreation room, that’s a bad thing, but if I spill ink on your rare, costly Persian rug, that’s another thing altogether.  Why?  Because of the value and worth of the rug.  When we sin, our sin affects and hurts others, but our sin is mainly an offense against the infinitely worthy and infinitely holy God.

 

Because God is holy and perfectly just, He must judge our sin.  The judgment of God is expressed in the pouring out of His wrath upon us.  His wrath is not like human wrath, it is not an uncontrollable kind of sinful anger.  God’s wrath is a holy, settled opposition to sin.  God hates sin because it challenges His supremacy.  And because God is just and holy, because He is a “good judge”, He must judge our sin.  His judgment always right and the sentence always fits the crime which is why His justice demands the pouring out of His wrath upon us.

 

Bridges makes an insightful comment in chapter 5 of our reading.  He says, “I suspect…that the …reason we avoid or ignore the idea of God’s wrath is that we simply don’t think of our sinfulness as warranting the degree of judgment inferred by the expression.  Frankly,” he adds, “most people don’t think they are that bad (p.49).”

 

One of the reasons we fail in forgiving others is because we don’t identify with the wicked servant in Jesus’ parable.  We don’t see ourselves as bad, but we are!  We are always willing to see others as that bad, but not ourselves, but because of our sin we are as bad as that wicked servant.  We have spilled the ink of our sin upon the costly Persian rug of God’s holiness and we deserve hell.  We cannot really be forgiven of sin until we come to terms with the truth that we deserve God’s judgment.

 

The bible teaches that the wrath of God, His settled opposition to our sin, is upon us because of our sin.  In John 3:36 the Bible says, “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”  God’s wrath is upon us because of sin.  If we do nothing we remain in sin with the wrath of God upon us.  If we die this way, we die with the wrath of God upon us and we are forever separated from God in a place called hell.

 

The Good News of the Gospel is that Jesus has completely exhausted the wrath of God.  When Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, He prayed about the cup of God’s wrath that He would drink for us.  He anticipated the utter horror of the crucifixion but then prayed, “Nevertheless, Thy will be done.”  And Jesus died on the cross, completely exhausting God’s wrath for us.  He took that wrath upon Himself when He became our sin upon Calvary’s Cross.  Jesus did this for us.  Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

 

Bridges does a masterful job driving this truth home in his discussion of the Old Testament sacrificing of two goats on the Day of Atonement.  He writes about how the high priest offers these two male goats as sacrifices for sin.  The first goat was killed and its blood was sprinkled upon the mercy seat of the most holy place in the Jewish tabernacle.  The second goat was called the scapegoat.  The high priest would place his hands upon the head of the goat and confess the sins of all the people.  This symbolic act pictured the transferring of all the peoples’ sins to the goat and then the goat was sent away into the wilderness never to be seen again.

 

These two goats picture the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.  The first goat died to “propitiate” or exhaust, God’s wrath because of our sin and it is important that God’s wrath was exhausted, it is important that the cup was emptied, because we would not be able to bear up under even a tiny drop of the wrath of God.  So the first goat represents Christ’s work of propitiation as it was killed and its blood was shed for our sins.  The second goat, the scapegoat, pictures Christ’s work of “expiation,” a word that means the removal, or carrying away of sin.

 

I particularly like that picture.  Just as the sins of all the people were symbolically transferred to the scapegoat in the Old Testament and the goat was sent away in to the wilderness, picturing the complete removal of all sin, so Jesus Christ took all of our sins upon Himself.  Our sins were transferred to Christ and He died a sacrificial death, completely removing all our sins.  The psalmist says in Psalm 103:12, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”  And God says, “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more (Hebrews 10:17).”

 

As our scapegoat Jesus Christ has completely removed and taken away all our sin.  So Bridges says we need to remind ourselves daily of this work of Christ.  We must remember that all of our sin—past, present, and future—has been forever taken away by Christ and that God keeps no record of wrong.

 

It is essential that we understand that God’s forgiveness includes our sin as Christians, present sin.  Bridges says, “Think of some of your more recent sins—sins of which you are now ashamed.  It may have been an unkind word, a resentful attitude, or a lustful thought.  Whatever it might be, God says He has put it out of His mind; He remembers it no more (p.61).”

 

So the key to victorious Christian living is to remember the work of Christ upon the cross, particularly this picture of Christ as our scapegoat.  And here is Bridges’ challenge.  He asks:

 

Do you grasp in both your heart and mind what the message of the scapegoat says to you?  Do you believe that Jesus really has carried away your sin and that God has indeed removed it as far as the east is from the west?  Do you by faith lay hold of the glorious truth that God has put all your sin behind His back, that He has blotted it from His record and remembers it no more?  Do you rejoice in the fact that God has hurled your sin into the depths of the sea and will never count it against you…Our sins have been removed.  The question is, will we appreciate it, not only at our initial moment of salvation, but for our day-to-day acceptance with God?  It is only as we do the latter that we will truly begin to appreciate the glory of the cross and the unsearchable riches of Christ (pp.67-68).”

 

And then, and only then, will we be able to forgive others biblically. Ephesians 4:32, “And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you.”

 

When you and I understand what it means to be forgiven “as God in Christ forgave us,” then we will have little problem forgiving others.  But if we haven’t fully appropriated that forgiveness and if we do not feel the love of God coursing through our veins, then we’re going to be like that wicked, uncompassionate servant, running around demanding others pay what they owe.

 

We can forgive others continually, compassionately, and completely—why?—because God in Christ forgives us continually, compassionately, and completely.

 

This the power of the cross

Christ became sin for us

Took the blame and bore the wrath

We stand forgiven at the cross

 

  • Let’s pray.

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