Forgiveness is For-Giving & For-Living
Text: Matthew 18:21-35
9-13-2026
In the name of Him who died on the cross to forgive all our sins, dear friends in Christ. To say the very least, forgiveness is a very serious matter in God’s eyes. Just last week we heard the verses that come right before our Gospel Lesson for today. There, Jesus laid out the process of confronting sin in the Church. He said that our intent at every step is to turn this person away from their sin. However, if the Christian brother or sister refuses to repent, Christ says we are to remove them from the Church. And remember, all of this is to be done out of love. We didn’t dwell on it, but right after that Jesus further explained this awesome power or authority He was bestowing on the Church. He said, “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Jesus was repeating what He had said to His disciples back in Chapter 16. There He called this authority the “keys of the kingdom of heaven.” In other words, if a sinner refuses to repent, the Church on earth has the solemn duty to retain that person’s sins. And if those sins are retained, this action locks that sinner out of heaven. Thus the term, “keys of the kingdom.”
So we see that the forgiving or retaining of sin is the difference between an eternity in heaven or in hell. Since the eternal destiny of a person’s soul is at stake, this business of forgiveness should not be taken lightly. That’s why in our text St. Peter wanted to make sure he understood all the criteria for handling this awesome power to forgive sins. So, he asked a very practical question. “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” In essence, Peter was asking, “What’s the limit?” Or to put it another way, if a person keeps on hurting you and keeps coming back for forgiveness, how long do you have to put up with it? When can you finally say, “Enough is enough!”?
Jesus responds that we should forgive a person “seventy times seven.” In case you’re wondering, I do know that the text in your bulletin only says “77 times.” But scholars debate which is the correct translation. I prefer the 70 X 7 because it conveys the core idea of what Jesus is trying to say. In answer to Peter’s question on the limits to forgiveness, Jesus is saying “There are none!” It doesn’t matter if the number is 77 or 490, the principle behind it is that forgiveness is supposed to be endless.
“Wait! Did Pastor just say that Jesus wants us to let people hurt us over and over again and we just have to take it? We have to forgive them for regularly treating us like a doormat to step all over?” Well, no and yes. Jesus does not say that we must forgive unrepentant sinners. Remember, He said that we are to retain those sins. Jesus gives strong words of warning to the person who recklessly sins against us without ever acknowledging their many sins. So, no, you don’t have to be somebody’s doormat. But now the yes part. If a person hurts you and sincerely asks you for forgiveness, you have no choice but to forgive them. And you must be willing to forgive them over and over, endlessly. I know. Some of you are thinking, “How do you know if the person is sincere?” Answer: You don’t. None of us knows except that person and God. And ultimately, their sincerity or lack thereof is between God and them. You’re simply told to forgive, and forgive some more. You are to forgive endlessly.
Naturally, we conclude that’s an impossible task for us sinful humans. We ask “How can we?” But God asks “How can you not?” That’s the whole point behind the parable of the servants. And here’s how it correlates to our duty to forgive. God is the King in the story. The debt that’s owed by the first servant is our debt of sin. When that servant recognizes the enormous size of his debt, he begs for mercy. He even offers to pay off the debt himself, which is laughable. Rather than try to calculate a modern dollar amount, consider this: A “talent” was worth about 20 years wages. If you multiply that by the 10,000 he owed, it equals 200,000 years of work. It should be obvious that his debt was so huge that he had no chance of repaying it on his own. And so it is with sin. Our debt of sin is so enormous that it’s pitiful for us to offer to pay it off. We never can. But God the King has compassion on us. He forgives the whole debt, freely. That’s the only way that the servant could get out from under the heavy load of his debt. And that’s the only way we can get out from under the load of our debt of sin. God freely forgives us for Jesus’ sake and wipes the slate clean.
But that’s not the end of the story. The servant who was forgiven such a huge debt, then goes out and runs into a man who owes him a dinky debt. A denarius was a day’s wage and he owed 100. It was a manageable debt. So, this second servant asks for mercy, just like the other guy, but gets none. When the King heard about, He was furious. And rightfully so. He had forgiven a huge debt that could never be repaid. Yet this same person went out and would not forgive an insignificant debt that could be paid back. The King’s response basically was: “After all that I forgave you, how could you not forgive a much smaller debt in the same way?”
That’s God’s question to us. After He has forgiven us of our many sins against Him, how can we refuse to forgive each other for a few sins? We have sinned repeatedly against God and yet He continues to forgive us when we repent. How then can we not forgive others when they do the same to us? That’s a tall order for us sinful humans. When someone sins against us, we struggle to forgive them. Because of our stingy, sinful hearts, we sometimes forgive, but only begrudgingly. People often say, “I’ll forgive, but I’ll never forget.” When a person says that, they’re really saying they haven’t totally forgiven. They feed their anger with memories of hurt feelings. They want the offending person to pay and pay and pay some more. They nurse the grudge that they’re holding inside. Doesn’t that sound just like the first servant in the Gospel? We’d better watch out for what the King has to say to this kind of unforgiving attitude!
Even when we sincerely try to forgive someone who has hurt us, it doesn’t come naturally and it doesn’t come instantly. It’s a process. It is entirely possible that you have forgiven someone but due to human weakness you just can’t forget what they’ve done. Every day you wrestle with the painful thoughts creeping back into your mind, even though you don’t want them. And right behind those thoughts come resentment and pain as you relive all the hurt they caused. So how do we fight those thoughts and feelings? Only by turning to Jesus. When we look to the cross, we’re reminded of the mountain of sins that we’ve been forgiven of thanks to His innocent suffering and death. That humbles us and deflates those feelings of resentment. When we feel the pain creeping back in, we can take it to the cross and leave it there again and again. Like I said, this is a process and it takes time—time on your knees in prayer. I can tell you from my own painful experience, that over time, God will replace those feelings of resentment and pain with feelings of pity towards the person who hurt you.
The good news is that for God, forgiveness is complete and instantaneous. I didn’t say it was easy. After all, it cost God the death of His only Son to forgive our huge debt of sin. That the debt has been paid and is completely wiped out. And now, whenever a Child of God asks Him for mercy because of another sin, God forgives that debt also for the sake of Jesus. He puts it out of His mind completely. The Bible says that as far as the east is from the west, that’s how far away God puts our sin from Himself. There was a Dutch woman named Corrie Ten Boom who suffered terribly in a Nazi concentration camp. She learned the true meaning of Christ-like forgiveness. She once said that when God forgives our sins, He buries them deep in the ocean. Then He puts up a “No Fishing” sign. He doesn’t want us to bring them back up because He’s promised He never will.
You see, God has given us His forgiveness freely. And now He wants us to give it freely too. We aren’t supposed to hoard it or hold onto it. It may sound cliché, but the title of this sermon is very true. “Forgiveness is For-giving.” It’s is meant to be given away. But also, please notice that “Forgiveness is For-living.” God pours Forgiveness into our hearts and makes it part of our overall attitude. It becomes a part of who we are. It becomes a part of how we act and how we react towards people who might sin against us. Forgiveness flows from our hearts because we received it so abundantly from God. What a blessing to be able to live in the freedom and to share that gift of forgiveness. Praise God that He endlessly forgives us, so that we can endlessly forgive one another. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria