Costly Forgiveness
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9 “This, then, is how you should pray:
“‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”14 “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
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21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold[h] was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
26 “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’
27 The servant’s master took pity on him, cancelled the debt and let him go.28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’
30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.
32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
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Forgiveness
This sermon today ‘Costly Forgiveness,’ is part of our series on the Lord’s prayer
In the early days of trying to come to terms with my disability, which was a result of a car accident caused by driver error, I went to visit the driver to offer forgiveness, only to find out that he had moved on. He did not see the need to talk, he said ‘it was just one of those things.’ I felt wounded again – my broken back, my paralysis was ‘just one of those things.’ On the 2¼ hour journey back from seeing him I prayed ‘Lord, hear my forgiveness, I hold nothing against this man, I do not want to feel anger or resentment. I forgive and release him from thoughts that I feel towards him that are not of you.”
‘To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover the prisoner is you’ L.Smedes.
Overview of the Lord’s Prayer
The Lord’s Prayer is so familiar to us, most can say it and we can become overfamiliar - we think we know it. This short series enables us to look again at this dynamic prayer in Matthew 6v9-15. Specifically, today, we focus on ‘forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.’ Indeed, Jesus chooses to highlight this one sentence in the Lord’s Prayer at the end of the prayer in verses 14&15.
Before we dig deeper into ‘costly forgiveness’ let us have an overview of the Lord’s Payer. If we do not see that the prayer is an invitation into a relationship with our Father then we will not understand this sentence on forgiveness. There is a shape to the Lord’s Prayer, four aspects of what Jesus calls ‘prayer.’ Remember this is in response to the disciple’s question ‘Lord teach us to pray.’
A1 Adoring A2 Accepting A3 Asking A4 ‘Againsting’
In the Lord;’s Prayer, before we get to A3 - asking for forgiveness we should be A1 - adoring and A2 - accepting. Hallowed be your name. Adoring, not a distant God, but our father in heaven. Accepting ‘Thy will be done’ – we accept his love and mercy.
Then A3 – Asking: Feed us & Forgive us and concluding with A4 - Against Temptation and against the evil one. That’s an overview.
Introduction
This parable of the unforgiving person Matthew:23-34 is Jesus’ response to Peter’s smug question – how many times do I have to forgive (7 times – that is two times rabbinic teaching plus one)?
But in reality, if Peter is counting, then he is not really forgiving at all.
The parable that Jesus told teaches us that forgiveness is to be part of who we are in Christ – ‘forgiven people are forgiving people.’
Let us be clear, Jesus is not saying if someone has hurt you that you go back into that cauldron and take some more pain, especially if you are a victim and they show no remorse.
In this parable, Jesus is showing that for true healing to take place, if you have been hurt, offended, injustice against you, or psychologically damaged then forgiveness is vital, essential not just for super-spiritual Christians. It is important for your healing and spiritual growth.
Jesus shares a drama of three Acts. The theme is more than forgiveness, it is Jesus’ favourite subject – the Kingdom.
There are always two kingdom responses open to us. It is not darkness and light but the kingdom of law and grace.
Act 1 The first person with a huge debt is freed
Act 2 The free-man confronts another who owes a small debt
Act 3 The witnesses inform the King
Act 1 The first person with a huge debt is freed
In this story, the debt-ridden man owes a great sum, 10,000 talents. A talent is a huge amount – far beyond his capacity to pay. He begs for more time, he will repay. He is totally unrealistic. Like the gambler who is going to pay it all back. No matter how fervently we plea ‘I will be good, I will pay it back,’ ‘I will not drink another,’ ‘I will not lust,’ ‘I will not get angry or lose my temper,’ ‘I will not be proud’ – we cannot fulfil our promise, this is the response of works: the kingdom of the world not grace. We have such a debt no-one can repay it.
The King’s response is quite impulsive – he pardons, he is merciful and cancels the whole debt. This is costly forgiveness.
Our leading actor is now a debt-free man.
This is grace and mercy - this is our forgiveness and this is what our forgiving is based on. We had nothing to pay back but God redeemed it, paid it all
‘Jesus paid it all, All to him I owe, sin had left a crimson stain, he washed it white as snow’ Elvina Hall (1820-1889)
Perhaps you think you are not that bad, what you have done is not terrible. The person in Act one trivialised his forgiveness.
We need to think again about this. Be honest about the size of your debt. Think about the price the King paid to pardon or redeem
Act 2: The free-man confronts another who owes a small debt
The freeman was relieved of £½-billion but is himself owed £500. He grabs him, is violent, furious, raging – “pay it back.” The debt has possessed him, embittered. Anger & resentment is so powerful within us that it will blind us from making the grace-connection, with the great and costly pardon we have received.
Cancel-culture is prevalent today. Someone offends us, we avoid them, shun them, diss them, gossip about them. We warn others about them – we become embittered, gripped by the unforgiveness. We can justify our anger, of course, we can relive the pain over and over again. Secretly we would like to see their downfall – we are human after all.
That’s the way of the world: kingdom of the world – the kingdom of law - a wrong has been done, a debt owed to us and there will be a payback.
But Jesus presents a radical alternative – the kingdom of God. Don’t cancel the person, cancel the debt, absorb it yourself, set the other free, not because they deserve it but because you remember the debt that was cancelled for you. Amazingly, in setting the other free you free yourself
How do we do this? Only by the grace of God, only by remembering that the king is your father, he is merciful to me every day. So in Christ, by his grace, one day (one thought) at a time, I forgive (as I am forgiven). A forgiven person is a forgiving person – this is the radical way, the kingdom way. Someone annoys you, drives in front of you, takes your seat, sings out of tune behind you – it can fester (a whole service). You release them and in doing so you set yourself free.
On 6 June 2020, two of Rev Mina Smallman's daughters, Bibaa Henry (age 46) and Nicole Smallman (age 27) were stabbed to death in Fryent Country Park, north-west London.
On 6 July 2020, Danyal Hussein was found guilty of the murders and sentenced to life imprisonment. Hussein was a satanist who made a blood pact with a demon in return for winning the lottery. Ven Mina said she would not let hatred for Hussein consume her. When asked if she could forgive him, she said: "I have, I already have. I've surprised myself.
"When we hold hatred for someone, it's not only them who are held captive, it's you” Mina Smallman.
Act 3: The witnesses inform the King
Matthew 18:31, the witnesses were shocked and went and told the king who was enraged.
The King said: ‘Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 ‘In anger his master handed him over to the (Greek word means torturers) jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all he owed. v35 This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.’
This doesn’t sound right in today’s world. NB this is not God condoning brutality, it is just the Scene of the play.
The message is this: an unforgiving person is a tortured person in this life and in eternity.
Lewis Smedes ‘To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover the prisoner is you.’
To remain an unforgiving person is to remain a tortured person.
‘This how my father will treat you.’ It sounds like conditional Grace but it can’t be, that contradicts the meaning of Act 1 of the drama. The debt was so great it could not be paid but it was freely pardoned. Note the words Jesus uses to own the Father, he said my father, not ‘our’ father to this man. The unforgiving man in this parable is not in the kingdom. His heart is not for Jesus Christ.
The connection with Act 2 of the drama is that the forgiven heart is a forgiving heart. If we say in our heart ‘there is no way I could forgive such a crime’ then there is no grace connection with the great debt that we have been pardoned. We are trivialising God’s costly forgiveness in pardoning our sins. The death of his own son – ‘ransomed, healed restored forgiven.’
Our human relationships are a barometer of our relationship with God. If you say, I can’t forgive them, there must be a payback – they must do this or that – it is not the gospel of grace. It is the kingdom of law and works.
When we think about what others have done to us. They don’t deserve my forgiveness – remember the king has forgiven us much more. He pardoned me and he gives me the grace and the strength to forgive.
In 1985 Dawn Smith Jordan’s 17 year old sister Sherrie was murdered.
The murderer was caught and sentenced. He wrote to the family from prison saying he had become a Christian ‘Will you ever forgive me for what I’ve done?’ How would you respond?Dawn said about coming to a place of forgiveness ‘It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t overnight. But God gave the answer I needed. We are to forgive, just as Jesus forgave us. I was finally able to write to the man who murdered my sister telling him that only because of the grace I have received in my life could I let him know he was forgiven
The forgiveness we offer is that which flows from Christ to us and through us – we are the conduit. Don’t let the fact that you have been hurt keep you in chains for the rest of your life
Only by grace can we enter, Only by grace can we stand
Not by our human endeavour, But by the blood of the Lamb,
Into Your presence You call us, You call us to come,
Into Your presence You draw us
And now by Your grace we come, Now by Your grace we come.Lord if You mark our transgressions
Who would stand?
Thanks to Your grace we are cleansed,
By the blood of the Lamb.
© Graham Kendrick