Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Matthew 18:21-35

Sermon text is found in Matthew 18:21-35. The topic will be forgiveness. Matthew 18:21-35. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. Then Peter came to him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times.” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.”

Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he should be sold with his wife and children and all that he had and that payment be made. The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, “Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.” Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.

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.” So this fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.” And he would not, but went and threw him into prison until he should pay the debt. 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.

Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, “You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant just as I had pity on you?” And his master was angry and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. So my heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother his trespasses.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for the warnings, tremendous warnings of this passage to us. And we thank you, Father, for accepting our worship and praise today on the basis of the work of Jesus Christ. And Father, you know the debt that we owe that he paid. Bless us now as we think about and consider your forgiveness of us to the end that we may know how to forgive others. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Please be seated. So this is the last sermon on James, but it isn’t really on James. As we’ve said, the last couple of verses in the epistle of James deal with prayer, confession, and then recovery or reclamation of a brother who is straying from the way. And so now when it talks about that, it concludes the epistle of James by saying, “You will have delivered him then and all his sins will be covered.”

So it assumes that we know some things which we talked about last week in terms of how to go about doing that. It also assumes that we know and understand that forgiveness is the subtext of that particular text. In fact, all of these that conclude James’s epistle—one way to look at it is that in times of difficulty, persecution, trials, problems such as the dispersed church from persecution was experiencing—at the end of the day, really, it’s the simple basics of the faith that are necessary to keep a body thriving, united, and healthy so that they can count it all joy. And more than that, they can be part of the mechanism God will use to turn the culture as they seek righteousness. God will bring justice to bear over time if they wait patiently.

So this is a kind of conclusion to that, talking about forgiveness because it assumes you know about that. Mentioning confession one last time: I mentioned last week chapter five of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book *Life Together*, and there are copies of that chapter on the table out in the foyer for you to take and read if you’d like, and if they run out, we’ll make more. I’d commend it to you. We talked about it yesterday at the sync meeting of the community group leaders. So you probably might be hearing about it in your community groups as well.

And I’ll be quoting very briefly from Bonhoeffer’s article in a few minutes in the sermon. I wanted to begin today, though, actually by perhaps reading or at least alluding to some things that Ken Sandy says in his book *Peacemaker*. I mentioned this also in the last couple of weeks, and he’s got a chapter on forgiveness. So it’s a huge topic obviously, and I really want to deal with some very specific aspects of it. But in order to do that, I think that in our day and age particularly, it’s important to remember what forgiveness is, what it isn’t, and the way Sandy puts it as one of his headers of his section is: it’s neither a feeling nor forgetting and excusing. So it’s not those things.

Instead, Sandy says it’s a decision that we make to forgive people that has feelings and forgiveness and that kind of stuff attached to it. But it’s really a volitional decision we make to forgive someone and to proclaim that forgiveness to them. And that forgiveness is linked to great freedom. If you can imagine in the text today, the parable—the story that Jesus tells—in between his two didactic or simple sayings as teaching to Peter, this story in the midst of that is all about that. It’s really a picture of forgiveness of debt that we can’t pay, and the great freedom that comes from that, and then what we do with that freedom.

And so forgiveness is an absolutely essential part of the freedom that the Christian experiences from God and from one another. And it’s that last point I want to kind of touch on today. So he says it is a decision, and to forgive somebody has implications to it. And Sandy in his chapter goes on to talk about those implications. And he talks about how the particular word used in the New Testament means to release or remit, let go like the debt here. And then also to grant something without merit. And so this is kind of the essence of forgiveness.

And in forgiveness, really, the great attributes of God that we talk about and sing and can actually start to think of in abstractions become very real and concrete to us. His holiness, ushering forth our need for forgiveness because of our sin. His love that calls us to recognize our sin, and his great grace and mercy in forgiving us our sins. And as well, provisionally, his anger if we don’t reflect his forgiveness, if we don’t breathe grace and forgiveness to one another in the way we act—now that’s biblical forgiveness, and we’ll talk about that in a couple of minutes how it’s distinguished from the forgiveness that the world and culture talk about today.

But in any event, it has those aspects to it. The Peacemakers—you know, many of you know that I use in counseling the seven A’s of confession. There’s also material on the same little cards I’ve handed out to many of you over the years. It also has the four promises of forgiveness. And so Sandy, in his development of his materials that’s been used in thousands—tens of thousands of churches over the last few decades—has articulated and boiled down biblical teaching on forgiveness and talks about these four aspects.

So let’s see if I can find the quote here. Well, I can’t. So it must not be time to read it yet. So we will go on. But by way of introduction, you know, that’s kind of the context: forgiveness is this tremendously important material. If you want to have more information on some of the aspects that we won’t deal with today, please ask yourself or please take advantage of the Peacemaker book. It’s in our library and that’s a more detailed explanation of some of the other aspects of forgiveness that I won’t touch on today.

So today what I want to talk about is this parable, and I want to bring some simple lessons from it that I think are absolutely essential to understanding how we’re to forgive as Christians. This sermon really was in part a response to a request from someone a while back to talk about forgiveness because, you know, we get confused about it today in the context of our world and the way the world talks about forgiveness. How do we—what do we mean when we say we forgive somebody, and what’s the significance of it?

So we’re going to draw some very simple lessons from this text. But first, I think it’s important that we actually understand it a little bit, right? And so what goes on here is Peter has—you know, the context is we’ve just discussed the most common understood or referred to text in Matthew 18: if your brother has sinned against you, go and talk to him and take two others, et cetera. So that whole thing has just happened, and so Peter, in hearing this, has this question come up, right?

So the text today begins with the question from Peter, and he says, “Well, how often do I forgive my brother if he sins against me? Seven times?” And Jesus—it’s interesting, Jesus’s style here. Uh, he begins by doing something that I do occasionally, that really, you have to be careful how you use this. He begins by giving an answer that has shock value to it, right? He begins by making a simple statement to Peter of fact: “Now I don’t say seven times. I say seventy times seven.”

Okay, so what he’s doing is using an exaggerated number. How could a person in one day sin against you 490 times and ask forgiveness and repent? Well, he couldn’t. So the idea is, if you’re thinking about how often you forgive somebody, you’ve got the whole thing wrong. So Jesus uses kind of a shocking statement to answer Peter. Now, if he just left it at that, that’s not good. But his communication—then he goes on to tell a story, a fairly lengthy story, and then he wraps up at the end of the story with another specific statement of what he’s trying to tell people in terms of his answer.

So that’s kind of how the text flows. So in verse 35, at the end of the text, he says, “So my heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother his trespasses.” So he begins by answering Peter with an answer that shocks him. He then gives an explanation of that shocking answer. And then he wraps up by warning Peter that he is close to being the wicked servant, or he can become that wicked servant who ends up being tortured forever because he can’t pay off that amount of debt.

The amount of debt here expressed in talents would be equivalent to—I don’t know—$100 million or something. I mean, just impossible to pay back. And that’s the point of the number. It’s like the seventy times seven. The point is, “Hey, don’t count. Okay? When he repents, forgive him. And if you don’t from your heart, you’re going to be like this wicked servant in the context of the story.” So that’s how he lays out the text.

Now, at the same time, what he’s warning us of, and what he’s warning Peter of, is a heart that doesn’t want to forgive the way God forgives. When God forgives someone, we don’t maybe want to forgive them ourselves. And this is what Peter is in danger, apparently, of being like. And that’s the primary teaching here. But along the way, the parable teaches us other things about forgiveness.

So let’s look at it a little bit and just sort of see how this works. So he gives this illustration about a man with a completely unpayable debt. So that’s the first part of the teaching here on forgiveness: an unforgivable debt, an unpayable debt. You can’t pay back that much money. Okay? So right away, looking at this as an analogy of forgiveness between us and the King of Kings, right, we recognize he drives home to Peter how much he’s been forgiven. And so when we consider forgiving other people, we want to begin by considering how much we’ve been forgiven.

Now, if you know, it’s very important that we get that answer right. We could say, “Well, not that much. I’m a pretty good person. You know, it’s like we could sing the song ‘Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like you.’ I’m not a wretch.” But that’s not true. The point here is that everyone who has been forgiven by God has been forgiven of a debt that is inestimable. So the holiness of God comes to mind. Our own sinfulness, the inability to have right relationship with God, complete inability—this is what he talks about. What he brings Peter to awareness of is Peter’s listening to the story, and as we’re listening to it as well: tremendous debt and he wasn’t able to pay it back.

It tells us—you don’t have to just infer from the thousand talents or the ten thousand talents—but he can’t pay it back. So the master makes him aware of his debt. Okay? So it’s time to collect the debt. So we could compare that with death, and he’s going to sell him into slavery. But the servant then falls down before him saying, “Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.”

Now, he then is the subject of forgiveness from the master, and he instructs—Jesus is telling us what repentance looks like. Okay? So number one: the servant doesn’t say, “Well, I don’t really owe you that much according to my books. It’s not that big a debt.” He doesn’t say that. He doesn’t say, “Well, you know, I know I ended up not being able to pay you back on this tremendous debt, but really you didn’t properly train me how to handle money, right? It’s really not my fault.” Or he doesn’t say, “Well, you gave me all this stuff, but then you know, robbers broke in.” He doesn’t make any excuses for his sin, for his debt.

By the way, that’s an obvious thing throughout the scriptures, right? We’re going to do the Lord’s Prayer like we always do: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” And that’s because that’s what it says in the text from Matthew that we use. But why is that? Why does the Bible connect up sins with debt? I think maybe one reason—at least, maybe not, you know, I don’t know if it’s the reason or a reason—but a good way to think about that for you and me is this: it makes our sins very concrete, right? We know what debt is like. Debt is measured in talents and denarii and dollars and cents. It’s very concrete, whereas our perception of our sins can become quite abstract, right? We can kind of fudge all of that stuff.

Well, this servant doesn’t try to fudge the books. He acknowledges his debt. Now that’s part of the process whereby he’s forgiven. He acknowledges his debt. And then secondly, he prostrates himself before the master. He shows contrition for his not paying back the debt that he was supposed to pay back. He gets down on his hands and knees and his face before the master, and he begs him for more time. So he’s got confession going on. He’s got contrition going on. And then third, he’s got a commitment to change going on.

What he tells his master is, “Please be patient and I’ll pay you back every bit of it.” He accepts the consequences of his debt and commits to change his life. He’s no longer going to be somebody that keeps piling up the debt. Now he’s become—he’s going to become—a guy that’s going to start to pay the debt back. Now, those are the three basic teachings of the scriptures about what biblical repentance looks like, what confession of sin looks like. It looks like somebody who doesn’t make any excuses for his sin, you know, recognizes the great horrific amount of his sin before God, but doesn’t make excuses. He confesses.

He does that. Secondly, he is contrite before God. He’s sorry for what he’s done. Okay? He’s sorry for his situation and what his sins are. And then third, he commits to change. He brings forth fruit of repentance, so to speak. He commits to change his life from being a debtor to a creditor. You know, so in the Bible it says, “Let him that stole steal no more. Rather, let him labor with his hands to give to him that has need.” So, you know, in that case, repentance is not just stop sinning, but make a change toward the positive. Don’t just stop being a debtor and increasing your debt. Become a creditor. Be a person that wants to work so that he can help people rather than stealing from people. Right?

Ephesians—you know, don’t tell lies, but speak the truth to each other. So these marks of true confession are identified here by the attitude and action of the servant. Now there’s going to be one other condition. So we can think of these as conditions. Now, very important: these actions of the servant are not the basis for forgiveness. Okay? It’s not the basis. God doesn’t forgive us because we repent. Well, it’s not the basis for the forgiveness. The only thing that can pay that debt is what we celebrate here as we move to the conclusion of our service: the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, by his precious blood, right? He’s redeemed us. He’s paid the debt for our sins. That’s the only thing that can do it.

So, you know, but what we do have is a process of confession and repentance and then declared forgiveness of sin that Jesus is describing for us. Okay? So there’s a difference. You can do this. It’s not the basis for forgiveness, but it is part of the process that God says results in forgiveness. Okay? This is the work of God in the life of the sinner: bringing him to confession, bringing him to contrition, and bringing him to change. That’s what is bound up with then the declaration that his debt is released, that he’s been forgiven the debt and doesn’t have to pay it back because it’s been paid by another. Okay?

So it’s not the basis, but it is the process of forgiveness. Now, the parable, of course, goes on. The master is moved with pity for this servant of his, this debtor. “Master of the servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.” There’s the forgiveness, and this is getting to Peter’s question: “How often do I forgive somebody?” Well, he forgives. The master forgives the servant because he’s moved with compassion. God has compassion on us and is greatly desirous of forgiving us. And that’s the picture here.

But then the last—you know, if you’ve got confession, contrition, and change—three C-words—you know, the last one now starts to be developed by Jesus as he continues the story: a willingness to forgive others. Because that’s what this guy doesn’t have. He goes out. And compared to his great debt, his fellow servant has a very small debt that he owes to this guy. And this guy, rather than calling him before him and saying, “Pay the debt,” grabs him by the throat. That’s his nature. Okay? So he grabs him by the throat and says, “Pay me back everything.” And the people say, “No.” And he’s going to throw him into slavery. Okay? So the one who has been forgiven doesn’t forgive.

And as a result of that, his fellow servants then tell the master. What does that tell us, by the way, about prayer? Right? This is what part of what James is all about: that our prayers are effectual to bringing judgments that God brings forth and curses into a land and blessings. The example is Elijah. Times of persecution, they’ll be delivered by God. So fellow servants tell the master, “There’s this wicked guy here. You’ve got to do something about this.” That’s our job. We’re supposed to be telling the master what our observations of what’s going on are. Does he need it? No. He’s omniscient. But he wants it for some reason. And that should be enough for us.

But in any event, so the master finds out. And then, of course, you know, the rest of the story: he not only throws him in prison—debtor’s prison—he actually sends him to the torturers until the debt will be paid, which means never. He’ll be continually tortured. It’s a picture of hell. So the wicked servant ends up in hell. He’s not really forgiven. Okay? And so what it tells us is that the last condition of the process of repentance or forgiveness, rather, is that we demonstrate a knowledge, a real knowledge.

The way our belief in our forgiveness by God is tested and discerned and revealed is by how we treat other people. You know, so how we treat other people is the final condition one could say about forgiveness. And then Jesus warns Peter: “This is where you could go if you start thinking about that. Well, after seven times, I’m not going to forgive the guy if he repents to me.” Okay?

So that’s the basic narrative and story. And I want to draw four quick lessons from this narrative. And I’ll tell you now what they’re going to be. One: there’s linkage. This parable teaches there’s linkage between our forgiveness of others and God’s forgiveness of us. They’re bound together. Two: God forgives conditionally as to process. Again, not the basis, but in one case he’s forgiving someone, in the other case he’s not forgiving them. Okay? So God has a conditionality to how he grants forgiveness.

Not as the basis for the forgiveness, but as part of the demonstrated process. So there’s linkage and there is conditionality that God brings to how he forgives people. Three: if God doesn’t forgive, we shouldn’t. If God has conditionality and if the way we forgive is linked to how God forgives, we should do it like him. And if he is conditional, as this text tells us, then we should—if he hasn’t forgiven, we shouldn’t forgive either. And I’ll explain that in a little bit. I know that’s controversial.

And then the fourth point I want to make is: if God forgives, we must. And that’s really the situation with Peter, you know, is not that he’s too willing to forgive someone that shouldn’t be forgiven. He’s an example of not being necessarily willing enough to forgive somebody. And so Jesus uses this parable primarily to teach that when he forgives, we must forgive. And it’s got nothing to do with how many times or what we can pay or any of that sort of stuff.

If we demonstrate the marks of confession, then just as God forgives us, we have to forgive other people. So the four points are, you know, again: linkage, conditionality. If God doesn’t forgive, we shouldn’t forgive. And if God does forgive, we must forgive. So that’s the points that I want to go over in a little bit of detail here.

First of all, we’re to forgive as God forgives. And there’s all kinds of evidence of this. And of course, it makes sense because ultimately forgiveness is about sins. And ultimately, all sins are against God. Psalm 51, right? David says, after committing adultery—sleeping with another man’s wife—taking a young girl who grew up at court and using his influence over her to make her go bad, so to speak, killing her husband. I mean, you know, he’s done all this stuff against Bathsheba and against certainly Uriah. I mean, he’s executed that guy by what he does with military tactics.

And yet, David says: “Against you, you only have I sinned and done this evil in your sight, that you may be found just when you speak and blameless when you judge.” So ultimately, our sins are ultimately always against God. And so if they’re always against God, then forgiveness on a horizontal basis is linked to the forgiveness on a vertical basis because our sin is as well.

And of course, there’s many, many, many statements linking these things up. Matthew 16:19, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Now, he’s talking about binding and loosing, and that has to do with forgiving or not forgiving. Okay? And what he’s saying there is that the binding and loosing—there’s linkage. And people always want, “Well, who’s manipulating who?” Forget all that. But what he’s teaching is there’s linkage between what’s going on in heaven with a person and what’s going on on earth.

So it says that we’re not autonomous. Our forgiveness or withholding of forgiveness is linked to God’s. Matthew 6:12: as I said, the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” And then of course it goes on with the rest of the Lord’s Prayer. But it’s interesting that then in verse 14, that was verse 12. Verse 13 is the balance of the Lord’s Prayer. He says, “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 the Father forgive your trespasses.”

Linkage. And it’s interesting because the Lord’s Prayer that Jesus teaches them—the immediate two verses that follow focus on the petition involving forgiveness of debts and of debtors. So you know, when we pray the Lord’s Prayer today, let’s remember that that is absolutely—you know, he could have talked about a lot of things after that, after the Lord’s Prayer here in Matthew—but he goes back to the petition dealing with forgiveness. And what he instructs us in is that forgiveness that we offer and what he does. They’re linked together. Okay? Linked.

Mark 11:25: “Whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.” Linkage once more. Okay? And by the way, the brackets of that text we just read—just before this he has cursed the fig tree. Okay? So don’t get the idea here—and this is what the world wants to do. They want to take verses like that out of context, usher in blanket forgiveness, and say if we don’t do that, we’re not forgiven by God. Everything’s blanket forgiveness.

But of course, this is completely out of sync with the context of the verse just prior to this. Jesus has cursed the fig tree as an image of him cursing unbelieving Israel and coming in judgment in AD 70. And so cursing and judgment are part of the context for this. In the very next chapter, Jesus uses the parable of the vineyard with the people that aren’t taking care of it, right? And the judgment that they suffer.

So, you know, there’s linkage, but don’t think that means that we have blanket forgiveness. That’s not what he’s saying. Luke 6:37: “Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” So this is the verse that again—that the world, probably the only Bible verses that the world likes and talks about and all that stuff. And it’s an important verse about linkage, again, right? But what it doesn’t say is you’re to blanket forgive people.

In fact, as we’ll see in a couple of minutes, it’s exactly the opposite. And again, here the context is—after this verse he talks about the context for this teaching: taking a splinter out of somebody else’s eye. And what he says is take the beam out of your own eye first, right? And then address the splinter in the brother’s eye. So it’s not as if all judging or evaluation is wrong. It’s not as if reclamation of other isn’t our duty. It is. But what the text does tell us again is this linkage between God’s forgiveness and our forgiveness.

Ephesians 4:32: “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another even as God in Christ forgave you.” Again, a linkage, right? And so how are we supposed to forgive people the way God in Christ forgives us. Okay, so there’s linkage.

Secondly, God’s forgiveness is conditional, right? As to process. And that’s what the parable teaches. There are certain things going on here that are related to his forgiveness, and certain other actions. An ungracious spirit means that you’re not forgiven. So there’s conditionality to God’s forgiveness in terms of process. It’s not, again, the basis for your forgiveness, but it’s part of the required process. Okay? So that’s the basis again: the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We can’t make satisfaction. The parable clearly teaches that our work—you know, confession is not a work. Okay? Repentance is not a work that’s going to merit us any kind of forgiveness or salvation, but it is part of the process.

And in that process, God says that he forgives conditionally. So, you know, when people came to John the Baptist, he says, “Well, you know, bring forth fruits of repentance, because if you don’t repent, you’re not forgiven.” This is the clear message of the word of God. And it’s kind of obvious, I guess, right? So if there isn’t confession, if there isn’t contrition, if there isn’t a commitment to change, and if there isn’t a graciousness on the part of people, God says, “Then you’re a wicked servant, and you’re going to end up with the torturers.” Okay?

So number three: if God does not forgive unconditionally, we shouldn’t either. If he doesn’t forgive certain people because they’ve not come to repentance, we shouldn’t forgive them either. Okay? That’s my basic statement here. Now, and I want to say right away, I’m dealing with the word “forgiveness.” This is the declaration of forgiveness to people that we’re so privileged to give to one another. It’s not just here in the assurance of forgiveness at the beginning of the service. It’s your high privilege to announce forgiveness to other people for sins against you or sins they’ve committed that they’re telling you about against God.

You’re part of that process of assuring them of forgiveness. And you must not do that if God doesn’t do it, because we’re linked. Okay? There’s linkage. Now, forgiveness is different than forbearance. You can forbear people, right? Forgiveness is different than longsuffering. I’m not talking here about holding grudges against a person you don’t forgive. You can give up the grudges, right? So I’m not talking about any of that.

And I think that one of the problems we have in the church, and certainly in the world, is forgiveness and forbearance are sort of seen as the same thing. And there’s no distinguishment made. But forgiveness is a cardinal doctrine. It’s one of the great crown jewels of the Christian faith. In it, as I said earlier, the attributes of God come together in this wonderful way to demonstrate his great love toward humanity. Right? So it’s a tremendous thing, and we don’t want to cheapen it. We don’t want to take that crown jewel and treat it like it’s a piece of costume jewelry and paint it or put it, you know—you don’t want to refer to it as something that it isn’t.

And that’s what we do when we grant blanket forgiveness to people even though we know that they’re in a position still of not having received forgiveness of God for their particular sins. Now, I’m not talking about minor offenses that you overlook, but I’m talking about sins, right? Real sins. And what I’m saying is, because of this conditionality, we are not to forgive if God hasn’t forgiven. Okay?

So this will preserve the doctrine for us and preserve the great privilege we have of announcing forgiveness to others. Now, this is also only true—this text is dealing with sins that have become known, right? So if we have a brother, we won’t pronounce him forgiven, but there’s no even discussion if he doesn’t know he’s sinning in some way, right? So we have an obligation according to Matthew 18, according to James, of an erring brother to go to him and help him understand his sins so that he can come to repentance and can receive the assurance of forgiveness.

Now, one of the primary texts one would use to talk about this conditionality and not forgiving people is Luke. See, that’s it. That’s what I’m saying: Christians don’t forgive everybody. You’re not supposed to forgive everybody. You’re supposed to forgive the way God forgives. Now I know that sounds controversial. Luke 17:3 and 4: “Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. 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.”

Now, notice it doesn’t say “if he says I’m sorry.” Sorrow is part of repentance, but confession of sin, commitment to change, are also part, and that’s all wrapped up in what he’s saying—if he actually is repenting. But what does he say? He says, “If your brother sins against you and he repents, forgive him.” Well, the obvious implication is that if he doesn’t repent, you’re not supposed to grant him blanket forgiveness.

Is that helpful to him to grant him blanket forgiveness? Is it helpful to him to say “peace, peace” when there is no peace for him? I don’t think so. You know, it’s interesting how we want to be—it seems to me at least, sometimes like Peter—I think, was—wanted to be stricter than Jesus: “Over seven times, I don’t want to forgive him anymore.” And other times, we want to be kinder than Jesus. “He doesn’t have to repent at all, but I forgive him.”

I remember when I first preached this, probably 30 years ago. I talked about this text. I think it was right in the wake of—the pope—maybe it wasn’t, but in any event, at some point a previous pope, a couple of popes back—there was an assassination attempt on him. I don’t know if it was engineered by the Soviet Union or something. I don’t know. But the pope immediately forgave the guy that tried to kill him, you know, without talking to him, without knowing if there was any kind of repentance, right? And that’s the problem. That sets up an image for Christians that’s supposed to be our attitude.

And if you say, “No, the Bible wants me to forgive. Ephesians tells us to forgive as Christ forgave us, which is related to repentance. And Luke says, ‘If he repents, I’m supposed to forgive him’”—if we say that, somehow we’re looked at as, you know, bad people, somehow, and not loving. But is it loving to assure a brother of peace when there is no peace? When he’s got open sins against you? Right? That’s not loving. Love—you remember—forgiveness produces liberation.

And there’s no liberation in a godly sense without repentance being the process as part of the forgiveness. Love doesn’t just seek the avoidance of conflict. The kindness that kills a church—love doesn’t just say, “Well, let’s just all get along somehow, no matter of, you know, what you’re doing to me or what you’re doing again, an offense against the holiness of God.” You know, love doesn’t do that, and love isn’t picky or unish about things. But love acknowledges that there are sins that are binding people.

And if we want to loose people, God tells us the way he looses people: this declaration of forgiveness is through bringing them through this process of repentance. So the loving action is to talk to people about their sins. The loving action is to indeed move them—attempt to move them—to contrition, confession, and commitment to change.

Now, let me read a quote here from Ken Sandy. So this is controversial. I’ve gotten in a lot of trouble over the last 30 years for teaching this and preaching this. But as I reread Ken Sandy’s book, *The Peacemaker*, and his chapter on forgiveness—well, there it was. Might be where I originally read it. I don’t know. But here’s what Ken Sandy says, and this is interesting:

He talks about forgiveness as a two-stage process. The first stage requires having an attitude of forgiveness. And the second, granting forgiveness. Having an attitude of forgiveness, quoting from his book, is unconditional and is a commitment you make to God. And he gives some verses. By his grace, you seek to maintain a living and merciful—a loving rather—and merciful attitude towards someone who has offended you.

This requires making and living out the first promise of forgiveness, which means you will not dwell on the hurtful incident or seek vengeance or retribution in thought, word, or action. So first of all, he says you’re supposed to have an attitude of forgiveness. I like that. You’re supposed to have an attitude of not holding personal grudges. I’m not ticked off. I’m not into vengeance. Right? We’re into an attitude of wanting the other person’s forgiveness. That’s why we go to him about sins—whether they’re against us or against God, against the body, whatever they’re doing against his wife, against her spouse, whatever it is. We do that because of our attitude of forgiveness. We want them to experience the grace of God. And we’re not going to hold personal offenses against people. Right? I like that.

And he talks about this. He says, “Instead, you [are] to be praying for the other person. Stand ready at any moment to pursue complete reconciliation as soon as he or she repents. That’s great. An attitude of forgiveness, a proper attitude, is a readiness to move toward reconciliation the moment the person that this—you’re considering—repents. This attitude will protect you from bitterness and resentment even if the other person takes a long time to repent.”

But then he says the other side of it is granting forgiveness. Okay? And granting forgiveness, as opposed to being ready to forgive, is conditioned, he says, and I say—and I think the text of scriptures that we just alluded to say—is conditioned just as God’s forgiveness is—conditioned on repentance. And so Sandy says that three of the four promises of forgiveness only take effect when you grant forgiveness, and that happens conditionally—to repentance.

He says, “Both stages of forgiveness were vividly demonstrated by God. When Christ died on the cross, he maintained an attitude of love and mercy toward those who put him to death: ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing’” (Luke 23). “At Pentecost, the Father’s answer to Jesus’s prayer was revealed. Three thousand people heard the Apostle Peter’s Pentecost message and were cut to the heart when they realized that they had crucified the Son of God. As they repented of their sin, forgiveness was completed and they were fully reconciled to God as recorded in Acts 2.”

That’s good, isn’t it? Great statement. Okay. And so what he’s saying is: this is exactly the pattern you should follow. Do not pronounce forgiveness unless there is repentance. Okay? Why? Well, the why is because God has called you as a Christian—an image bearer of God. You’re not some, you know, person walking around unrelated to the heavenly Father. You’re his emissaries. You’re his message bearer. You’re his image bearer to the world.

When you tell another Christian that he’s forgiven of his sin, that, I think, is as if Jesus is standing there telling them, “You’re forgiven.” Folks, that’s the incredibly high privilege we have of hearing people’s confession, confessing your sins to any brother, right? And hearing from that brother forgiveness. Now, is it necessary to confess to anybody? No, of course it isn’t. We can confess to God. But as Bonhoeffer points out in that article, you can pick up a copy of—frequently, when we think we’re confessing to God, we’re really confessing to ourselves, and we’re receiving absolution from ourselves.

And isn’t it interesting that we end up with sins that are patterns and habitual sins in our life that we keep repenting to God for and keep being assured of forgiveness when we really have never made a commitment to change and followed through on it? So a lot of times a brother or a sister can be a tremendous help to liberation from habitual sins. But in either event, the point is we have this tremendous privilege of speaking forgiveness to others. And when we take forgiveness and make it just—we’re not going to hold a personal grudge, and we assume that’s what we mean when we say they forgive and they hear that they’re forgiven—we cheapen the word and we cheapen the doctrine.

The world thinks everybody’s forgiven, right? That’s what the world basically thinks. We’re all forgiven. Of course, that’s God’s job to forgive us. I mean, right? We’re people. We’re screwed up. We’re all—why do they think that? Well, in part because we keep telling them that. We tell them that all the time, and we forgive them and say they’re forgiven, and we forgive people without repentance. We never get around to talking about the repentance word. And so the world is the way it is because of us. Because of us.

So Sandy concludes this section by saying: “Granting forgiveness is conditional on the repentance of the offender and takes place between you and that person. It is a commitment to make the other three promises of forgiveness to the offender.” So he says it’s conditional. I was so pleased to read that and recognize that this is being taught, as I said, to probably thousands—maybe tens of thousands of churches over the last few decades. Okay?

So again, we don’t want to be false prophets, right? A prophet is a messenger for God. We’re all prophets, priests, and kings. And one of the most important messages you can ever deliver to people is: “Your sins are forgiven.” The assurance of that one to the other. Right? And that’s one of the most important messages. And if we tell people they’re forgiven when there’s no evidence of repentance whatsoever, we’re false prophets. We’re people that are telling people “peace, peace when there is no peace.”

And not only is it wrong, it’s harmful toward them because it gives them false assurance of their right standing with God. They have peace. They’re forgiven. Now, that may not be the main way you mean it when you say that to people, but that’s what’s being heard. Okay? We have this tremendous privilege of speaking the forgiveness of Christ to one another and to grant forgiveness and to speak it to other people without their conditionality of process, which is repentance, is to abuse that great and high privilege that we have.

Why would we do that? Because we’re prideful. We’d love to be God declaring, on our terms, who’s forgiven and who’s not forgiven. In our pride, we’re autonomous. Autonomous means auto—self, no law. We’re the standard, and we think you’re forgiven. Okay? And so we tend to do that. That’s a temptation to us: to act as little gods to the world. And as a result, we end up messing things up, messing things up badly.

Let me give you one quote here from Bonhoeffer that I promised. We’re almost done. “Our brother has been given me that even here and now I may be made certain through him of the reality of God in his judgment and his grace. As the open confession of my sins to a brother ensures me against self-deception, so too the assurance of forgiveness becomes fully certain to me only when it is spoken by a brother in the name of God.”

Now, Bonhoeffer is, I think—and maybe it’s the translation, I don’t know what it is—but he’s given an overstatement. I mean, I think that we can certainly get assurance of forgiveness directly from God as we confess our sins to him. And Bonhoeffer says this is not a law. So but the point generally is right, right? It’s a good point he’s making, and that is that we have this high privilege and this assurance that we can receive when our brothers and sisters that we confess sin to assure us of the forgiveness and grace of God.

That’s a tremendous blessing that God has given to us, and that blessing is cheapened, removed, washed away when we grant forgiveness without the process that he sets out in this parable: the servant being confessing his sin, having contrition, and committing to change. But he fails on the fourth part: a willingness to forgive others. Okay?

And then my last point is simple: if God forgives, we must forgive. Right? This is the Peter’s problem. And this is, you know, the other element as I’ve just mentioned, of our forgiveness. It must be evidenced by a willingness to forgive others. And you know, for some of us, this is the problem. As many people as probably want to turn forgiveness into unconditional forgiveness and everybody’s forgiven, on the other hand, we don’t really forgive the way God forgives, right?

The four promises of forgiveness that Sandy talks about—his wife made up a little rhyme, not a rhyme, a little poem for their children when he first came up with this, and they would say this to them when they’d sinned. Here’s the little poem: “Good thought, hurt you not, gossip never, friends forever.” Those are the four promises of forgiveness.

Good thought. Okay? I’m going to think positively now. I’ve forgiven you this sin. I’m not going to bring it to remembrance. Okay? I’m going to have good thoughts relative to who you are. Your sin is gone. God says, “I’ll remember it no more.” Four, right? Good thought.

Hurt you not. I’m not going to use my knowledge of your sin to hurt you in some way. This is a done deal. It’s gone past, and I promise not to hurt you. Through—as we’ve reached a point of declaration of forgiveness. Gossip never. And not only will I hold it against you—you know, I’m not holding against you. My wife doesn’t think this is so funny, but I thought it was. So Sandy says he was counseling with a woman or somebody was. And the woman says, “Every time we get in an argument, my husband gets historical.” He said, “Well, I think you mean hysterical.” “No, actually, I mean historical.” She said, “He gives me a history lesson of every time I’ve done this in the past.”

We don’t want to do that, right? We want to leave things in the past—sins that are confessed and forgiven—done with. Okay? And so that’s the uh, hurt you not. I’m not going to kind of keep bringing it up to you. Gossip never. I’m not going to tell other people. If we’ve worked this thing out, you’re forgiven. You’ve been contrite and you’ve confessed, and you’ve changed. And so I’m not going to use this with other people. I’m not going to gossip about it.

And the last one’s so important: friends forever. The forgiveness that God grants us in Jesus, right? He doesn’t remember our sin. He’s not going to berate us with our past sins. He’s not going to gossip to other people about our sins. More than that, though, the most important promise is that we’re free, friends with him. We’ve been reconciled to God through the forgiving action of the Lord Jesus Christ. And our forgiveness is linked. It’s to reflect God’s forgiveness.

So when we forgive one another, there should be reconciliation of relationship. Sin breaks relationship. Forgiveness rebinds relationship. Now the relationship may be different, you know, after as before. If you’ve got an adulterous husband or wife, divorce happens, they do this or that. You know, just because you can grant forgiveness to the person, should have a relationship of friendship with them doesn’t mean you’re reconciled to the relationship of marriage. An office bearer may not be restored to office. You know, the gig. Your relationship with somebody may change as a result of what you’ve learned through the process, but it should never change enough to provide a buffer so that you don’t have relationship and friendship.

When they would talk to their kids about forgiveness and grant them forgiveness, you know, as they said, “Good thought, hurt you not, gossip never, friends forever”—they would bring them up in their lap and hug them and assure them of the forgiveness that God assures us of. This is the great privilege we have. This is the great task we have that will change our own culture and has changed our culture and will change the world as well.

May the Lord God grant us the grace to understand our linkage to his forgiveness. May he assure us of our own grace so that we can then extend grace to those that he’s granting forgiveness to.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for challenging us today to move away from our standards of how we think good relationships will work and instead submitting to your standards. We thank you that you give us over and over again in the scriptures a teaching that binds together our binding and loosing with your binding and loosing in heaven. Our forgiveness with the way you forgive. Thank you, Father, for protecting us from misusing this tremendous blessing we have of granting forgiveness to one another and assuring each other of acceptance and forgiveness through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Help us, Father, not to cheapen it. Help us to take all these evidences very seriously, and help us as a result of this to truly love one another. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.