The Gift of Pardon
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Series Overview
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Good morning Chapel family. I want to let you know about a unique opportunity. One of our 12-Mile Bridge partners is called Servant’s Heart, and they run a free trade school in Paterson. It’s been tremendously effective in mentoring urban kids and giving them a useful trade. So based on that model, there is now a partnership with a church in the Dominican Republic. And this April, we are joining our friends from Paterson to spend a week in the DR, helping to build a trade school for that community. It’s a really exciting vision! It’ll be a 7-day trip, and besides the construction team, there’s going to be a team leading a Vacation Bible School for the children of that community. I’m bringing it up now because the registration deadline is ten days from now. So—if you’d like to be part of that team, go to our web site, and you’ll find it under “Events.” I think it’s going to be an amazing trip.
Alright…I shared with you last week that there’s a concept that’s become so important to my family. It’s based on something that Jesus said to his disciples: “Freely you’ve received; freely give.” I believe that idea can powerfully change how we live our lives. If we don’t grasp that truth, we will go through life with a “scarcity mentality.” We will never feel like we have enough time, energy, compassion, money—everything seems scarce. So when there’s an opportunity to give some of our time/energy/ compassion/money, we will feel resentful and angry—because how could you possibly ask me to do anything for you? Can’t you see I don’t have enough? Most of us know what that feels like.
But if we do grasp how much we have freely received from God, we will go through life with an “abundance mentality.” Just like, in the 23rd Psalm, David said My cup overflows, we will have a deep sense that we have received much more than we deserve. That word “freely” comes from a word meaning “gift.” And we will recognize that everything we have is a gift from God. And therefore, we will respond to opportunities and requests with open-handedness and generosity. That doesn’t mean we’ll say “yes” to everything, but we will have the sense that we have so much to give, because God has given us so much.
As I said, this concept is transforming the way that I live, which is why I wanted to share it with you. And this morning, I want to talk about how this looks when it comes to forgiveness.
There used to be a popular bumper sticker that went like this: “I don’t get mad; I get…” Can you finish it? I get even. In other words, if you offend me; if you do me wrong, just wait—I’ll get you back. Which is kind of scary, when you’re driving 70 miles an hour on the Parkway. But it’s actually more scary in everyday life. Because by taking that mindset, you feel like you’re punishing the other person, but here’s the irony: you wind up punishing yourself. We talked about this last week in my men’s group, and I’m telling you: it was the most raw, emotional discussion we’ve ever had. Because everyone has been sinned against. And the way you handle that will affect your life like nothing else.
So…let’s read today’s Scripture. Matthew 18, starting in verse 21. Let’s hear God’s Word…
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 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, canceled 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 canceled 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.” This is the Word of the Lord.
Peter asks Jesus: How many times should I forgive somebody who sins against me? Did you notice Jesus doesn’t question Peter’s premise? He doesn’t say, “Oh Peter—lighten up. People don’t “sin” against you. You’re way too sensitive!” He doesn’t say that. You know why? Because people sin against us the time.
One of the strange privileges of being a pastor is that you get sort of a front-row seat to the pain in people’s lives. So I’ve seen the devastation of learning that your spouse has been cheating on you. It’s like getting kicked in the gut. I’ve seen businesspeople getting betrayed and ruined by their business partners. I’ve seen teenage girls being excluded, or mocked for their body shape, or being ridiculed for their faith. I’ve seen parents facing the blizzard of emotions when their son comes home from school and says he’s being bullied, and he doesn’t want to go back. I’ve seen some of those things and I’ve experienced some of those things, and I know you have too. We get sinned against. And that’s why Peter’s question matters so much: Jesus, how many times am I supposed to forgive?
There was a tradition within Judaism that said we should forgive someone up to three times. That would demonstrate tremendous grace, to forgive that many times. So Peter thinks he’s going above and beyond by suggesting we should forgive seven times! And as usual, Jesus is thinking on a whole other level.
He says, “No—not seven times. You should be willing to forgive 77 times.” That’s kind of a random number, isn’t it? Are we supposed to keep track, like, “Man, that’s number 78. I’m done with you!” Of course not. Jesus uses a ridiculously high number to make this point: there should be no limit to our forgiveness. But it sounds crazy, right? And it brings up so many questions. So to help us wrap our minds around this, Jesus tells a parable.
A king is settling accounts with his servants. A guy gets called in who owes the king a huge amount of money, which he can’t even come close to paying back, but he begs for mercy so the king forgives his debt and lets him go. But then that guy goes out and finds someone who owes him a much smaller amount of money; the guy begs him for mercy; but he refuses and he has the guy thrown into
debtor’s prison (which was a thing back then). And then the king finds out. And he’s so upset and disappointed that he has the guy thrown into jail.
So…what does it mean for us to live this out when we get sinned against? Let me divide this into two parts. The Poison of Unforgiveness and The Path to Forgiveness. The poison of Unforgiveness and the path to forgiveness.
So, first: The Poison of Unforgiveness. The man in this parable is a bitter person. Despite the amazing interaction he just had with the king, he’s walking down the street and he sees a guy who owes him money. And of course, in this parable, when someone owes you money, that symbolizes that the person has sinned against you, right? This isn’t about people who owe you money; it’s talking about moral debts. So this guy represents us, and how we view someone who has sinned against us. And just seeing that person, or just hearing that person’s name, stirs up emotions in us. Doesn’t it? It all comes back—how they hurt us; how unfair it is; how other people should know how awful this person is; but the main thing is, we have something against them. And just like the guy in the parable, it can be hard to let it go.
So how do you know if you’re living with that poison in your soul? Let me give you five symptoms. Five signs that my soul is poisoned by unforgiveness:
First, Re-living Offenses. Lying in bed, or driving, I find myself re-living the wrongs that have been done to me. I put myself back in that moment, and I feel those feelings again. And there’s almost a sick pleasure in doing that, because it brings strong emotions of self-pity, and being a victim, and that can be strangely enjoyable. Re-living offenses.
Second, Fantasizing Revenge. This is also common while lying in bed or driving, or whenever you have time to think. You dream about confronting that person who did you wrong, and finally putting her in her place, and proving to the world that she was wrong and you were right. Remember Ralphie on A Christmas Story, when he uses a bad word and his parents washed his mouth out with soap—remember his revenge fantasy? He imagines the soap has made him blind, and he comes home, and his parents are devastated by what they’ve done to him. What have we done?? Sweet satisfaction.
Third, Outbursts of Anger. When we hold on to offenses, often it doesn’t come out against the person who hurt us; it comes out against everyone else. It comes out while driving—tailgating; leaning on the horn; not letting that guy merge; making gestures that Jesus probably wouldn’t make. But the saddest thing is not on the highway; it’s in our house—when we lash out against the people closest to us—who don’t deserve it, but we feel like we have to let it out somehow.
Fourth, sometimes you see it in Self-Numbing. Being sinned against is painful, and you’re desperate to find a way to not think about it. And you discover that after you’ve had that third drink and you’re pouring your fourth, it all seems to go away. At least for a while.
Most tragically, a soul poisoned by unforgiveness shows up in Re-Victimization. You’ve heard the stats: people who were abused as kids are more likely to abuse their own kids. They don’t set out to do that, but the cycle seems to want to repeat itself. Because getting sinned against is a big deal, and it’s destructive if we don’t deal with it wisely.
So at the end of the parable, the king has the unforgiving guy thrown in jail. What does that jail symbolize? Well, in one sense, it symbolizes eternal judgment. Hell. Because if we go through life refusing to extend mercy, that means we’ve never truly received God’s mercy, and we’ll spend eternity trying to pay off our unpayable debt. That should be a chilling thought. But in a more
immediate sense, I believe the jail symbolizes the hell that we live with every day in this life when we refuse to forgive.
So…when you look into your own soul, do you see any poison? How is it affecting the people around you? How is it robbing you of the life God has for you? What is God saying to you right now?
Point two: The Path to Forgiveness. Just like that pattern in Matthew 10:8, the path to forgiveness involves two parts.
First, Freely receive God’s pardon. When the king found out that this man—whom he had forgiven so much—had not shown the same kind of mercy to the man who owed him a much smaller debt, the king was shocked and angry. Why? Because he just assumed that when you’ve been shown great mercy, you’ll naturally turn around and show mercy to other people. It makes sense, right?
So here’s the question: why didn’t the guy act that way? It must’ve been that at some deep level, he didn’t fully appreciate or acknowledge how serious his own debt really was. Right? There was some denial going on. And it’s so much like us. Because we have a stubborn tendency to minimize our own sin, and maximize the sins of others. Jesus once described it as focusing on a speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye, while you ignore the big stick lodged in your own retina. And, see, if I don’t think my sin is that bad, when God offers forgiveness, it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. That’s a warped perspective, and we need something radical to re-focus us.
Miroslav Volf is a professor at Yale. He grew up in communist Croatia, where he experienced all kinds of injustice and abuse. And he’s written a lot about forgiveness. So listen to this:
Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of humans even as I exclude myself from the community of sinners. But no one can be in the presence of the God of the crucified Messiah for long without overcoming this double exclusion — without transposing the enemy from the sphere of the monstrous… into the sphere of shared humanity and herself from the sphere of proud innocence into the sphere of common sinfulness.
I know that’s a mouthful, but it is so rich. Here’s what he’s saying: the cure for our denial is to hang around Jesus. Because the more we hang around Jesus and the cross, we realize that person who sinned against us is a human that Jesus loves and died for. And we realize the reality and depth of our own sin. This is why Paul the Apostle could say, Christ Jesus came to save sinners, of whom I am the worst. He saw the hugeness of his own debt, and the staggering grace of the King who forgave him. And that realization transformed his life, just like it can transform ours.
Freely receive God’s pardon. If you’ve never received it before, receive it today. You don’t want to spend eternity trying to pay off an impossible debt. Did you notice the guy in the parable says, “Just give me a little more time—I’ll pay you back!” That was a ridiculous thing to say, given the size of his debt. So we have to come to the point where we realize the magnitude our debt. And then realize that Jesus paid for all of it on the cross—that’s why the king can extend this forgiveness! But that will not affect your soul until you turn to him and receive it. Come to him, just as you are; admit your sin and receive Christ.
And then, for the rest of your life, continue to freely receive God’s pardon. This is not a one-time thing! Every morning, I like to begin my prayer time by praying through the Lord’s Prayer, phrase by phrase. And when I get to that line, “Forgive us our trespasses,” I stop and think through the previous day. How have I hurt other people? How have I dishonored God, or mistreated my body? How have I
given in to fear, or anxiety, or pride, or materialism, or lust, or anger? And I just confess those things to God, and I take the opportunity to once again thank him for the blood of Christ, and receive his pardon. Every day! 1 John 1:9 says, If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. So I take God up on that offer every day. When I do that—when you do that—you know what happens? We get filled. We get filled with God’s grace and mercy. If we never admit we do anything wrong, we won’t get filled! We remain empty!
Freely receive God’s pardon. Make that part of the rhythm of your life. You know how you can tell that you’re freely receiving God’s pardon? Two ways: first, by the way you react when people criticize you. When people point out your flaws and sins. When you haven’t been freely receiving God’s pardon, and getting filled up by his grace, how will you respond when you’re criticized. You’ll get defensive. You’ll get offended. How dare you criticize me? But if you have been hanging around the cross, and reminded of the magnitude of your sin and the bigger magnitude of God’s grace, you know how you respond to criticism? With humility. Instead of saying, “You are wrong!” You’ll find yourself saying, “You might be right—thanks for pointing that out.”
So that’s one way you can tell if you’re receiving God’s pardon. Here’s the other way—and it’s the last point of this message: when you’re freely receiving God’s pardon, you’ll have the beautiful ability to Freely give your pardon. That connection—between receiving God’s pardon and giving our pardon—is not only taught in this passage; it’s all over the Bible. Let me show you three places, and let’s read these verses out loud, together.
You ready? The first one comes from the Lord’s Prayer—read this with me:
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Colossians 3:13…
Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
And Ephesians 4:32…
Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
When you read the Bible it’s impossible to miss it: if we truly understand that we are forgiven people, we will be forgiving people. Freely we’ve received, which enables us to freely give.
Now: that doesn’t mean you allow yourself to be mistreated or abused over and over again. The Bible also talks about confronting sin and holding abusers accountable. This also doesn’t mean that full reconciliation is always possible, because some of that depends on the response of the person who has hurt you. But even if that person won’t admit what they’ve done, that doesn’t stop you from forgiving.
One of the Bible scholars I consulted when I was preparing for this message was Michael Wilkins. He’s a professor at Talbot School of Theology in California. And he has a story that’s so powerful; I’m just going to read it to you in his own words…
I was raised by a stepfather who caused my family and me a great deal of pain. He left our family when I was in my early teens, and I carried a deep animosity toward him for years. When I was in Vietnam, my animosity became almost obsessive, and I vowed that the first time I saw him on my return, I would kill him. I would make him pay for what he
had done to our family. I returned a few months later and within a year had become a Christian. My world began to change, and I put that stepfather out of my mind.
I had not thought about him much until about four years later, when he suddenly showed up where my wife and I and our little girl were living. He had tracked us down. My wife, being the loving person she is, invited him in. As we sat and talked politely, that vow came to my mind. I then told him, "I made a vow in Vietnam that the first time I saw you, I would kill you. Today is that day." I will never forget the look of terror that came over his face. He started to sweat and slide down on the couch. I went on, "But I now know that I'm no better a person than you. God has forgiven me. And if he can forgive a sinner like me, I can forgive you. I will not allow you to hurt my family again, so don't think that this is made out of weakness. Rather, I forgive you because I have been forgiven."
I probably was as shocked as he was. I had not thought about saying those words of forgiveness, but they came easily. I was deeply aware of the mercy and forgiveness that God had extended to me. I knew my sin better than anyone. I may not have been as abusive as my former stepfather. I may not have hurt people in the same way he had hurt our family. But I had also abused and hurt people in my own self- seeking way. When I came to that awareness, I knew that I needed mercy and forgiveness. And in receiving the gift of life that Jesus extended to me through his work on the cross, extending mercy and forgiveness to my former stepfather was a natural response…I discovered that the key to forgiveness is to stop focusing on what others have done to us and focus instead on what Jesus has done for us.
Did you hear that last phrase? “The key to forgiveness is to stop focusing on what others have done to us and focus instead on what Jesus has done for us.”
I don’t know the many ways that you’ve been sinned against. But I know you have been. I would never minimize for a minute the wrongs that have been done to you. But here’s what I know: you have a choice to make. You can you allow those things to define you; you can lie in bed and re-live those offenses; you can fantasize about revenge. If you do, it will poison your soul. But there’s another option: allow your soul to be overwhelmed by God’s forgiveness, and then spend your life giving that forgiveness away.
Freely you have received; freely give.
