As We Forgive Those Who...

Matthew 18: 21 – 35
Matthew 5: 23 - 26


While the church is going to the field, reaching out to bring in new converts, Satan is taking them out the back door… back into unbelief… back into the world… through the Spirit of Unforgiveness…

The Spirit of Unforgiveness is doing more damage to the church today than any other tool or tactic that the enemy has in his arsenal…

In our texts today, we see very clearly that Forgiveness is important in the Kingdom of Heaven… and in fact, Jesus himself points to the idea of Forgiveness and the Kingdom.

Our texts today deal with Jesus’ parable of the Unforgiving Servant, and the importance of reconciling with your brother or sister before you come to the altar.

And so, in Matthew 18 we begin one of Jesus’ most important parables. The back-story to this parable is that Jesus was having a conversation with Peter about this important subject, they were talking about who was the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven, and Jesus pointed to a little child, and said that unless you become like a little child… unless you have a child-like faith, you can never enter the Kingdom of Heaven… Then he turns around and compares his role as the Shepherd of our Souls to the story of a shepherd who is missing one of his sheep, and goes out and basically moves heaven and earth in order to find that one lost sheep.

Then Jesus offers a riveting commentary… he said that there is a way to settle disputes between members of God’s family… and there are ways NOT to settle disputes among the members of God’s family… and then, seizing an opportunity to teach on the subject of Forgiveness, he launches into the Parable of the Unforgiving (or Unmerciful) Servant…

Jesus started off his parables with the words “The Kingdom of Heaven is like… a King who wanted to settle accounts with his servants… some of his servants owed him money, and one servant in particular owed him $10,000… and he couldn’t pay. In verse 25, we see that the King ordered that the servant… and his wife… and his children… and all his possessions… be sold in order to pay the debt that he owed.

Because he could not pay, five different relationships were effected… 1.) The King… 2.) The Servant… 3.) The Servant’s Wife… 4.) The Servant’s Children… and 5.) The Servant’s possessions… because the servant owed a debt of forgiveness…

And he begged and pleaded with his master, the King… and the King took pity on him, and forgave him all that he owed… and the man left.

What happened next is really sad, and very deeply disturbing… The moment the servant leaves the palace, he sees a friend of his who owes him $1.00… and the Bible says that this servant grabbed the other man by the throat… and said “you pay me what you owe, or off to prison you go…” and he throws the man into prison.

Another servant of the King noticed this interchange, and quickly informed his Majesty, who quickly summoned the servant… and threw the book at him. “You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

Let’s not lose sight of the fact that the reach of an unforgiving spirit is deep… it penetrates deep into the soul… and its reach is far… it can reach across many miles, and it can reach across the chasm of many years… Unforgiveness effected everything he had… it effected every relationship he had… it jeopardized his marriage… his children… every possession that he owned… every friendship that he had…

We are either a blessing to one another…
Or we are an affliction to one another.

What you do affects your wife… your family… your children… everything…

Unforgiveness destroys everything until the restitution of forgiveness is made.

The thing about the relationships we have is that offenses are inevitable… disagreement is inevitable… but as members together of the Body of Christ, the message is that we are called upon to be agents of forgiveness and mercy.

We offended God so much, that if he demanded payment from us, we would be destroyed. But God… demonstrated his love for us in this, that while we were yet sinners, Christ Jesus died for us. God himself made a way for us to be forgiven… and then he tells us to turn around and share that forgiveness with the next person… and the next…

Remember the words of the Lord’s Prayer? “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us?” Jesus meant business when he taught us this lesson.

If you’ve ever said something like “Oh, I just can’t forgive that person for what he has done…” or if you’ve ever held a grudge to the point where it becomes an all-consuming obsession, remember what happened to the Unforgiving Servant. As a result of his act of unforgiveness, his debts were recalled… they had been dead, but they were brought back to life. The other thing is that his master, the King turned that servant over to his tormentors until the debt was paid in full.

Sadly enough, it really wasn’t the King who delivered the unforgiving servant to his tormentors… it was his own act of unforgivness that sealed the deal.

In Matthew 5: 23 – 26 we see something interesting… Jesus tells us to be reconciled with our brother or our sister before we come to the altar with our offering…
if there is any strife among you… reconcile with your brother or sister first… leave your offering before the altar, go to your brother or sister… then come together to the altar and make your offering.

I Bid You Peace...
Dr. Ken+