Amelia Church of Christ - Christian Church in Amelia, OH near Cincinnati in Clermont County

This is the last installment in our series that has lasted all summer that we’ve called Games People Play. Today we’re wrapping up this series with the game called Sorry.

The game Sorry was first marketed in 1934. Through the years it has become a family favorite. Sorry is a classic game of pursuit where players constantly bump, switch, and slide all the way home. It is filled with backward and forward moves and that special Sorry card which can send your unhappy opponent all the way back to the start of the board while you smile and say, “Sorry.”

But the issue of Sorry, the matter of forgiveness is bigger than a board game. Way bigger. We’ve talked about a lot of different issues and games we play in our lives throughout this series, but this could be the toughest one to take from an idea and turn it into a reality in our lives.

Today we’re going to sit at the feet of Jesus himself and listen as he teaches us about forgiveness. We’re in Matthew 18, starting in verse 21. Jesus’ teaching begins in a conversation he had with one of his disciples named Peter.

“Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?”

Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” (Matthew 18:21-22, NIV)

Peter starts with a critical question. Tom Ellsworth calls this a question that will challenge a life. How many times must I forgive?

When you understand a little bit about the culture that Peter lived in, you begin to get a better grasp on his question. Peter said, “Ok Jesus, how many times do I have to forgive somebody? As many as seven times?”

The traditional teaching from the religious leaders of Peter’s day said to forgive someone three times. This interpretation came from the Old Testament prophet, Amos. In the first two chapters of Amos, he repeats this phrase over and over again:

“For three transgressions of (name of offender), and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because (their offense)...” The interpreters of the law in Peter’s day suggested that, according to these verses, God forgives 3 times. But when you reach the fourth sin, God’s punishment begins. Well, we obviously can’t be more gracious than God, so our obligation to forgive stops at three times. If someone wrongs you more than that, you don’t have to forgive them anymore.

Now, let’s go back to Peter’s question. “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?”

Through this question, we can see that Peter is caught in limbo. He’s in the Twilight Zone, hanging out there somewhere between grace and legalism. On the one hand, he’s beginning to understand the principle of grace. He’s been around Jesus long enough that Jesus has begun to rub off on him. He’s got a little Jesus on him. He’s beginning to get it. The religious teachers were teaching 3 times and done in the realm of forgiveness. But Peter’s understanding of grace pushes him to go further than that. He blows past 3 and says, “Should I forgive someone up to 7 times?” He’s beginning to understand, but he’s definitely not there yet.

He’s not there yet because, while he goes beyond he convention wisdom of his day, he’s still searching for the limitations on forgiveness. There’s got to be some hard, fast number. Maybe he thought that he and Jesus were going to play high/low until he reached the number. Maybe he thought Jesus would keep saying, “You’re cold. Wait, you’re getting warmer. Warmer. Warmer. You’re red hot! Peter, you got it! That’s the number!”

Peter had an inkling of grace in his mind, but he hadn’t yet overcome the legalism of his culture. Legalism teaches that religion is all about following the set rules and regulations. And to follow the rules about forgiveness, you have to know the parameters of the rules. In other words, where you start and where you stop. There has to be a starting gate where forgiveness begins and there has to be a finish line where forgiveness is finished.

I’m sure that Jesus’ answer absolutely blew Peter’s mind. Peter’s searching for rules. He wants to know when forgiveness is over. Is it over after seven times? You can almost hear Jesus heave a great big sigh and say, “Oh, Peter. Not seven times. Seventy-seven times.”

Some translations even say seventy times seven, which you math people know equals 490. It really doesn’t matter how your translation reads here. Seventy-seven times, seventy times seven, the point is that, for Jesus, the number is irrelevant. In fact, there is no number. For the Christ-follower, forgiveness is without limit.

When I go out to eat, the first thing I do is check whether or not the restaurant offers free, unlimited refills on their drinks. Most places do, which definitely works for me. A pop usually costs between $1.25 and $2. At those prices, they make money hand over first because most people will drink one, maybe two glasses at most. Not me baby. It’s my goal for them to lose money on my drink order. It’s nothing for me to drink 5, 6, 7, even 8 glasses of pop when I’m at a restaurant. I’ve had waitresses just give up and start bringing me two glasses at a time. I figure, why not? The refills are unlimited.

That’s the idea of forgiveness that Jesus gives us. Unlimited refills. No matter how many times a person empties our forgiveness glass, his call is for us to fill it up again.

One time when I was in college, a bunch of guys from my dorm floor went out to a nice restaurant before Christmas break. It was our big end-of-the-semester celebration. My college roommate shared my view on drink refills, and he drank Pepsi and Pepsi after Pepsi. What he didn’t know was that this particular place didn’t offer free refills. He was charged for every one of them…and he about fell out of his chair when the waiter brought his check.

That’s legalism. Legalism tells us to keep score. Count each time you offer forgiveness. Keep a running tab.

In this game that we play, we can relate a lot easier to Peter than Jesus. When it’s us that is doing the forgiving, it’s a lot easier to keep score. Once we feel like a person has run out of chances, they’ve bankrupted our forgiveness account, they’re done. That sounds a lot more fun and a lot more fair than Jesus’ teaching that forgiveness is offered without limit.

We hear his words and we think, “Now wait a minute. I understand forgiving someone, even more than once. But limitless forgiveness?”

And Jesus says, “Yeah. Let me tell you a story that will help you understand this whole thing.” This is the story, or parable, that Jesus told after his little conversation with Peter.

"Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. 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. "The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.'

The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. "But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded."

"His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.' "But he refused.

Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened."

"Then the master called the servant in. '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." (Matthew 18:23-34, NIV)

In this parable, we meet a servant who owes his master 10,000 talents. That doesn’t mean much to us until we understand it in its historical context. 10,000 talents is roughly equivalent to $3-4 million during that time period. What would that be today? I don’t know a number, but it’s astronomical. And that’s Jesus’ point. He chose a number so astronomically high that no person could ever pay the debt. For a contemporary equivalent, imagine that you owed someone a debt of a billion dollars. You get the idea. The number isn’t as important as the principle in the story. The principle is that this man had accumulated a debt that was humanly impossible to repay.

His only hope is to throw himself at the feet of his master and beg for mercy. He says, “Just give me more time! I’ll pay you back.” Which of course we know that he actually could never do.

The master looks at his groveling servant and has compassion on him. He cancels the debt. He doesn’t roll it back. He doesn’t put the servant on a payment plan. He just tells him to forget it. It’s a forgiveness so lavish, so extravagant that we can’t wrap our minds around it.

Now, this same servant walks out and he sees another servant who owes him 100 denarii. This would be roughly equivalent to 100 days wages. Not chump change, but nowhere close to what the first servant owed the king. And yet this servant, who had been forgiven so much, grabbed the other servant by the throat, demanded immediate payment, and had the guy thrown in debtors’ prison.

This story immediately gets our blood running because, at first glance, this parable appeals to our American values of fairness and justice. We get angry when we see this servant who had this huge debt forgiven but yet is unwilling to forgive a much, much smaller debt. But our anger subsides when the king calls this guy back and sentenced him to torture and imprisonment. We think, “Yeah! Right on! You had it coming buddy!” But then Jesus gives us the application of his story.

"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." Matthew 18:21-35 (NIV)

Our “Yeah! Way to go!” attitude is knocked out when we realize that we are that man.

Peter asked the question that will challenge a life: How many times must I forgive? Jesus gives an answer that will change a life:   Forgive from your heart.

When Peter asked if he should forgive someone up to seven times, I think he was looking for a pat on the back from Jesus. I think he expected Jesus to say, “Way to go, Peter! The religious leaders only forgive 3 times, but you’re willing to forgive 7 times! I’m proud of you!” He expected a pat on the back. What he got was a kick in the pants. There is no number or limit on forgiveness.

So how do we follow Jesus’ teaching and forgive others from our heart? It’s one thing to say it; it’s quite another to do it. We have to understand what forgiving someone does and doesn’t mean.

Forgiveness is not a feeling. It’s not an emotion. If we only forgave people when we felt like it, we’d never do it. True forgiveness rarely feels like the right thing to do. But true forgiveness has nothing to do with feelings.

Forgiveness is not forgetting. We can’t automatically throw a situation out of our minds and forget it. Especially if it’s a situation that really hurt us. Forgiveness doesn’t require forgetting.

Forgiveness is not excusing. Forgiving someone doesn’t mean saying, “Oh, it’s ok. You didn’t mean it.” That belittles forgiveness because that’s just making excuses.

Forgiveness is a decision. It’s a conscious, intentional decision that we make.

Ken Sande wrote a book called Peacemakers. In his book, he lists four promises that must come with our decision to forgive someone.

1. I will not dwell on this incident. If we allow ourselves to be consumed with this incident, if we constantly dwell on this incident, it’s not realistic to expect us to forgive the incident.

2. I will not bring up this incident again and use it against you. The incident has not been forgiven if it comes back up days, weeks, months, or even years later.

I had a situation with a guy where we had a disagreement, we met and talked about it, and we both agreed that it was over and behind us. So imagine my surprise when, five months later, he brought it up against me in a group setting.

If we’re constantly digging up the past, forgiveness is not part of our lifestyle.

3. I will not talk to others about this incident. This one is huge. If you’re talking and gossiping about the incident to other people, forgiveness hasn’t happened. In fact, you yourself are now in need of forgiveness because if you claim to have forgiven someone, and then you talk about it behind their back, it makes you out to be a liar and a gossip. True forgiveness says I will not talk to others about this.

4. I will not let this incident stand between us and hinder our relationship. This may be the most difficult of all. True forgiveness says that not only will I not bring this up with my words, but I will not bring it up with my actions, either. I will not subtly communicate that there is still a problem. My body language, my demeanor, and my attitude will all communicate forgiveness.

Forgiveness is a decision. And it can be the hardest decision in our lives.

What makes it difficult is that the decision to forgive is required of us regardless of the wrong that was done to us. Sometimes forgiveness comes easily because the offense was really petty. Other times it will take us right to our breaking point because we’ve been hurt so deeply that we don’t think we can ever recover. But the Bible does not make distinctions about forgiveness based on the severity of the hurt we’ve experienced. The Bible simply commands us to forgive.

We talked earlier about things that forgiveness is not. It’s not a feeling, it’s not forgetting, it’s not excusing. One more thing that forgiveness is not:  forgiveness is not fair. It’s not fair because Jesus commands us to forgive even when the person doesn’t deserve it. They don’t even have to ask for it. It’s not fair because we’re the ones who have been hurt, and yet we’re also the ones that have to work through the issue of forgiveness. Forgiveness is not fair.

Some of us are tempted to demand fairness in our relationships. If it’s not fair to us to forgive someone, then we won’t do it. That keeps the scales balanced. It’s fair. What we have to understand is that, if we go demanding fairness in our relationships with our people, God will carry that fairness over into His relationship with us. Do you want God to be fair with you? I sure don’t. What is fair is for God not to forgive me when I mess up. What is fair is for God to pour our punishment and judgment in my life because of my mistakes. What is fair is for him to sentence me to an eternity in hell because of my sin. God’s forgiveness is wonderfully unfair. But Jesus warns us that if we withhold our forgiveness from other people, God will withhold his forgiveness from us. Not something we want to think about…but it would be fair.

This is really the crux of the matter. How important is this forgiveness thing? It has eternal consequences.

Jesus said, “If you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” (Matthew 6:15, NIV)

God makes an incredibly big deal of forgiveness. The reason it’s so critical is that, if we don’t forgive other people, it means that we don’t really understand the extent to which God has forgiven us. No matter what this person has done against me, I have done infinitely more against God. When we understand the absurdly unfair forgiveness of God, it absolutely compels us to offer forgiveness to other people.

Forgiving you and me cost God everything. It cost him a criminal’s death on a cross. God made the decision to forgive us. And that decision cost him his life. Maybe you’re withholding forgiveness from someone. You’re just stubbornly holding onto this grudge. God wants you to understand that this unforgiveness is killing you spiritually. It’s not killing the other person, it’s killing you. Anne Lamott said, “Not forgiving someone is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.” Will you finally, purposefully, intentionally decide to forgive that person today?

Maybe this whole forgiveness thing sounds foreign to you because you’ve never experienced God’s forgiveness for your sin. This morning he’s inviting you to dive into his absurd, irrational, illogical forgiveness. It makes absolutely no sense why God would forgive you and me, but the cross says that he was willing to do it anyway. Will you come to him today?

Mike Edmisten