Forgiveness as a way of living
“I’m so sorry…I was miles away…I’m just…….it’s my wife…she’s. She’s in there”, he twisted his head around to indicate the newly constructed patient block….one of Europe’s leading cancer centres.
I'd gotten an early start and arrived at the hospital around 7 a.m., which was not the usual time for visitors to arrive...unless it was an emergency. The side road leading to the staff parking was narrow, and there was the usual line of vehicles waiting to park for the day....surely he must have seen me as he turned into the road, but the thud and crunch from the rear of my car said differently!
I had jumped out to examine the damage and berate the driver, but he was close to tears as if running into my car had been the final straw.
He was a little older than me and looked distraught; I quickly summed up the situation: he needed to get to his wife... I ushered him back into his car and directed him to the next side opening where he could find parking... "It's okay," I said, "don't worry about my car," after all, how could my lightly scraped bumper be prioritised over his wife?
As I drove away, I congratulated myself for doing the 'right thing'...... But, as I reflect on my good deed, I wonder if I would have been so forgiving if the damage had been significant.
If the debt had been greater?
In Matthew 18:21-22, Peter poses a common question, even among Christians: "How many times am I supposed to forgive someone for the same offence?" but what he means is "At what point can I stop being so forgiving...at what point can I just let fly at them and exact some revenge?" Peter doesn't stop there; he knows something of Jesus's heart, he’s been around the Master long enough to know a little of what Jesus expects, so he raises the commonly accepted 3 times threshold and answers his own question: "seven?"
He must have been taken aback by Jesus' response: "I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven…......how could Peter possibly keep track of 490?
But, of course, that was the point: our willingness to forgive should be just as limitless and extravagant.
Jesus, the consummate teacher, now tells a parable to drive this message home, to cement it in their and our minds: Matthew 18:21-35
“Therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger, his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
The first thing to notice is the amount the first servant owed, ten thousand talents.
Now, this is an impossible amount, absolutely impossible; as his listeners would know, these amounts simply did not exist at the time; there wasn't that much money in the world, as far as they were concerned. In other words, Jesus is ensuring that his audience understands that the servant owed the king an amount that could never be paid, ever! ....an incredible, incredible sum.
Jesus is also prompting them to realise how everyone has racked up an incredible debt of sin against God…an incredible debt, one that cannot possibly be paid.
It is not surprising, then, that when people study this parable, their attention is drawn away from the enormous debt of sin and toward the man's job, and how he managed to embezzle such a large sum. ignoring the fact that Jesus is telling a parable, an extended metaphor, or a word picture.
This servant had gotten himself into something he couldn’t get out of, he was stuck in his inability to repay this incredible amount, the debts had been mounting up and now the king demands his payment, but the servant cannot pay, there is nothing he can do, he is helpless.
And on a lesser level, when someone sins against us they do the same thing, they get into something they can’t get out of – they can’t undo the damage they have done, despite their apologies and amends, they can’t go back in time and not sin against us, they can’t make things like they used to be.
It’s impossible….an impossible task…an impossible amount!
Although the king had a legal right to extract payment, he chose to show compassion and mercy to the servant, to free him from this impossible situation; rather than holding the servant captive for his wrongdoing, for his sin, the king decided he was going to set the servant free from it and to forgive the servant’s debt. He absorbed the debt himself; he paid the debt; he marked the bill 'paid in full'.
But this overwhelming forgiveness has little effect on the servant because he discovers a fellow servant who owes him a pittance in comparison, and after failing to extract the money from him, he refuses to release the man from his debt and promptly has the man thrown into jail...where he will have no opportunity to repay the debt for his release….the first servant does the opposite of what the king did for him.
At the end of the parable the unforgiving servant gets his comeuppance and ends up in jail, he is now in a considerably worse situation than he was before and in the last verse Jesus makes it clear that there is a penalty for not forgiving:
v35 “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
In other words, you’re going to be in trouble with God if you don’t forgive. God will not treat an unforgiving spirit lightly and if you don’t forgive, and because He loves you, He will do what He sees fit, to remove your unforgiving attitude.
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him.For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” Hebrews 12:5-6
This is an amazing illustration of what it means to forgive.
We can see that there is a requirement for us to show mercy and compassion. We should give up our right to make the person who sinned against us pay, we should set them free from captivity to the impossible situation of us being angry or hurt at them over something that they can’t change….the words or actions have been said or done, there is nothing they can do to go back in time and take back what they have done.
Where does forgiveness start? It starts in the heart, kindness, mercy and compassion originate and live in your heart. So, you adopt an attitude of mercy and compassion towards the person who has sinned against you, even if they don’t think they’ve done anything wrong. It’s primarily an internal attitude of the heart, whether you can pour it out externally or not.
“Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” Ephesians 4:32
Our actions start in the heart, your decision to set people free from your anger and hurt feeling starts in your heart, it’s an internal attitude you have long before it ever becomes an external action, you develop the attitude of forgiveness in your heart before they repent. Romans 5:6 & 8 are very clear on this:
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly…..
…..but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God’s love for His own is steadfast because it is not based on how lovable we are, but on the constancy of His own character; God’s supreme act of love came when we were at our most undesirable. Likewise, our character should reflect that of Jesus’s, that we love people when they are at their most undesirable…when they have sinned against us.
You surrender your right to make them pay for what they’ve done, you decide their bill is paid in full and they no longer owe you. You make that decision in your heart first and foremost.
Shortly after this event, Jesus will put into practise what He preached; the King of kings will soon put into action the compassion that He spoke of; He will show compassion and go to the cross because each of us is trapped in the impossible situation of having racked up an enormous debt of sin against Him that we will never be able to repay.
His compassion led him to show mercy to us and provide us with a way to be free from this debt, he went to the cross to release us and forgive us, to set us free from the captivity of our impossible state of indebtedness to Him. He pays our debt, our enormous debt of sin against Him with His blood, with His death. He has marked the bill “paid in full” because He has paid it Himself.
And we can see this in action in Colossians 2:13-14
13. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14. by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside nailing it to the cross.
How does that work…how did He release us from our debt?
We had no spiritual life, we were dead in our trespasses, we had no relationship, no covenant with God, we were estranged from God.
But God made us alive – how did he do that?
….He forgave our trespasses – how did He forgive our trespasses?
....He cancelled the debt that was against us - how did He cancel the debt?
....He set it aside - how did He set it aside?
....He nailed to the cross….with Jesus.
Our enormous, incalculable, un-payable, debt of sin against a Holy and Righteous God was nailed to the cross with Jesus; He paid the just penalty of God’s wrath for our sins, and we received His righteousness, the righteousness earned by His sinless life so that we can now stand before God un-condemned. Not only did He pay our debt, but He credited our account with His own righteousness.
There isn’t any relationship where sin doesn’t exist, where offences don’t happen; whether you’re talking about marriages, families, friendships, bible studies, churches, every relationship you can think of, and in all these relationships we can’t survive without forgiveness. You and I both need it; everybody related to us needs it, and everybody in any form of relationship with us needs it as well, it is vital that we live within a constantly forgiving environment. Forgiveness should be one of our highest joys, we should be delighted to forgive because it is God’s joy and delight to forgive us, and forgiveness is the most God-like act a person can ever do.
Acts of forgiveness should lead to reconciliation and a healing of the relationships but unfortunately, this is not always possible. Some offences occur in which removing yourself from the relationship is the wisest option; “Turn to him the other cheek also” in Matthew 5:39 does not mean that, if you can do something about it, you should allow yourself to be slapped again. There is no requirement from Scripture for you to move back in with an abusive husband and allow him to keep sinning against you.
Forgiveness can be difficult, but no one has sinned against us as much as we have against Christ; however, if the forgiveness we received at the cost of the blood of the Son of God does not affect our hearts, if we still hold unforgiving grudges and bitterness against someone, we are not a good tree....we are not producing good fruit, we are not producing the fruit of a redeemed life and we need to go back and check our thoughts and actions against Scripture, remembering that God will forgive and help us in our struggles if we confess our failings.
We are hypocrites if we do not cherish God’s forgiveness, if we do not trust in it, do not grasp and treasure it, we're just blustering; surely, if you're a Christian, you've felt the powerful, joyful wonder that God paid your debts with the life of his Son, surely you've been humbled by God's love and mercy, and experienced the lifting of an overwhelming burden and the knowledge of freedom from condemnation?
I mean, how could I hold a grudge against someone who hasn't offended me nearly as much as I have offended God — so severely offended Him that he has had to pay the life of his Son so that I can be forgiven?
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