John Mann, Associate Professor of Business and Theology at Texas Baptist College, preached from Matthew 18, verses 21-35, in SWBTS Chapel on March 27, 2025.
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Thank you, Dr Dockery, for the introduction. It is so good to be with you today. There is no greater privilege than to be able to stand with the people of God, looking at the word of God and praying for God by His word and through His Spirit, to speak and to minister to each one of our hearts as he is, transforming us into the image of Jesus Christ. And I would invite you to open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 18, as I was read earlier during our time together.
Today, we’ll refer back to it on various occasions as we consider this idea of forgiveness. It’s been said that the two most difficult sentences to utter in all of human life is, please forgive me and I forgive you. Those sentences are very difficult for humanity to say, I want you to forgive me, and in turn, I forgive you. Let’s begin by defining what we mean by forgiveness, or maybe more than defining let’s say what forgiveness is not and say what forgiveness is. Well, first of all, when we say that we forgive someone, what we are saying is, is not that forgiveness is a feeling. I just can’t forgive you yet.
I don’t feel as if I can forgive you yet. But we’re really saying three things. We are making a conscious decision about what it means to forgive. And when we say we forgive someone. What we are saying is I will not bring it up to you again. We are also saying I will not bring your wrong up to myself again. And thirdly, we are saying I will not bring it up to others when we extend forgiveness to someone else, and it is that second sentence that we are considering today, that I forgive you. When we say that we forgive someone, we are making a commitment that even though their wrong was a real wrong based upon their acknowledgement of that wrongness.
We are saying, I will not think about it, I will not remind you about it, and I will not speak to others about it. You see, forgiveness, however, is not the eraser of consequences. Consequences are a part of the justice system that God has placed within creation. A criminal may be forgiven by his victim, but that does not mean that he should not be judged in the legal system. But forgiveness is something that is relational consequences are judicious. It’s interesting that this narrative occurs immediately after Jesus’s instructions to restore someone who has sinned against you, and within that context, the immediate context this conversation takes place as Jesus has explained to us what we might refer to as church discipline, or the restoration of a brother.
But the immediate context is not the limiting context. The Christian life is to be demonstrably different from the non Christian life, in part, because of forgiveness. What separates us from those who do not know the Lord is that we are people who have willingly accepted, embraced and loved the forgiveness that God has given to us, and as we reflect upon His forgiveness, we are compelled by His Spirit to extend that forgiveness to others. We have been forgiven. Therefore we should forgive. Jesus has taught the disciples about the process of restoring a brother in Matthew chapter 18, verses 15 through 20, and the focus of that text was upon the restoration of a brother.
But as Peter considers what the Lord has just said to him. He comes before the Lord, and he says, in verse 21 Lord, How many times must I forgive my brother? Peter wants to know what the limits of forgiveness are. How many times do I have to forgive him before I. And tell him what I really think some of the rabbis would say that you must forgive up to three times. Well Peter, wanting to exhibit his self righteousness, says to the Lord, Lord, I’ll forgive seven times. And Jesus responds by saying, I’m not saying that you should forgive seven times.
I’m saying that you should forgive 70 times, seven times. Peter wants to know a specific number. He is committed to do the right thing at least as often as he has to his question was not so much, how many times should I forgive? It was, How many times must I forgive? He was willing to forgive if he had to.
We like to keep score. We want to know how many time outs the other team has taken, and what quarter it is, what down it is, and how many yards there are to go. What is the score on the scoreboard? We want to know what inning is it? What is the ball and strike count? Who’s ahead on the scoreboard? We come to the Sweet 16 and we want to know how many technical fouls have been called. We love to keep score. I’m not near the sports fan that I used to be, but as a fan of the Dallas Cowboys, the Texas Rangers and the Baylor Bears, I prefer not keeping score.
We like to keep score. And Peter is asking the Lord, How many times must I chalk an extension of forgiveness on the scoreboard? And Jesus’s response is not exactly what Peter or we would want to hear when he says 70 times seven. He’s not talking about 490 times that you must forgive. For our purposes, we are not interested in what is the right number. Rather, Jesus is saying to us not to forgive your brother X number of times, the command is not to count. It is to forgive without counting. I think most of us in here today would say that our desire is for others to come to know the Lord Jesus Christ, and to know His forgiveness, to be recipients of that forgiveness, and yet, how many of us might ruin the opportunity to tell others about the forgiveness that we can have in Jesus Christ, because we are unwilling to extend forgiveness to those who have wronged us, forgiveness is somewhat like love. We have a wrong definition of both of those.
We tend to believe that love is primarily a feeling, but the Bible teaches us that love is an action. Likewise, forgiveness is not something that we feel, forgiveness is something that we do. We should not wait for forgiveness to overtake us like a good mood. Instead, we must make a choice to forgive. Jesus’ answer to Peter’s question was given through a parable. The point of Jesus’s parable is in summary, well, let’s state it in a question, if you have been forgiven of the horrible things that you have done against God, shouldn’t you be willing to forgive the little things that someone may have done against you. Jesus divides this parable into three different scenes. In the first scene, verses 23 through 26 we we see that we have been forgiven of an impossible debt.
Look again, if you will. Verse 23 for this reason, the kingdom of heaven can be compared to a king who wants to settle accounts with his servants. And when he began to settle accounts, one who owed him 10,000 talents was brought before him. And since he did not have the money to pay it back, his master commanded that he his wife, his children, and everything that he had be sold to pay the debt.
And at this the servant fell face down before Him and said, be patient with me, and I will pay you everything you see in this first scene of the parable, Jesus points our attention to a servant who owed a large debt to his master. The debt was probably taxes that were due to the king for the crops that had been harvested. The Bible doesn’t say that the man came to the king. It says the man was brought before the king. In other words, he didn’t come willingly. He was compelled. The king had sent out a search party to find him and to bring him before the master. He was brought before the master. He stood there reluctantly, and we can immediately see why. It’s because he owes a debt that he is beyond his ability to pay. The Bible says that he owes 10,000 talents.
Now a talent was the largest measure of money available during the New Testament times. Today, our current largest denomination of currents in the United States is the $100 bill. But that’s not always been the case. From 1878 to 1939 there was a $10,000 bill that had been put into circulation. And so if we were to make the adjustment for a $10,000 note in 1930 let’s say then that $10,000 note today would be worth $190,222 and this slave owed 10,000 of those, his debt was $902 million almost a billion dollars. Now this guy isn’t a billionaire, he’s a servant.
The penalty for being unable to pay your debts. Under the Roman rule was very cruel. They could take his wife, they could take his children, they could take all of his possessions and sell them. This man was in trouble. He didn’t have to look at his bank account. He didn’t have to pull out his iPhone and pop open his Bank of America app to see how much was in his checking account. He knew that he couldn’t afford to pay what he owed, and so he had no other choice than to beg.
The Bible says that he fell face down and pleaded for the master to extend patience to him, for he will pay so he promises. The language that is contained within the Scripture is this idea that he is continually pleading it’s an almost embarrassing situation as he pleads for the master to give Him forgiveness for the debt that he is incapable of paying, and he says, I will pay you everything. And yet his debt is more money than he could make in 100 lifetimes. The master knew that the servant could never pay the debt, and so the master doesn’t merely give to him patience.
The master gives to Him forgiveness he released him and he forgave him of the loan. Why would he do that? Well, the Bible clearly tells us. It says in verse 27 the servant, or the master of that servant, had compassion. It was something that was natural to his existence. He had compassion. He didn’t release the man because the man deserved it. He didn’t release the man because he he knew that the man was his word, was his, was his bond that he would eventually pay back the debt. He didn’t release the man for anything that the man possessed. He released him because of what he possessed, he forgave him, and he canceled the debt.
You see, the tax for which the servant had been forgiven is but a small amount compared to the immeasurable. Terrible sin that you and I possess, the billion dollars that the servant owed is but a penny compared to the offense of our sin against God and every small sin that we commit, the so called White Lie, is immeasurably more than we could ever pay for the forgiveness that we need. Just as the king was moved with compassion to release and forgive the servant, so has God been moved with compassion to release us and to forgive us of our sins, and his motive for doing so is not because of anything that we possess, anything that we can give the motive for God’s forgiveness of us is entirely within himself.
In the words of Martin Luther, we are beggars. We can bring him nothing that earns his forgiveness. We can only plead for His mercy, the master gave that mercy to the servant. You would expect that the servant would stand up, dust off his knees, wipe his face and walk out filled with joy. But that is not what happens in scene two, beginning at verse 28 the servant goes out and he finds one of his fellow servants that owed him not 10,000 talents, but 100 Denari. He grabs him, he starts choking him, and he said, pay what you owe. And at this the fellow servant fell down, and he began begging him, be patient with me.
Notice the repetition, be patient with me, and I will pay you back. But he wasn’t willing. Instead, he went and he threw him into prison until he could repay what was owed. And when the other servants saw what had taken place, they were deeply distressed. The man who had been forgiven such a great debt doesn’t have his heart moved by that compassion at all. Indeed, the language here is that he not simply comes across this man accidentally. It is that he is seeking someone out that owes him. He is going on a search and destroy mission. The master was moved with compassion, but the slave, who was forgiven, was moved with anger. The Bible says that he grabs him after he finds him, and he begins to choke him. In the first scene, the servant fell down, overcome with grief. In this narrative, he is overcome with anger.
He grabs the man, he chokes him. In the first scene, the servant continually prostrates himself before the master. But in this scene, the same servant continually and repetitively chokes the other person, while the forgiven servant repeatedly choked his fellow servant, the fellow servant repeatedly begged the forgiven servant have patience with me. I will pay you what I owe you. And yet the servant who was forgiven was unwilling to extend that same forgiveness and to his fellow servant. You know, the way we conduct ourselves reflects our understanding of God’s grace toward us. Us. And the biblical expectation is that if we have been recipients of the grace and the forgiveness of God, then we too should be conduits of that grace and forgiveness.
For the forgiveness of God is not something that merely flows to us, but it is something that flows through us. But this man forgiven, rather than extending that forgiveness, serves justice, the fellow servants in verse 31 see it, sees it. And so they go to the master, deeply distressed, and they reported everything that happened. You know, as we conduct ourselves in the sight of others. We speak to others in a way that demonstrates concern for their well being. We love them during their times of difficult circumstances, we forgive them during their times of need. Then those acts of kindness are reflections of God’s gift of grace and forgiveness and mercy upon us. But when we who profess faith in Jesus Christ, do not extend that forgiveness to others, we are merely demonstrating that we haven’t understood the forgiveness that we say we have received.
You see, some people, even professing Christians, can wonder why they continually struggle with others. I don’t know what it is about me, but everywhere I go, somebody seems not to like me. I can’t figure it out because I am such a wonderful person, it makes no sense to me whatsoever. Why am I continually in a battle? Some professing Christians say that the Lord has just chosen them to be the ones to suffer criticism. It’s just the path that the Lord has chosen for them. But in reality, there are many battles and many struggles and many criticisms that we receive because we do things to invite their criticism, a good spiritual discipline for us to rediscover is simply just be nice. This would save a whole lot of grief for some of us.
Just be nice. Talk to people as someone who has received the mercy of God, and when someone wrongs, you forgive them. But this servant wasn’t nice. He wasn’t kind, and he reaped the consequences in verse 32 after he had summoned him, the master said to him, you wicked servant, I forgave you all of that debt because you begged me. Shouldn’t you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you because he was angry. The master was moved from compassion in scene one to anger in scene three, because what he saw exhibited by the servant that he had forgiven was an unwillingness to extend forgiveness himself. And so, the King, the servant, the master, rather, was moved from compassion to anger, and he handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he could pay everything that was owed. The servant had pleaded for forgiveness and received mercy, but when the servant had the opportunity to give forgiveness, he wanted to serve justice. He wanted grace for his debt, but he wanted justice for others’ debts. There are few things that will ruin your witness quicker than haughtiness and pride and arrogance and the evidence that that is existent within our lives is that we are unwilling to.
Forgive those who have wronged us. In a moment of desperation under conviction, we beg for God’s mercy, we plead for his forgiveness, and then we might live as if we have deserved the riches of his grace that we have been given, there is nothing that will expose our arrogance quicker than an unforgiving spirit. And at the heart of what Jesus is teaching in this parable is in verse 35 is my heavenly Father will do to you unless every one of you forgives his brother or his sister from your heart.
Now, he is not teaching some sense of workspace salvation. He is not saying, if you will forgive others enough times, I’m going to be moved by compassion because I’ve watched your goodness, and therefore I am going to extend to you forgiveness. Rather, what he is saying is that what comes with the forgiveness that we have received is a new outlook, a transformed heart, if the Lord is willing to forgive me of my offenses against his holy character. How much more should I be willing to forgive others?
He is a perfect, holy and righteous judge against whom I’ve sinned, and he has given me forgiveness. I am a flawed, sinful, weak, failing human being. Why would I not forgive those who may sin or wrong me? What he is saying here is that those who have been forgiven of much should be willing to forgive for much. There are three reasons at least, why you and I should be people who give forgiveness to others. Why should you forgive that person that has offended you? Why should you forgive that colleague, that family member, that friend that has wronged you?
Well, first of all, because failure to forgive others harms you more than it harms those against whom you’re angry, anger, bitterness, wrath, unforgiveness. It it harms us. It has harm. It does harm against our mind, where we begin to think thoughts of anger instead of rejoicing in God’s grace, it ruins our attitudes. It ruins and Sears our conscience. It impacts our physical health. You cannot live a life of bitterness and then be surprised when you age prematurely to forgive is for the prisoner to be set free, and we discover that prisoner was us. When we forgive others, we find freedom for ourselves.
Secondly, not forgiving others dulls our sensitivity to the Lord’s work in our lives, we grow in our bitterness until we are no longer sensitive to the work of the Spirit within us. We are tempted to walk once again in the flesh, rather than in the Spirit. This is one of the reasons that the apostle Paul regularly says things like put away all malice and bitterness and wrath when we don’t forgive others, we lose sensitivity to the Spirit’s work in our lives, his word becomes dull.
Our hearts become hard. Thirdly, not forgiving others demonstrates a lack of thankfulness for how much God has forgiven me and receiving forgiveness is accompanied by the transforming activity of the spirit. How do I know that I’ve been forgiven because his spirit has changed me and sealed me and is working in me. And when I fail to extend forgiveness, I lose sight of that. But when I give forgiveness, I discover joy in salvation. We live in an angry society. Increasingly, if you don’t believe me, get on Interstate 20, drive to the other side of Dallas, turn around and come back, and then let’s talk about whether or not we live in an angry society, and the anger is building, and it seems almost as if all around us there is a rage that is growing within our culture, until we get to that point where the wrath fills up and overflows and we lash out at someone else and the drain the plug that lets that wrath out, that drains that anger is that we allow God’s forgiveness to flow from us to others.
For us to be forgiven is for us to be set free, free to let go of bitterness, anger and wrath, free to forgive as we have been forgiven. Jesus taught us to pray, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Ephesians 431, and 32 says, Let all bitterness, anger and wrath, shouting and slander, be removed from you, along with all malice, be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ, Colossians, 312, 13 says, Therefore as God’s chosen, one, holy and dearly beloved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another.
If anyone has a grievance against another, just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive you. See, ultimately, forgiveness is demonstrated for us in Jesus Christ, and when we reflect upon the cross, we see a picture of how offensive our sin is against God, And yet in that cross, the Wrath and the mercy of God collide and they crush the Son of God for our sins and when we see a picture of how much we have been forgiven, dare we be unwilling to forgive another that was praying and reflecting upon forgiveness, I came across this hymn I had never heard it before. I’m not going to sing it. Forgive our sins as we forgive Rosamond her clots, forgive our sins as we forgive you taught us, Lord to pray, but You alone can grant us grace to live the words we say.
How can your pardon reach and bless? Unforgiving heart that broods on wrongs and will not let old bitterness depart in blazing light your cross reveals the truth we dimly knew what trivial debts are owed to us. How great our debt to you, Lord, cleanse the debts within our souls and bid resentment cease. Then bound to all in bonds of love, our lives will spread your peace those who have seen their sins forgiven under the penalty of the cross endured by Christ for our gain, cannot reasonably refuse to forgive those who have wronged us. So, reflect upon the cross. Let go of your anger, extend forgiveness and find the joy of the crucified, resurrected, ascended and returning Savior you stand forgiven now.
Forgive Father. We pray that as your spirit transforms our hearts, that you would make us into the image of Christ, convicted by your Spirit, confronted by your word, overwhelmed by your love. Help us to forgive as we have been forgiven in Jesus’ name, amen.
