In his sermon on forgiveness, Trent Moody discusses the parable of the unforgiving servant from Matthew 18:21-35. The sermon highlights Peter's question to Jesus about how often one should forgive a brother's sins, to which Jesus responds with 'seventy times seven,' emphasizing limitless forgiveness. The parable illustrates a king who forgives a servant's enormous debt, only for that servant to refuse mercy to another who owes him a much smaller amount. Moody emphasizes that forgiveness should be a characteristic of believers, mirroring God's forgiveness towards us. Forgiveness involves a conscious decision to release someone from their debt and not hold their offenses against them. The sermon also distinguishes between forgiveness and reconciliation, stating that while both are important, forgiveness can occur without the other party's involvement. Moody warns against the dangers of withholding attention, affection, or honor as signs of unforgiveness and urges believers to reflect on their own hearts and relationships. The sermon concludes with a call to understand and embrace God's forgiveness, which enables believers to forgive others and live in freedom from bitterness and unforgiveness.

Alright, Matthew 18. Matthew 18. We're going to pick up with verse 21 and we will read down through the end of the chapter. Matthew 18, 21. Then Peter came to him and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?

Up to seven times. And Jesus said to him, I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven. Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents. But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold with his wife and children and all that he had and that payment be made.

The servant therefore fell down before him saying, Master have patience with me and I will pay you all. Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him and forgave him the debt. But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. And he laid hands on him and took him by the throat saying, Pay me what you owe. So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him saying, have patience with me, I will pay you all.

And he would not, but went and threw him into prison until he should pay the debt. So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved and came and told their master all that had been done. Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you. And his master was angry and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him.

So my heavenly father also will do to you if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother his trespasses. Let us pray. Our heavenly father, This is a sober reminder, sobering reminder of what you have called us not only to do but what to be. We are to be children of the King. We are to be your children.

We're to love as you have loved and we are to forgive as you have forgiven. And so Father today I pray that this truth, this wonderful truth that you have laid out for us here in this gospel would Lord just settle down upon our hearts that we would consider it fresh and new and Lord that you would help us not to be like that first servant but that we would be like our Father in heaven, full of compassion and ready to forgive. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. You may be seated.

So as we consider the passage before us, it is very, as I said before, very sobering. When we look at this and as we approach this passage this morning, it's really important for us to understand that this focal passage that I'm looking at, verses 21 through 35, is actually not to be taken out by itself and looked at, you know, separated out from the whole context of really the whole gospel. But especially chapter 18, Verses 21 through 35 are actually there to fill out the teaching of what Jesus was teaching them regarding offenses within the body, or very specifically, among brethren. So we would take that here this morning to understand that we need to understand this in the context of within the body of Christ that we need not be like this servant, this unforgiving servant. The question really is, is how are we to deal with offenses?

Not if, but when they come. You cannot live in a close community like this within a church and not have offenses. You can't be in a family and not have offenses. I don't know if you figured that one out yet, but if you live within a family, there will be offenses that come. There's something really important to remember about living in a close relationship with people and the people that you live with in this close relationship actually do not sin more than others, though it may seem that way.

You can even come to this church and you think, boy, that family over there, it seems like they really got it together. They don't really have the same problems that we have. Boy, his wife is really a great wife or her husband's really a great man. Look how easy it would be to live with that person. The truth be told, the reason that those who are closer to us and that we spend the most time with seem to be more sinful than others is because simply you're around them more.

This is why you perceive that other spouses are better than yours or other families have it together more than yours or that other children are better behaved than yours or other churches have less problems than ours. This is all really false perceptions. This is one of the reasons that there are so many divorces. People get married for this reason that they think that they have found their soul mate. They think that they have found this person who will make them happy.

Only to find out after a short period of time they actually married a sinner. The offended spouse believes that they just married the wrong person. That's what it is. They married a person who is a sinful person. The next person they go and marry will surely not sin as much as my former spouse until after a few years they find out, wow, they're a sinner too.

They will find that it would, they think in their mind that it would be easier to get along with someone who just didn't sin so much. After the third or fourth marriage, and you may know people who are in this circumstance, I do, after the third or fourth marriage, if the offended party is paying attention to the circumstances of their former marriages and the circumstances that they're in, they come to realize that in truth, all of these people are sinners. At this point, there is at least two possible outcomes. Number one, they decide to remain single and try to enjoy the pleasures and privileges of marriage without the covenant of marriage. They live in promiscuity, they live their lives for themselves, they live singly, or they live alone because they cannot live in close relationship with sinners.

Or, secondly, they come to realize that if all the people in those marriages, the worst sinner of them all, was the one that was in them all, themselves. They were the worst sinner because they were the one who refused to forgive. This is hard and sobering reality for us, but I want us to be very clear at one point. There's a difference between reconciliation and forgiveness, although those two things do go together. They are really close first cousins, if you would, But there is a difference between those two.

So I want us to understand that reconciliation does require both parties to come together for and to resume friendly relationships. However forgiveness does not require necessarily that there be both parties involved. You can actually forgive someone who's dead and you may need to do that. You may be dealing with bitterness from someone who's not even alive. You know it's been said that bitterness and unforgiveness is like drinking poison yourself hoping that the other person gets sick or dies.

But when we are unforgiving what we will find is that we have drunk the poison and we are the ones who are sick. And it is like rottenness to our bones. There's many outward signs that we could look to to find out if someone is forgiving. If we sat down and talked to each other, we could look at these things and determine, are you truly forgiving of that person? You can actually have forgiveness when you are the only one involved in that circumstance.

If forgiveness is something that's not only external, there's external signs of forgiveness, but really, forgiveness is about something internally. And we see that in verse 35, he says, "'My heavenly father, so my heavenly father also will do to you if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother. Forgiveness is not a feeling that you have. The word heart here is not used in such a way that you're supposed to equate that with emotions. Forgiveness is not really about your emotions.

We're going to look at that near the end of this passage. Forgiveness is from the heart. It's really from your will. It's from the inner part of your being. It actually involves your mind, and it involves your decision process.

And so there are outward signs of forgiveness, but remember that forgiveness is something that is inward. It's in the heart. And then when it is in the heart, it will show itself outwardly. Because if there's unforgiveness, there are signs that there's unforgiveness. Some of the signs that we'll talk about is when you withhold attention from somebody, or if you withhold affections from somebody, or if you withhold honor from somebody.

Those all can be signs of unforgiveness. So as we think about this I want to say that I am not talking about overlooking any kind in a marital relationship or any other kind of relationship any type of physical abuse and that you should just forgive and move on and don't worry about it. This would jurisdictionally be the matter of the civil government and also could involve the church government with church discipline. But what I'm primarily focusing on this morning is the concept and the characteristic or the attribute of forgiveness. And that's really what this whole thing is about that Jesus is getting to.

He's wanting us to understand forgiveness by answering a question that Peter asked. And even though there still does need to be forgiveness, and I'll explain that with somebody who has sinned, what you need to understand is that forgiveness and forgetting are not the same thing. This is really important. You've heard it said, oh just forgive and forget. As one man said, I was listening to some messages this week, he made this statement.

He says, if you're forgetting things that means something's wrong with you. You have dementia or you've been hit in the head. God did not create us to forget. He actually created us to remember and that is actually the beauty of forgiveness. Is that you still remember the offense but you choose not to demand the debt be paid.

That is why it's so hard to Forgive. Forgetting is actually a result of the fall because we are dying a little bit day by day. So get this idea of forgiving and forgetting out of your mind. You see, we want to see the beauty of forgiveness as God sees. Now, I know that in your mind, your mind may be going to a passage in Isaiah that says that God will remember our iniquities no more.

And I'm gonna look at that and what does that actually mean. But before we get there I want to give you a working definition if you will. There could be some other things added to this of what forgiveness is. You may want to just jot it down. Forgiveness, and I'll read it twice for you, forgiveness is giving up your right to punish another person and make them pay.

Forgiveness is giving up your right to punish another person and make them pay. If you'll notice that in this parable here, what we see is that over and over again, there's this whole idea of payment. You see, the king was owed something. This king, it says that in verse 23, therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents.

There was a debt to be paid. So what we're talking about is when there are offenses here there is actually sin involved. But I'm not going to actually deal with that person who's sinning this morning as much as I am the person who has been offended. How do we respond when we have been offended? You don't want to become the offender because you've been offended either.

You don't want to become a sinner on top of that because then you just muddy the waters. It makes it that much worse. You see in this chapter Jesus is dealing with offenses. Offenses are not uncommon but rather they are common. That's why Jesus is teaching about them because it is something that happens on a regular basis and this is why I'm teaching about what Jesus was teaching about regarding offenses and forgiveness.

Matthew Henry actually is a really helpful outline of this chapter and I'm gonna kind of modify it slightly and in parts of it but it's very helpful to think about as we look at the entirety of chapter 18, because in chapter 18 we know this is the chapter that deals with church discipline. It's the chapter that deals with if you offend one of these little ones. So the whole chapter is about this offense. He actually makes a statement for offenses must come. So if you are living your life whether that be in singleness, in marriage, in family, in church, in work, or any other way, If you think that you're going to live your life without ever being offended, I've got a news flash for you.

You're going to be sorely disappointed. So since that is the case, we need to understand how do we deal with offenses when they come. How do we do that? Because we actually have a responsibility to deal with that. So here's Matthew Henry's breakdown of this chapter.

First he says in verses 1-6, instructions concerning humility. May I just say humility is key to this? Verse seven, it is concerning offenses in a general platform and particular offenses given. We see these particular offenses and it's really interesting, there's three types of offenses that Jesus deals with in Matthew chapter 18 and verses 8 and 9. He deals with offenses that we commit against ourselves.

If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off. If your right eye causes you to sin, he says, pluck it out. You're better to enter into life maimed or lame than you are to enter into hell being fully whole. Next, in verses 10 through 14, he speaks about offenses by us to others. And then lastly, what we are dealing with are the sins that are by others towards us.

And then specifically in verses 21 through Specifically in verses 21 through 35, he brings in this concept of forgiveness. He's dealing with, in verses 15 through 20, a scandalous sin which actually requires a person going to someone and speaking to them. It's the process of bringing a brother to reconciliation. I almost don't like the idea of this passage here in verses 15 through 20 being termed the church discipline passage boy that's heavy but it's actually the reconciliation passage here's your steps to reconciliation because that's really the goal we want to see people restored in our relationships with one another but mainly their relationship with God because here's the fact you actually cannot live your life right with God if you are wrong with your brothers and sisters. You can't do it.

God created this world and everyone in it to work within a relationship between God and man. Look at the Ten Commandments. It's about the laws that are given for us and how we relate to God and man. And if you break the tablet in two and you break the Ten Commandments right in the middle and say I'm just gonna focus on the first four, well guess what? You're actually not loving God.

You actually have an idol. So these things break down. We have to understand that we're dealing with our relationships one with another and that it is very important. And then in this last part Jesus teaches us that offenses are to be forgiven because we have been forgiven. This is the big ticket item, if you will, that we're dealing with today.

If you leave here with one thing, it's this. You should forgive because you have been forgiven. If you don't hear anything else, hear that. Just take that with you. But I want to fill that out.

Let's give it some meat on that bone so that we can really take something to chew on this week and meditate upon. One of the most telling signs of a true believer is their outward expression of love for one another. Our brother read that this morning. That's by this shall all men know that you're my disciples if you have loved one for another, Jesus says in John 13. However, one of the most telling signs of a true believer is something that takes place in your heart and that is what we've been talking about, forgiveness.

I was listening to a preacher this week and he said if you could bowl down Christianity in one word it would be really hard to do. He said grace is huge but Within grace is this other idea of forgiveness. Forgiveness, God forgiving man, not holding you to the account to pay that debt that you owed, but God forgiving it, but in order for him to forgive it, that debt had to be paid and it was paid by another our Lord Jesus Christ. And so as he's dealing with the disciples here we want to look in verses 18 to 20 where Peter asked this all-important question. So let's begin with this question.

He says, then Peter came to Jesus and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times. Now I believe that there are two different things that Jesus is dealing with in this passage. Again, verse 15 through 20, he's dealing with believers dealing with a sinning brother and actually these responsible steps that must be taken to confront them in their sin and bring about reconciliation. I spoke about that.

But Peter here, I believe he was being a bit overzealous in his statement to forgive and he was saying up to seven times. Isn't it funny when when we think that we are showing extreme amounts of kindness the Lord compares it with his and it falls woefully short Do you realize what I've gone through? Have you ever heard someone say that? Do you realize how long I've born with this person? But when it is compared to how long God has born with us, there is no comparison.

And that's really what he's going to do. He's going to show us this contrast here between the the forgiveness of the king in this parable and the forgiveness of the servant. And so we're going to look at that in just a few moments. But here Peter is doing this because it's believed that he's basing his thought process on what the rabbis taught and they pulled that from Amos chapter 1 where in Amos chapter 1 it says it a few times it says thus says the Lord for three transgressions of Damascus and for four I will not turn away its punishment." And so they reasoned among themselves that since God forgave three times, it was presumptuous that we should forgive more. Do you see why the people love the teachings of Jesus?

And do you see why the Pharisees and the priests did not? They believed that they would be going beyond God to forgive more than three or four times. And that's why Peter even he even ventured to say up to seven times. And Jesus totally blew it out of the water as if this was some great feat that Peter was willing to do of forgiving his brother seven times. Let me tell you something, if you only want to be offended seven times in this church, only come seven times.

If you only want to be offended in your marriage seven times, live somewhere else at a different house in a different city and visit your wife or your husband only seven times. Because I promise you the closer the relationship the more easy it is to be offended. That's why so many people love huge mega churches. Man, you can slip right in there into the back, you can hear a good message, and then you can go home. But in a church like this, guess what?

We get all up in your business and you get in ours and we're having to work through things, and I'm going to offend you, and you're going to offend me, and guess what? We're actually going to have to obey what Christ says. Forgive. Have you noticed that almost the entirety of the New Testament, especially the epistles, is dealing with these things that are so difficult for us to do. It's all about interpersonal relationships.

Long-suffering, forgiveness, kindness, patience. He's not teaching us that because we're good at it. He's teaching us these things and commanding these things with these declarative statements of you have to obey these things because we're not doing those things and because it's so difficult to do these things. It's so much easier to leave. So much easier to leave.

The hard work is done when you're offended and if it requires you go to that person and you work through that process of reconciliation and repentance and forgiveness or love covers a multitude of sin and you forgive and you become unwilling to demand the right of repayment. I have a question for you. How often do you expect to be sinned against? For those of you who are married, when you got married, were you thinking to yourself, I wonder how many times this person is going to offend me and sin against me. I bet you didn't.

I didn't. I'm actually learning this whole process still. We can't put a number on it. That's why Jesus said, I tell you not seven times but 70 times seven. He wanted to blow it out of the water.

He's wanting to make it such a large number that you're done counting. I don't want to even count that high. It's so much harder work to be keeping track of how many times your spouse or your brother or your sister or someone offends you but let me tell you something when you forgive you release that person the debt is forgiven you choose to to not hold these things against them But just keep in mind the closer your relationship the more you can expect to be sinned against not the less. God actually put this really strange desire within people to be together. He actually puts the desire in the hearts of single people to be married.

He puts it into the hearts of married people to say, hey, let's have children. And then he puts it in the hearts of Christian, hey let's go gather in a building and in a room together with other people, let's make a covenant with each other and let's be together this will be great until you are and then you find out wow these people are sinners But when we're honest with ourselves, we find out, wow, I'm really unforgiving. You see, the problem is not just the sinner, the problem is the unforgiver. But if we wanna be like Christ, we need to be willing to forgive. You know, if you have a problem with everyone, and you have a problem everywhere you go and in every relationship that you have there's really this little secret which really isn't a secret you're the problem.

That's the difficulty of coming face to face with the sinfulness of unforgiveness. You're the common denominator in every relationship that you have. If every relationship is a problem, first I would say examine yourselves. Are you a forgiving person? The truth be told no one is naturally good at forgiving others that's why we're so often commanded to do it.

And the truth is this Jesus says in verse 22 I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to 70 times seven. This was a mind bomb for the disciples. It was beyond anything that they could ever have imagined, it was, you might as well said, indefinitely forgive your brother. Every time he sins against you, forgive him. Every time that he does this.

Now listen, your forgiveness does not necessarily mean there's reconciliation. Remember, reconciliation is different than forgiveness. We desire reconciliation and as much as is within you, live at peace with all men. But guess what? There are some people that will not live at peace with you.

But you can still forgive them. You can still forgive them. And you can live with peace in your heart and joy and you will not be burdened down and be drinking the bitter pill of unforgiveness. And don't think for a moment if there's any single people here that, hey, when I get married, it's going to take care of my sin problems. No, what it does, it pulls out this really huge magnifying glass, and it magnifies your sin problem because guess what that person is not going to do everything you want them to do.

You see if you do not learn to forgive you will be in divorce real soon. If you do not learn to forgive, you will be in divorce real soon. If you do not learn to forgive, you're going to have a broken family and your children will not want anything to do with you. And if you do not learn to forgive, you're going to go from church to church to church and then no church. Hey, you know what?

It's so much easier to sit at home and less live stream. That way I don't have to get up close to people who offend me. But God wants to push you right down into that relationship where you are offended so that he can work the grace of forgiveness in your heart. And it's hard and it's humiliating and it's difficult but let's consider this illustration here that I pray will help us. You see this illustration here I don't want to spend a whole lot of time on even though it is the largest section but Let's read this together in verse 23.

Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like, anytime you read something like that, your ears should perk up and you need to pay attention. He's wanting to give us a insight into what God's kingdom is like. The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents. But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold and his wife and children and all that he had and that payment be made.

The servant therefore fell down before him saying, Master, have patience with me and I will pay you all. And then the master of the servant was moved with, if you underline your Bible, underline that. He was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt. That's one of the most biblical, helpful definitions of forgiveness that you'll ever have. Forgiveness is when you are moved with compassion.

Forgiveness is when you release someone and you forgive the debt. That's forgiveness. That is forgiveness. And we'll read the rest of this in just a moment, but I want us to look at a couple of things here. I want to start out by saying that every point in a parable, this is just kind of instructive as you come to a parable.

When you're reading a parable, don't expect that every detail of a parable relates to a spiritual truth. Okay, if you do that in this parable you're going to get messed up in some theology. You always have to take the sound didactic parts, the teaching parts like the epistles to bring clarity to doctrinal truths that are within the parables. Okay so just have that in your mind. Don't try to make a spiritual application to every little point that you see.

God doesn't come to you and say pay me all that you owe me. Guess what? There's no chance of that. And that's kind of the point of what he's trying to show here, but you have to be careful, especially with verse 35, because it sounds as if God, if you don't forgive, like you're forgiven, and then you don't forgive, and then God revokes your forgiveness. That's not biblical Christianity.

So don't try to take every little point and make a doctrinal truth out of it because that's not the point of the parable. The parable has one main point. And we will look at that. The one main point is I'll just go ahead and tell you the one main point is that those who are God's people by who have been forgiven their characteristic or their attribute will be one of forgiveness. If you cannot forgive, that is a sign that you have not been forgiven.

So you really need to consider your own heart in this. So stay focused on the main point. We who are forgiven much by the King should forgive others who offend us. So let's look at a couple things here regarding this illustration. The illustration teaches us about the kingdom of heaven.

I told you when you see something like this, the kingdom of heaven is like we should pay attention to that. Jesus wants us to understand something about his kingdom. We want to be a part of God's kingdom. And if We want to be a part of God's kingdom. And if we want to be a part of it, we need to understand how this kingdom functions.

We need to know how it works. What is Jesus wanting us to understand about the kingdom? What he really wants us to get is that you've been forgiven so much, It's ludicrous that you would hold some petty offense against your brother. We have more access, it's really sad, because in our day we have more access to the Word of God and to resources to help us understand, yet we're so ignorant so often of what the scripture says and the meaning of it. We need so much help.

May God help us today to gain insight this morning into the kingdom of heaven. What is it like? That's what Jesus wants us to know. Next I want us to notice this contrast. That's really this thing that we see standing out so much to us.

This contrast between the offenses. First notice the one who was offended. In the first place we have a king, which of course represents God in this parable and then we have two servants. We have two offenses, the king's been offended and sinned against and then we have a servant. The first servant has been sinned against.

Don't lose sight of that. This other servant did owe him. He did owe him. The king, however, has compassion and forgives, whereas The servant refuses the compassion. Look in verse 30 at what he says, and he would not.

So the second servant said, have patience with me and I will pay you all. And the first servant said, or And it says of the first servant, and he would not but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt. And as we're going through this, we ask ourselves the question, which one am I? Who am I like in this parable? I wanna be like the king.

But there are times I'm like the servant, and may God forgive me. The next we see this contrast of the amounts. He's wanting to show this so different amount of the offense or what was owed. The king was owed 10,000 talents, much like the 70 times 7 that Jesus wanted to show that it was such an infinite number that it's not about let's multiply seven times seventy. It's not about how much is ten thousand talents if we convert it to dollars today.

That's not the point. The point was it's so much you can't even fathom how much it is. In reality we could say this it's like the king was owed from us the national debt of America. And the second servant owed the first servant about $15,000. About three months he could have taken care of this debt.

Whereas if the other man had lived a thousand lifetimes, he wouldn't be able to pay the debt. It wouldn't have been possible for him to even do so. So the whole point is just the extremeness of the contrast between the two offenses. And don't lose this, your offense towards God is so infinitely more than what anyone on this earth could ever do to you. Because we are dealing with a holy king, a holy God, who has never sinned and can't even be in the presence of sin.

And then we're here talking and fussing and fighting about a sinner and a sinner. I was trying to help my kids a few weeks ago think about this and I said imagine a King and a white robe comes up and he walks up to you and you boys are standing there in this mud pit You're throwing mud at each other and you accidentally throw some on the king. Perfectly white suit. And he says, it's okay boys. Don't worry about it, it's okay.

I forgive you. And then one of the boys throws mud and hits him in the ear and he's, oh I can't believe you threw mud on me and they're both in the mud. They're both filthy. They're both offending each other and yet they're so upset that the one in the mud got mud on him. It's insanity.

But is that not what we do? That's what we do. Next, look at the responses of the offenders. The king has compassion for the servant who had no ability to pay the debt, and the servant who had been forgiven had no compassion towards the one who could have easily paid the debt. This illustration really is so clear It really doesn't need a whole lot of explanation because it is that clear.

How is it that we can't see this? The contrast here between our offense towards God and our brother's offense towards us, we are too often that servant. What God has forgiven us is indescribable. Our debt was infinite. The wages of our debt is eternity in hell.

Yet God had compassion on us because of our helpless estate. I think of the line, and it is well with my soul, that Christ has regarded my helpless estate and has shed his own blood for my soul. This is our God. This is our God. Our brothers and sisters are the second servant.

Are there offenses? Sure there's offenses. Do people sin against you? Yes they sin against you. Are there times that there needs to be correction and maybe church discipline?

Absolutely there does. But there's one thing for certain that must always happen in your heart. You must forgive because you have been forgiven. We have such a clear definition of what unforgiveness and forgiveness is in this passage and in the words of verse 28 the latter part of verse 28 it says pay what you owe me this is unforgiveness and a forgiveness we see in verse 27 God or the king here was moved with compassion released him and forgave him the debt Vodibhaka says the way we express unforgiveness to one another as I mentioned this earlier is by withholding attention withholding affection and withholding honor. We don't always just go after somebody and grab them by the neck, but how often wife have you given your husband no affection because he offended you?

Or how often husband have you withdrawn and been silent and showed no attention to your wife just because she offended you. Or child how often have you dishonored your parents because they told you no and you pout you don't even look at them when they call your name. You're withholding honor from them to whom honor is due. These are the ways that we try to punish others for their offense towards us. This was so convicting, studying this.

I wish you all had been with me the whole time. You know, we may not say, I don't forgive you, but how often do we show that we don't by withholding these things from others? This point really could be made or could be another, these three points here about withholding things could be a whole other message. I wish I had more time to go into it. But I want you to consider, are you trying to punish someone whom you're in relationship with by withholding attention, affection, and honor?

And if you are, I really want to challenge you today to repent of that. And I want you to forgive that person for whatever it is they've done to you they may not even know what they've done to you. I find that so often. There's times I'm offended at my wife and I'll go around pouting all day long and she doesn't even know what she did. How ridiculous.

Forgive. Be quick to forgive. In conclusion, we see this in verse 35 and he kind of draws us back into this reality. He brings us out of the parable into this piercing sting of reality that we need to understand. So my heavenly father also will do to you if Each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother his trespass.

One of the things I notice in this is that this seems to be indicating an unconditional forgiveness. He says here that each of you from your heart, He's not really talking about reconciliation at this point. It could be alluding to that in the former verses there through 15 through 20, but here he's talking about not the reconciliation aspect of this relationship, he's talking about the forgiveness aspect, and that's what we are responsible for. I've known people who withhold forgiveness until certain conditions are met. I will not forgive you unless these conditions, God forbid that any of us would live there.

Don't have conditional forgiveness. There can be conditional reconciliation, okay, That's biblical. But there should not be conditional forgiveness, not from what's in our hearts. We need to be people who forgive. You prove that you've never experienced true forgiveness of God when you're unwilling to forgive.

You see, as you've heard, the heart of the matter is the matter of the heart. And so it seems so clear here that this forgiveness is not based upon what the other person is going to do. In other words, this is not the type of offense that requires or demands of a person repentance or confrontation. Should they repent? Yes, of course they should, but your forgiveness should not be dependent upon what they do.

This is a personal offense that is forgiven from the heart, whether the offender asks for it or not. So my question to you and I want to read some passages of scripture to you as well, which are you in this parable? Well for sure you are one of the servants and hopefully as one of those servants you want to be like the king. Are you the king who's going to have compassion and release your brother from his dead and forgive or are you like that first servant who although forgiven so much is the type who always demands payment for what they owe you? In Ephesians 4.32, Paul writes, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.

Now in this I want to be clear about something and I want to read one I'll read another passage that shows this very clearly we need to understand that in passages like Ephesians 432 and also I'm going to read Colossians 3, 12 and 13, there are certain things called imperatives. That is when the Bible gives us a command to obey it, forgive. And then there are other things that are called indicatives and those things that are, they're true about us. And I'm gonna show you what that is. Let me read Ephesians 432 one more time.

And be kind to one another. There's your imperative. Tenderhearted, forgiving one another. And then he gives us this indicative, even as God in Christ forgave you. That's who you are as a Christian.

You're forgiven by God through Christ. And your forgiveness is to mirror that type of forgiveness is what he's saying. Even as God in Christ forgave you, that's how you are to do this command. But let me tell you something, you want a frustrated child? Quote this verse to them all the time.

And they don't have the Spirit of God. This verse is for that we should quote this to our children we want them to understand Scripture but I want you understand they have not the power to fully obey it until the Holy Spirit of God has worked salvation in their heart and the last part of this verse is true of them. Even as God in Christ forgave you, if you're a believer, that's who you are. And if that's who you are, this is how you should act. Please get this correct.

It's not do this so that you will be forgiven. That's not what he's teaching. But because you are forgiven You have the ability and the responsibility to do this, to be tenderhearted, to be forgiving and to be kind. Colossians 3, 12 and 13 says the same thing Therefore as the elect of God holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long suffering, bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a complaint against another even as Christ forgave you so you must also do." Now there's indicatives and there's these command statements in here. He says, therefore, he's going to tell you who you are at the very beginning of that in Colossians 3.12.

He says, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved. That's who you are. If you're a Christian, that's you. Isn't that wonderful? And then he tells us this next part, this command part.

Put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering, bearing with one another and forgiving one another and if anyone has a complaint against another and then he goes back to tell us who we are again even as Christ forgave you and then back to the command So you must also do. So what you do is based on who you are. You can't become what you should be by doing. That's a false gospel. But the Holy Spirit of God can enable you to do what you should do based on who God declares you to be.

As he says, the elect of God holy and beloved. That's who we are and that's who we should act like. And guess what? We're gonna fail. And guess what?

We're gonna keep going after it. We're gonna keep loving and we're gonna keep forgiving and we're gonna keep offending but we're gonna keep forgiving and then we're gonna keep repenting and we're gonna keep reconciling because that's who we are. Think about what Micah 7, 18 says, who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He does not retain his anger forever because he delights in mercy. He will again have compassion on us and will subdue our iniquities.

You will cast all of our sins into the depths of the sea. I was speaking to a dear brother this weekend at the conference And this dear brother was sharing a story with me that really so perfectly illustrates what I'm wanting to tell you. His daughter was killed by a driver. I don't think that the other person was drinking, but this driver, sure enough, ran into this car and killed his daughter. And this lawyer of this man told the father that he could press charges, like a civil, go after them civilly in a civil court to get payment from them.

He said although she doesn't have anything to pay you with, however in court they can garnish her wages for the rest of her life. And this man looked at me and he said, he said, Trent, He said, why would I press my thumb on her and demand from her for the rest of her life to pay me what you owe? He said, I am the one who should have God's thumb on him demanding payment. But God has released me from what I owe. How could I demand this, what she owes?

And I was sitting there witnessing the sermon before me. The forgiveness of God. This man has tasted that the Lord is good. And brothers and sisters I want all of you to taste it. I want you to know of how much you've been forgiven.

And in closing I just want to share this this thought with you and It's the words of a man named Jay Adams. He's been an elder and a pastor and a counselor for years. He's very, very helpful to me throughout my life and through his books. He says forgiveness is a promise. When our God forgives us he promises that he will not remember our sins against us anymore.

When the Bible says in Isaiah 43 25 I will remember your sins or I will not remember your sins. It is not that God gives himself amnesia but rather what God is declaring is that he chooses not to hold our sins against us anymore. He goes on and says not remembering is not the same thing as forgetting. Obviously the omniscient God who created and sustains the universe does not forget but he can choose not to remember. God determines not to remember the sins of another against him and to not remember is simply a graphic way of saying I will not bring up these matters to you or others in the future.

I will bury them and not exhume the bones to beat you over the head with them. I will never use these sins against you." So by way of application, just a few points. How many? Five things. Number one, forgiveness is giving up your right to punish another person and make them pay.

Number two, are you withholding attention, affection, or honor from someone in order to make them pay? Number three, are you the type of person that believes every offense should be dealt with in confrontation, that every word is an offense just because an opportunity is there for you to confront because you've been offended? Remember this, love covers a multitude of sins. Number four, consider just how much you've been forgiven and then forgive. And five, and lastly, and this is for those of you who have not been forgiven, if you've never received the forgiveness of God through faith and the sacrifice of his son Jesus Christ, then really you're not capable of this type of forgiveness.

Today is the day of salvation though. Today is the day that you can understand the forgiveness of God, And if today you would like to know that forgiveness, after the service I'll be up here and I'll be more than happy to talk with you about how Christ can forgive you of all of your sins. And he can enable you to release the bitterness and the unforgiveness from your soul. And let me tell you something, when you're released from bitterness and unforgiveness, you will understand a freedom that you have never experienced before. Let's pray.

Our Father in heaven, we Thank you. Lord, these are very, very challenging words from the word of God, and we thank you, God, that it so pricks us at the very point in which we need to be pricked. I feel like the men who were listening to Peter's sermon, men and brethren, what shall we do? God, I pray that you would help us all to be forgivers. Help us to understand that if we are so hard-hearted, just like Jesus told those Pharisees when they were complaining and wanting Jesus to explain why did Moses give a certificate of divorce.

Why did he say they could? And when our Lord said, because of the hardness of your heart, oh God give us a heart of flesh, A heart that is ready to forgive and willing and eager and actually rejoicing in our forgiveness because we are recipients of a forgiveness that so far outweighs anything that we need to forgive. Oh Lord, press this on us and help us to see it so clearly. Deliver your people from unforgiveness I pray in Jesus name. Amen.