(Text and Audio)
Title: Seventy Times Seven
Lessons are almost always more powerful if they are illustrated lessons. For example, when I am coaching basketball, I could hand out to my team written instructions on how one should shoot a free throw from the foul line. And it may help.
But what will be of far more value to the team is for me to illustrate the principles by having them watch me (or anyone) properly shoot a free throw so that they can witness it and then imitate that principle.
We have discovered in the course of journey through the Gospel of Matthew that Jesus is often an illustrating teacher. One of his favorite methods for illustration is the parable. A parable, of course, is a technique of using scenes and scenarios from every day life to illustrate a deeper spiritual truth.
Over the course of the next two weeks we are going to look at the very well known parable of the unforgiving servant. And we are going to break that teaching down into to sections.
The first section, which we will look at today, will cover the precept, the rule itself. Next week we will study the principle (the reason for rule), and Jesus shares that reason within the illustration of the parable.
My hope and prayer is that today we would understand what a shocking answer it is that Jesus gives to Peter’s question, and then next week the reasons would be made clear through the parable itself.
I want to highlight three points today, and I’m going to do that in a bit of backwards order, because I think it will lead us to more meaningful comprehension. As always, we will reserve time for Questions and Clarifications at the end of the sermon.
Let’s begin.
(read/pray)
- This is about US, not THEM
Compare how Jesus responds to Peter’s question with a very similar passage from the Gospel of Luke:
“Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying ‘I repent’ you shall forgive him.” (Luke 17:3-4)
When we compare these two similar teachings from Jesus some distinct patterns emerge:
- In both passages, these lessons on forgiveness come AFTER Jesus has just taught on proper rebuke.
- The issue of forgiveness is linked to the issue of repentance. If HE repents, then YOU forgive. (Repeat as many times as necessary.)
- The issue is about us NOT them. “Take heed to yourselves.” and “So My heavenly Father will also do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother in his trespasses.” (Matthew 18:35)
- The Reason for Infinite Forgiveness is because we are called to model our maker.
“…bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against his brother; even as Christ forgave you, so you must do.” (Colossians 3:13)
“And whenever you are praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive your trespasses.” (Mark 11:25)
“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew 6:14-15)
Think of it this way: IF you DO NOT forgive, THEN your are NOT modeling Christ. IF you ARE NOT modeling Christ, then you ARE NOT his.
- 70 x 7 DOES NOT equal 490
There may be a temptation here to take Jesus’s answer to Peter’s question more literally than Jesus intends. Peter says, “Shall I forgive him 7 times?” This was the norm for a Jew of Peter’s day. Peter understand that must forgive, Jesus has already made that teaching abundantly clear from some of the passages that we’ve already looked at this morning.
So what Peter is really asking is this: How MUCH must I forgive?
Isn’t that a fascinating question? To forgive is indeed a beautiful thing. It is a good thing. It is, without question, the basis of the Gospel. Christ forgiving us is the very reason we live…yet…Peter, having a chance to model the ultimate gift of Christ unto someone else is asking how much does he have to do it?
We’d all agree that reading our Bibles is a good thing.
Yet every one of us has asked the question… “Well, how often should I read my Bible?”
No one here would disagree that prayer is of the utmost importance to a Christian’s walk.
Yet every one of us has asked, “How long do I need to pray?”
Matthew Henry says something fascinating about this very topic when we wrote: There is a proneness in our corrupt nature to stint ourselves in that which is good, and to be afraid of doing too much in religion, particularly of forgiving too much, though we have so much forgiven us.
The real answer to Peter’s question, which will come into focus next week a bit more clearly is this: You can stop forgiving your repentant brother once your are comfortable with the idea that God can stop forgiving you.
Objections:
- What if the brother is NOT repentant?
- Does this mean forgive and forget?
- Is there ANY limit to our forgiveness?