Hard Sayings of Jesus: Forgive 77 Times

1947 she is there preaching and teaching across Germany and the message she is giving is this. we confess our sins, God cast them into the deepest ocean, gone forever. And even though I cannot find a scripture for it she would teach, I believe God then places a sign out there that says, no fishing allowed. But after one such sermon in 1947, it happened. A gentleman after the sermon comes up to Kari. He approaches her. He's wearing an overcoat, a dark brown hat, but in her mind's eye there's a flashback to a blue uniform, a cap and visor with skull and crossbones on it. And she's transported back to Ravensbrook because this man was one of the guards, one of the cruelest there. In her mind's eye, in her mind's eye, she sees this guard there at a table with her and her sister Betsy naked before

the guard. Parchment thin skin.

And now this guard is standing before her, this former guard. And he comes up to her and he says, that was a great message. How good it is to know that as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea. You mentioned Ravensbrook in your there, but since that time I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well, Fraulein. Will you forgive me? And he sticks out his hand. And I'll tell you what her reply was at the end of the lesson.

but if you have your Bibles, let's turn to Matthew. Yes, sir.

No, sir.

How about let me do that at the end of the class if you don't mind. Okay, that'd be great.

If you have your Bibles, let's turn to Matthew

chapter 18.

Verse 21. Verse 21.

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. 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 to 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.

servant, he said, I canceled all the 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. This is how my heavenly father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart. Let's pray. Lord, today I pray that as help us to better understand what you want us to be and how you want us to be and how you want us to relate to one another when we have longed one another. And I pray that you will help us to see the deep forgiveness you have given us and may we be more forgiving toward one another.

For it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Well in this particular passage we have just, if you read the passage preceding the text I just read, we're dealing with the issue of church discipline, where Christ gives an instruction about how do you deal with someone who has sinned against you within the body of Christ, and he gives a procedure for dealing with sin within the body of Christ. But then, as soon as he finishes that teaching on church discipline, Peter comes to him and says, how many times should I forgive my brother. And in the context of this passage, I think we're dealing primarily with how do we deal with forgiving one another within the body of Christ. It's not to say that these teachings do not apply to others outside the body, but primarily I think Jesus is giving us a teaching about how do we deal with the relationships personally between one another within the body of Christ. And the big question that he's answering initially is how are we to respond when others, particularly believers, repeatedly sin against us individually?

Now there's an assumption here in the text and the assumption is that brothers and sisters will sin against us. It's just the reality of life, is it not, that in human relationships we just sometimes treat those nearest us badly and sometimes it's those who are closest to us who we hurt the most is that not true how many of us have said things to our spouses or done things to our spouses we should never have done and maybe they get the brunt of our sinfulness more than anyone else how about toward our children how about within the body of christ it's sometimes those closest to us that we hurt and And Christ knows that, and he assumes that we have to deal with this issue. There's also a teaching here behind Peter's question. Lord, how many times should I forgive? Seven times?

Well, the rabbis in Jesus' day taught that you were to forgive a person three times, but then you did not forgive the fourth. The rabbis put a limit on forgiveness, and sort of their philosophy was, well, you can forgive too much. Fourth, no forgiveness. So Peter in his question said, hey, I'll be generous. How about seven times?

Jesus is sort of that perfect number. Surely that's a reasonable number of times to forgive. And what is Jesus' response? Well, Jesus' response is, that's not enough. In fact, Jesus says 77 times is what is required.

Some of the older translations have 70 times 7, is 77 times is what we're to give. And the idea here is that we are to always be forgiving and to keep on forgiving. We are to have an overwhelming forgiveness that we give to people. In this number 77, there's an allusion back to an Old Testament passage where Lamech was talking about revenge. And he was telling his two wives, if anybody does a wrong to Lamech, to me, I'm going to avenge the wrong 77 times.

I'm going to really make somebody pay if they wrong me. And Jesus, when he responds to Peter, is using that number 77 but going to the other extreme and saying you should be overwhelmingly and repeatedly forgiving when you're dealing with people who have wronged you. On another occasion, Jesus would say in Luke 17, verses 3 to 4, if your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, then seven times you should forgive him. And again, the point is that we are to be repeatedly and overwhelmingly forgiving.

We are not to be paltry in the amount of forgiveness that we give to someone who has wronged us. What does it mean to forgive? This word in the Greek language carried a lot of connotations, but it has the idea of pardoning someone, sort of like a judge can pardon someone for an offense, or a governor can pardon a criminal. It has the idea of canceling a debt that is owed. has the idea of sending something away. It's a picture of sending away the wrong that has been done to you or letting it go or leaving it behind. Isn't that a great picture? Somebody wronged you, you're just supposed to let it go. Leave it behind. Not carry it with you.

The picture is of a letting go and a canceling and putting away of this wrong that has been done to you. Jesus is after this kind of pardon and he's after a pardon that comes from the heart. In verse 35 of the text we just went through, you will see that Jesus makes a point. He's after forgiveness that comes from the heart. In other words, it's not just an outward forgiveness where you say the words, but it is an inward reality. We really do forgive the other person from the depths of our heart. Some of us are sort of like the little boy named Johnny who had been wronged by his brother Willie during the day. Willie had broken his toy and Johnny was so furious with Willie as he was going to bed and his mom was there saying his bedtime prayers with Johnny and Johnny just wasn't willing to forgive Willie for breaking his toy and his mom said to him, But Johnny, what if Willie were to die tonight and you weren't to see your brother ever again after tonight?

Wouldn't you feel badly that you had not forgiven him? And Johnny said, okay, Mom, I forgive him. And then Johnny thought a moment and he looked at his mom and he said, but if Willie's alive in the morning, I'm going to kill him.

Aren't we sort of like that? sometimes we will say the words, but boy, we'll hold the grudge. Jesus is after letting go, not carrying the grudge with us.

Don't let it eat at you. Give it away. Let it go. Put it behind you. Claire Barton, who was the founder of the American Red Cross, was once reminded by a friend of a cruel wrong that had been done to Clara Barton earlier in her life.

And Clara was sort of having a hard time recalling the event. And her friend said, surely you remember this cruel act that was done to you by this other person. And Clara Barton said, I distinctly remember forgetting that event. And what she was saying was, I let it go. It's not that she didn't remember it all, but she let it go.

She put it behind her. She let it go. Well, why are we to be so forgiving? Jesus tells us what we are to do, but why are we to be so forgiving of others? I'm going to give you three answers here.

My first answer is we are to be forgiving because Christ commands it. Because Christ commands it. How often are you to be forgiving? 77 times unlimited forgiveness basically Christ commands this so if someone wrongs us and we have a situation where we have to look at forgiveness we don't need to pray about whether or not we should forgive we don't need to have a long discussion about it we don't need to go counsel with friends about whether or not we should forgive or not forgive Christ has given us the answer is forgive. And sometimes it helps me in my Christian walk to know I have no real options if I want to obey Christ. There's only one option. And Christ leaves us no options here folks. It's forgive is the only right answer. So I'm not saying it's easy but I'm saying it's clear what we are to do and now that it's clear and since he is our king and since we live under his authority if we're believers in the Lord Jesus Christ let's forgive let's let it go let's put it behind us the second reason that we should forgive is because we have been forgiven so much by our Heavenly Father. And he tells us this long story about the master and the unmerciful servant.

Remember the story? The master is settling his account. He has a servant that owes him 10,000 talents. And the servant asks for the debt to be forgiven and the master forgives. But then that same servant goes out to someone who owes him 100 denarii. And this servant is not willing to forgive 100 denarii, even though he's been forgiven 10,000 talents by the master. Now this talents and denarii is a little hard for us to compute, so let me help you. The master gives this, makes the forgiveness of 10,000 talents. The unmerciful servant refuses to forgive 100 denarii. A denarius, Jesus' day was equal to the wage of a laborer for one day.

One talent equaled 6,000 denarii. So, the master forgave 10,000 talents, which equals 60 million denarii. In other words, the master forgave 60 million denarii, the unmerciful servant would not forgive 100.

Or in other terms, the master forgave 200,000 years worth of wages.

And the unmerciful servant would not forgive about three months wages.

200,000 years worth of wages forgiven the servant wouldn't forgive three months later what's the point? the point is the master has forgiven you and me a lot all the wrongs we have done against our heavenly father he has forgiven us if we come to him in faith if we have come to him in faith. We have been forgiven much, so we should be prepared to forgive others. The problem is we are often like,

the debt was 800,000 times larger than what the unmerciful servant was willing to forgive. The problem we have is that we sometimes are unwilling to forgive even small offenses that others do to us. servant. We forget how much we've been forgiven and we hold on to these little grudges and just do not let them go. But the point of the parable is we have been forgiven so much that we should be willing to forgive others who have offended us. As Paul said in Colossians 3.13, bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another.

Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

So that's the second reason to forgive. The third reason is because we wish for our heavenly Father to forgive us. Did you see what the text said in verse 35 of our passage?

Remember what he did to the unmerciful servant? back and found the unmerciful servant who was unwilling to forgive and the master says the unmerciful servant okay you're going to get some of your own medicine and the master turns the unmerciful servant over to the jailers to be tortured the text says and then Jesus ends with this ominous warning this is how my heavenly father will treat each of you unless you forgive from your heart.

Those are strong words. He turned the unmerciful servant over to the jailers so that the unmerciful servant could be tortured.

The text of Scripture tells us in other places That Jesus and the Father will judge us based on how we have judged others. Luke 6.37 says this. Do not judge and you will not be judged. Do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven.

And then in the Lord's Prayer. What do we pray in the Lord's Prayer? Forgive us our debts or trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us or against those who owe us debts. But then Jesus goes on to say right after the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6, For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

I'm pressing this, folks. I think there is a real relationship between how we forgive others and how our Heavenly Father will relate to us in the judgment. I think the text of Scripture tells us that. Now, hold that thought. A good illustration of this was John Wesley, the great, he was an Anglican preacher, but ultimately the Methodist church would come out of the work he did.

He was talking to a gentleman from Georgia named John Oglethorpe, and John Oglethorpe told Wesley, I never forgive. And Wesley looked at Oglethorpe and said, then, sir, I hope that you never sin.

Aren't we saved by faith in Christ on the basis of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross? The answer is yes. But if we have experienced true forgiveness from our Heavenly Father, we will be merciful to others. And if we are not merciful, if we are unmerciful toward others, it is a good indicator that we have not experienced the overwhelming forgiveness that the Father gives to those who truly come to him in faith and repentance. So it is not changing scripture's teaching about its faith by which we are saved, but how we forgive others is a good indicator of whether or not we have truly put our faith in Christ and repented.

so if we are unforgiving we can expect that we're not going to receive the forgiveness from the heavenly father if we are forgiving it's a good indicator that we are in Christ have experienced his forgiveness and when we stand before the father we too will be forgiven but let's look let's test our forgiveness how forgiving are we it's an important question to know if we have truly experienced the forgiveness of the heavenly father And let me go to our lessons for life. The happiest people forgive more. I don't know how many times in my legal career I have talked to people who were so tied up in knots over the way somebody treated them in the past and they just could not let it go.

We need to be able to let these things go, not let them hold us. Just forget. Dance again without the burden. Enjoy life without the burden. Secondly, let the past remain in the past.

A man was telling his friend about an argument he had had with his wife and the husband said, I hate it. Every time we have an argument, she gets historical. His friend said, you mean hysterical. He said, no, I mean historical. Every time we argue, she drags up everything from the past and holds it against me.

Every person, one writer wrote, should have a special cemetery lot in which to bury the faults of friends and loved ones. We need to put the past in the past. We need to bury it and we need to leave it there. And sometimes that lesson is most important right at home.

Do we forgive and forget or do we keep reminding?

I've reminded Louise about a few things in the past.

It's easy to hang on to that stuff. We need to let it be in the past. Third lesson. Forgiveness, Mark Twain said, is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.

you want to put a sweet fragrance on a difficult situation you be the one who forgives even someone who is wrong and it's a sweet fragrance in the air when you forgive fourthly, to end a fight forgive you don't need to win every battle and get it your way forgive That's the quickest way to end the quarrel. The reason we so often have quarrels continue is because no one is ever willing to forgive. We see that on the national and international level, don't we? These old hatreds and old hurts and old pains, nobody will forgive. But we see it at the personal level as well.

Fifth lesson, we cannot rightly worship the forgiver, capital F if we are unforgiving time and again Christ and scripture and the scriptures compel us that if we have something against our brother and sister in Christ before we come to the altar we need to go and get it right

because there's something about unreconciled

differences an unforgiving spirit heeds our ability to enjoy worship with the Father. Is that not true? Avery Willis, who was the writer of the series we call Master Life, told how he went and spoke in the church one time, and he could tell as he spoke there was clearly something wrong within the church, and he began to notice as he spoke over a series of days, all the people who sat on one side always sat on one side, and all people who sat on the other sat on the other, and they never talked to each other across that aisle. And he finally asked what happened. Well, what had happened is back in the past, years and years ago, one person on one side had shot and killed a cow of a family member on the other side of the aisle, and all the family members on that side of the aisle would never get along with those on this side of the aisle.

And Avery went and got the two family leaders and said, until this is made right, until this is buried, there will never be God's blessing here in this church. And there was great reconciliation. Those two family leaders saw it. with one another, the families reconciled, and then there begin to be new life in the church. Sometimes in the church we have to deal with this unreconciled problem in order to have God's blessing.

Sixthly, remember the example of Jesus Christ and ask the Spirit to help make your spirit forgiving. Remember the passion of the Christ? Christ on the cross? Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.

He is our example. But that forgiving spirit internally that we need comes from the spirit above. We need to ask for the power from that spirit to help us, to infill us, indwell us, so that we can properly forgive. And then lastly, I would encourage us to sing, It is Well with My Soul. And particularly that verse that says, My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin, not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more.

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul. He has forgiven us much. We should be more forgiven.

well as the guard from Ravensbrook held out his hand to Kari Ten Boom

Kari said it seemed like hours before she responded and as she stood there watching his extended hand in front of her she prayed Jesus help me I can lift my hand I can do that much You, Lord, you supply the feeling. And she writes that she woodenly and mechanically thrust her hand into his. And as she did, she said an incredible thing took place. She said the current started in my shoulder, raced down my arms, sprang into our joined hands, and then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes. Then she cried out, I forgive you, brother.

With all my heart, I forgive you. And as she said that, she said she realized it was not by her power that she had uttered those words of forgiveness, but it was the power of the Spirit from above. She said, I had never known God's love so intensely as I did at that moment when I finally forgave. It's a good lesson for us to remember. May we forgive.

Sometimes those who seem unforgivable because of the way they've treated us, but in the spirit of Christ, may we be forgiven. Let's pray. Lord, this day I pray that

where there are unreconciled conflicts within families that are represented here or within this class or within this church that we will be agents of reconciliation who are willing to take the first step who are willing to say, I forgive I put it in the past and I pray Lord that you will bless that attitude of forgiveness that from it you will bring healing and wholeness and I pray from that Lord that you will get the glory and the honor because you are the greatest of all forgivers and for that we sing your praises hallelujah, hallelujah praise the Lord because we are forgiven for it's in Christ's name we pray amen