Learning to Forgive
Learning how to forgive someone can be one of the most difficult things for us to figure out. When we get hurt, we want the other person to pay. We want them to hurt because they made us hurt. We want them to suffer because they made us suffer.
My friend Britney spent 13 years in the foster care system. Her dad spent most of his life in prison, and when she was 5 years old, her mom took her to the CPS office, where she dropped her and her siblings off and said, “I don’t want them anymore. You keep them.” And then without even so much as a goodbye or I love you, she turned around and walked out.
How do you get over that? She’ll tell you that the 13 years that followed were the toughest years of her life. She went to 16 different foster homes throughout that time. She was mistreated, abused, and had no control over things in her life.
Britney began to get angry and bitter. She began trying to hurt others before they could hurt her. She tried to control others and manipulate them. All the while, she was holding on to the bitterness and anger she felt towards her parents.
But God began to get a hold of her life. She became a Christian, and through much counseling, prayer, and the faithfulness of the man she married, Britney came to the place where she learned to forgive her parents.
That seems impossible. It doesn’t make sense for her to forgive those who hurt her so much and caused so much pain in her life, but it’s a great testimony to how Jesus works in our lives to teach us to forgive others. (You can watch Britney’s testimony here)
One of the places we learn this from Jesus is in the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant in Matthew 18. This is how it starts off in Matthew 18:21…
21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
HOW MANY TIMES ARE WE EXPECTED TO FORGIVE?
Peter assumes that there is a point at which we become exempt from having to forgive others who have wronged us.
And Peter actually had good reason to ask about a certain number of times we forgive because this was a common teaching among Jewish rabbis during this time.
“If a man commits a transgression, the first, second and third time he is forgiven, the fourth time he is not forgiven” (Yoma 86b).
So, most likely Peter had been taught that you are to forgive someone 3 times, but then after that, it’s time to make that person pay. And if that is the case, then Peter is actually being very generous here to ask if he should forgive his brother or sister up to 7 times.
I’m sure that Peter was even probably expecting a pat on the back. He might have figured that Jesus would respond, “Man Peter, you are such a great disciple for being willing to forgive someone up to 7 times. At-a-boy Peter, way to set the example!”
But look what Jesus says…
22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”
NO LIMIT ON FORGIVING OTHERS
Jesus tells Peter that he is to forgive his brother or sister 77 times! And there is some debate here about whether Jesus said 77 or 70 times 7, which of course would have been 490. Either way, it was a lot high number than Peter had anticipated!
And really, it’s not like Jesus was saying that on the 78th or 491st time that someone wrongs you that you don’t have to forgive them at that point.
What Jesus was saying is that there is no limit to the number of times we as citizens of heaven are expected to forgive people who hurt us.
Jesus knew that this would floor Peter and everyone else who was listening, so he takes this opportunity to share a parable with them to show why they are expected to live this way.
THE PARABLE OF THE UNFORGIVING SERVANT
In Matthew 18:23, Jesus begins to tell the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant or what is sometimes called the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant.
23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him.
The NIV translation here takes the liberty of saying it was gold. We don’t really know if it was gold or not. The original language tells us that they were “talents.” A talent was the highest-known denomination of currency in the ancient Roman Empire, and it was actually a measure of weight.
It could have been gold, silver, or copper; but either way, Jesus’ point is that this is a huge sum of money. Modern estimates for example could have been in the millions to trillions of dollars.
So, this was an enormous debt that this guy owed. I mean no way he could ever pay it back, which is what Jesus says next in verse 25…
25 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. 26 “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
Jesus is actually painting an incredible picture of the gospel with this story.
We are all the guy in the story who owes millions or trillions of dollars of debt. Because of our sin, we are in massive debt to the God of the universe.
When it comes to standing before a holy and perfect God, we are all in a position of deserving hell and in a debt to Him that we could never repay.
This is the whole reason Jesus came. We were never going to be able to get out of the debt we owed, so Jesus, out of His love for us came to pay the penalty for our sins.
And as we put our faith and trust in Him for salvation, our sins are forgiven and our debt is erased. But God doesn’t stop there.
Not only are we released of our debt, but we are also rewarded. We enter into a spiritual union with Jesus and are rewarded with a new identity and a new citizenship, and we become co-heirs with Him in regard to His inheritance.
What an incredible blessing to have our debt erased and to be given so much in Christ! But if we take our eyes off of our own forgiveness and blessings, we will not learn to forgive others who hurt us.
FOCUSING ON THE HURT LEADS TO ANGER AND UNFORGIVENESS
Jesus goes on in the telling of the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant and says this beginning in Matthew 18:28…
28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. 29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’ 30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt.
This servant was released from millions of dollars worth of debt, but apparently, all he could think about was how he had been wronged by someone else who owed him money too!
And the crazy thing is that it wasn’t even that much money compared to what he owed his master. Jesus said that this guy’s fellow servant owed him 100 denarii (NIV again takes the liberty of saying “sliver coins,” but the original text says “denarii). In modern terms, this could have been around $4,000, which is a considerable amount of money but not compared to the billions or trillions that this guy owed.
Focusing on the debt other people “owe us” from the way they wronged us, will lead to anger, bitterness, and a heart of unforgiveness.
Instead, Jesus teaches that as we focus on our own forgiveness and the debt that He paid, we will learn to forgive others who have sinned against us.
FORGIVE AS THE LORD FORGAVE YOU
Jesus continues telling the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant in Matthew 18:31 and says…
31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened. 32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’
As we said earlier, we are all the guy who owed millions of dollars in this story. Jesus tells this guy that because all his debt had been canceled that he should have had that same kind of mercy on his fellow servant. Therefore, the same thing applies to us today.
We are to forgive as the Lord has forgiven us. We are to show mercy and extend forgiveness when people have wronged us, hurt us, or caused us pain.
The reality is that in comparison to how big our debt was before God, whatever debt people “owe us” because of their sin against us is smaller than what we owed God.
So, the real key to learning to forgive others is to focus not on what they have done to us but on what God has done for us.
As we focus on our own forgiveness and all that we have in Christ, Jesus will empower us to forgive others.
This is the key to learning to forgive others. Don’t hold onto the hurt and trap yourself in bondage, instead focus on the forgiveness you have in Christ and experience the freedom and abundant Life you already have in union with Him