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Sermon
The Gospel of Matthew

The Need to Forgive

Listen on

May 10, 2026
Matthew 18:21-35
Steven Lee
Pastor for Preaching & Vision

Forgiveness

Grace

Marriage

Transcript

0:16Well, praise God for those dedications and praise God for His word. Why don't we go to Him in prayer as we look at His word? Join me as we pray. Father, we're asking that you would come in the power of your Spirit and give us eyes to see the truth of your word, and then hearts to respond to the wonder of who you are and all that you've accomplished through Christ. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

0:50There's a book called "The Sunflower," where Holocaust survivor Simon Wiesenthal recounts his experience in a concentration camp during World War II. And while assigned to clean a military hospital, he was brought to the bedside of a dying Nazi soldier who was only 22 years old. The soldier's face was covered in pus-soaked bandages, and the soldier confessed his horrific crimes against the Jews. And he says that he needs a Jew's forgiveness before he dies. And so gripping Simon's hand, this is what he says: "I know that what I have told you is terrible. In the long nights while I have been waiting for death, time and time again, I have longed to talk about it to a Jew and beg forgiveness from him.

1:50I know that what I am asking is almost too much for you, but without your answer, I cannot die in peace." How do you think Simon responded? Simon remained completely silent. He said nothing, and then he left the room, never to return again. The second half of the book compiles responses from various survivors of the Holocaust and Jewish leaders and others, asking the question: what would you have done if you were in his situation? Should Simon have forgiven him? Did he even have the right to grant forgiveness in such a situation? And one of the contributors writes this: "Simon Wiesenthal was right in not granting forgiveness.

2:49I doubt very much that my God would grant him forgiveness." That contributor's conclusion stands in stark contrast to Jesus' teaching on forgiveness here this morning. Last week, we saw the importance of church discipline and one-on-one confrontation when there's sin and a broken relationship, and its aim is love and reconciliation, ultimately for the goal of restoration. This week's passage reveals that when one such wanderer repents, we are to graciously forgive. Notice the parallel between last week's passage and this week's passage. Look at verse 15. It says, "If your brother sins against you," and then now look at verse 21. Peter says, "How often will my brother sin against me?" So Peter's question grows out of Jesus' teaching on how to bring loving confrontation to one another. And this morning, this parable teaches us a very simple lesson that is very difficult to apply.

4:03The main point is that the forgiven forgive. The forgiven forgive. Those who have received forgiveness from God for their immeasurable debt, for all of their sins, will in turn be the type of people who grant forgiveness to others. And failure to forgive others means that we have failed to understand, failed to grasp what forgiveness truly is. And so it's very simple and yet very hard this morning. And the aim of this text is both individual and corporate. Individually, believers should be ready to forgive when someone else asks of our forgiveness. And corporately, the church should be ready to forgive when one who wanders away, who strays, who's perhaps even put under church discipline, comes back, repents, and confesses. The church should forgive.

5:09You could say the church is to be a community marked by the transformative power of forgiveness. The church is to be a community that is marked by this transformative power of forgiveness. And so we're going to look at our passage in three parts. We get the measure of forgiveness, we get the motive for forgiveness, and then we get the warning against unforgiveness. So the measure, the motive, and then the warning. So look with me at verses 21 and 22. Here we get the measure of forgiveness. "Then Peter came up and said to him, 'Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?' And Jesus said to him, 'I do not say to you seven times, but 77 times.'" So Peter wants to know, how often do I need to forgive? And the background for this is that it was a common Jewish debate among rabbisAnd they look at texts like Amos 2:6 and Job 33:29. Let me read for you Job 33:29. Just listen. It says, "Behold, God does all these things twice, three times with a man." Well, what does he do? He says, "To bring back his soul from the pit, that he may be lighted with the light of life." So it sounds like God forgives two, even three times. And then Amos says, "For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment," meaning I'm not going to forgive.

6:46And so these rabbis would be having this debate. Well, if someone sins against you three times, you got to forgive, but on the fourth time, you don't have to forgive. I don't think that's what either of those verses mean, but that's the debate that was going on. And so Peter goes well above and beyond. How about seven times, Lord? Well, Peter's question implies that forgiveness has limits. How many chances do I give my offending brother? At what point can I refuse to forgive? At what point have they kind of exhausted my forgiveness, my patience, worn out their welcome? And this is not the first time that Jesus has taught about forgiveness.

7:27If you'll remember back to the Lord's Prayer in the Sermon on the Mount, what does Jesus teach there? He says, "Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors." Not only do we ask the Lord to forgive us, but we are to forgive other people. He follows that up three verses later, and he says, "If you do not forgive others their trespasses," what will happen? "Neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." Being forgiven means that it's unthinkable to refuse others forgiveness. You could say that one evidence of childlike humility that's being called for at the beginning of chapter 18 is a forgiving spirit.

8:15So Peter wants to know how many times. What does Jesus say? 77 times. The expression here could either mean 77 or 70 times 7, which would be 490. In either case, I don't think it's about a specific number. Jesus is actually calling for boundless or unceasing forgiveness. In other words, are our hearts in the right place? And I think there's almost even an allusion to Genesis 4:24. If you'll remember, Lamech makes this boast about 77-fold vengeance, and here Jesus is calling for 77-fold forgiveness. This is a call for unlimited forgiveness, or in the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 13, "Love keeps no record of wrongs." So it's not about the number, but rather the disposition of our hearts.

9:15I think that's what Jesus is trying to get at. So practically, what does this mean? It means that when others ask for your forgiveness, you ought to forgive them. It's very simple. And yet we know that this is where things start to get murky. You can begin to think of all the particular situations in your life that you've experienced. What if they don't seem to mean it? Do I still have to forgive them then? What if they keep sinning against me? What if they keep doing it? Does forgiveness undermine justice or eliminate civil or criminal consequences? One way to navigate this, I think, is to understand both the vertical and the horizontal dimensions of forgiveness. The vertical dimension is between the Lord and us. And so when we say that we forgive those who sin against us, we're entrusting that justice and judgment is in the hands of the Lord.

10:17We refuse to harbor bitterness or anger or malice. This is a posture of forgiveness. It's like Jesus who says on the cross, as he was hanging there, "Forgive them for they know not what they do," despite no repentance from those who crucified him. And yet, there is this horizontal dimension of forgiveness as well, what we often think of as interpersonal reconciliation, and this aims to mend the broken relationship, which is conditioned upon, it requires the offender's repentance. If they repent, then we must forgive. And if horizontal forgiveness is granted, though, it doesn't always mean that trust is continued to be extended. It needs to be rebuilt over time. It needs to have an ongoing pattern of life.

11:10There may still be natural or civil or even criminal consequences. If you commit adultery, it might result in a pregnancy or an STD. Stealing could lead to an arrest. It's also important to note that the offending party should avoid weaponizing this text to demand forgiveness. Well, if you're a Christian, you have to forgive me. Look at what the Bible says. That is not the disposition of humility and of repentance that the Bible is calling for. And so one area of application for many of us here this morning is marriage. Chances are you will sin the most and be sinned against the most by your spouse.

11:59If you sin against your spouse once a day, and I think that's a conservative estimate. At least it is for me. And if you sin against your spouse once a day, 365 days a year, and you're married for 50 years, you will have sinned against your spouse 18,250 times.No wonder marital conflict can be so destructive and painful. And we laugh because some of those sins may be low level and minor, but some of those sins can be serious, and painful, and damaging. And this text is calling us to stop keeping count. How much marital pain would be eliminated if we stopped replaying past offenses that have been forgiven?

12:49If we stop using never and always when we're having a conversation about one another's sin. That's the one piece of pre-marital advice that has stayed with me to this day. Don't use never and always when arguing. Stop making things fair. Marriage is not fair. Marriage is marked by painful, sacrificial forgiveness. So we are to be the type of people who forgive 78 times, 491 times, or 18,251 times. What the Lord is calling for is this boundless, infinite forgiveness when others repent. And the glory of the new covenant, the glory of the gospel, is that Jesus has been merciful toward our iniquities, and he will remember our sins no more.

13:46That's Hebrews 8:12. So that is the call for us to forgive. Now we move to the motive for forgiveness. Here we have this pretty straightforward parable, and we can divide it into three scenes. You could have the king and his servant in these opening verses, and then the servant and his fellow servant, and then you get the king reversing his decision. So we'll look at scene one. Look with me at verses 23 to 27. "Therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold with his wife and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.' And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt."

14:47So, very straightforward. King is settling his accounts, and this one servant owes him a large sum of money. A talent would've been the amount of weight a soldier could carry on his back in gold or silver, so 75 to 100 pounds of silver or gold. And so by modern estimates, the debt would amount to billions and billions of dollars. Your footnote might say a talent was a monetary unit worth about 20 years' worth of wages. If we used sort of a conservative estimate for an ounce of gold, it would probably be $51 billion. It's an impossibly large debt. It would take a day laborer 200,000 years to earn back that money, or 4,000 lifetimes. So this massive debt portrays this man's spiritual bankruptcy before the Lord.

15:45So the king orders his possessions to be confiscated, his family to be sold into slavery. It wouldn't even begin to scratch the debt, just to begin to repay it, but it would've been a punishment that would've been just. And the man begs for patience, and what does he say? "I will pay you everything," which is clearly not true. So we see either desperate or dishonest bargaining here. There's no way, in any way, shape, or form, is this man going to pay back his debt. He either underestimates the size of his debt or overestimates his ability to make money. And yet this shows how ridiculous it is to bargain with God over the scope of our sins. If you talk to people who believe in other religious systems and you say, "If there's a God and you meet him at your death, and he says, 'Why should I let you in?' What will you say?" And very often people will say, "I expect that my good deeds will have outweighed my bad deeds."

16:54And this parable begins to show us the level of debt that we have built up with our sin. But the story has this surprising twist. Under normal circumstances, the king would ignore his pleas, throw him in jail, and that would be the end of it. But contrary to expectation, this king shows great compassion, forgives the entire debt. This is almost reckless in some ways. And the servant is undeserving of such mercy, and yet the king still forgives. So the first lesson of this opening part of the parable is that God in Christ has shown his amazing grace and undeserved mercy to wretched sinners who have built up an enormously large debt with our sins. Now we move to scene two.

17:44You might expect that the story ends right there. The man is filled with joy and gratitude, and he spends his day just floating up and down the streets praising the goodness of this king, right? That's what we expect. Well, look with me at 28 to 30. "But when the same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him 100 denari, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, 'Pay what you owe.' So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you.'" Same type of begging that was done earlier. Verse 30, "He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt."So this servant owes him 100 denarii, about three months' worth of wages. And compared to the debt forgiven, this is 600,000 times smaller.

18:41He seizes him, chokes him, demands immediate repayment, and he begs just like that man begged earlier, and yet he does not show mercy. He throws him into prison, probably because he can't sell him into slavery, because the price wouldn't have matched. And throwing him into prison, his family and friends would have to come and pay his debt so that he could then be released. So what's the lesson in scene two? That this servant has learned nothing from being on the receiving end of such lavish and gracious, merciful forgiveness. It's utterly unthinkable to be unmerciful when you've been shown such mercy.

19:28If we have been forgiven 600,000 sins, are we then unwilling to forgive a single one against us? Second, the man views the debts that he owes as small, but the debts owed to him as big. This is often just like us when we think of our own sins, aren't they? The sins against us are big, but the sins we commit against God, well, those are just small little ones that can be forgiven. Third thing we see, the servant fails to apply the golden rule from Matthew 7:12. So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them. So now we come to scene three, verses 31 to 34. The king reverses his decision.

20:23When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, "You wicked servant. I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me, and should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?" And in anger, his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt. Fellow servants see this, they're distraught, they're distressed. This isn't the way it should be. They tell the master. The master calls the servant wicked and condemns him, and this reveals the point of the parable.

21:14Those who have experienced God's mercy and forgiveness must be those who show mercy and forgiveness. Those who have experienced God's transformative mercy and forgiveness in our own lives must be those who turn around and have that same disposition towards others. One scholar says forgiveness not shown is forgiveness not known. Forgiveness must have a transformative effect upon our souls. If you're unwilling to forgive others, you may not be forgiven, and you may not know God. I think that's the very simple point. The master hands the servant over to the jailers to be tortured until his debt is repaid.

22:07So the servant was on the receiving end of mercy and forgiveness, and now he's on the receiving end of wrath and judgment. The point of the parable is that failing to forgive after being forgiven is wicked. That's what we're to see. We might see it as, well, no big deal. What they did to me was really wrong. I can harbor a bitterness, a grudge. I'm not forgiving them. That's not as bad as committing adultery, and greed, and lust. And what God is showing is, no, no, no. A failure to forgive may keep you out of the kingdom. It's that serious. It's like blasphemy, idolatry, murder, and adultery. So the lesson of scene three is that failing to forgive as we have been forgiven will prove that we are not God's humble children, and we will face his judgment.

23:06So we come now to the warning against unforgiveness in verse 35. This is more or less the conclusion. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. So Jesus concludes with this very sobering warning. Failing to forgive means that we are outside of God's family. Those who do not forgive will face torment or end-time judgment, and this echoes James 2:13. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. The standard we will be judged by on that final day will be without mercy if we have been people who have consistently shown that we show no mercy.

24:00This forgiveness is to be from the heart. You see that in verse 35. Sincerity. You can't just fake it. "Fine, I'll forgive you. I'm not happy about it." That's not forgiveness. Or stated positively, true disciples of Jesus who have been forgiven much will eagerly forgive smaller offenses against them. And all the offenses against us, no matter how serious they are, in the grand scheme of things, are ultimately small compared to our offense against an infinitely holy God.This does not mean that the basis of our forgiveness from God is our forgiveness of others. We don't earn our forgiveness. Rather, our willingness to forgive is evidence that we truly understand the grace of God, and it's transformed our lives.

24:58We begin to see the greatness of our sin, and this is why this is perhaps so rare and so difficult in our world. Sin has been made small. Interpersonal sin, that might be big, but offenses against the infinitely holy God, well, He'll forgive us. I can just sin again because He's going to be gracious. He'll forgive me. He loves me. It's impossible that He wouldn't love me. True disciples are transformed by mercy to be merciful. We have begun to see the greatness of our sin against an infinitely holy God, the immeasurable debt that we have accrued, and our complete and total inability to repay that debt, to atone for our own sins.

25:47So our main point is that the forgiven forgive. The forgiven forgive. Jesus is calling for this boundless or unlimited forgiveness. Those unwilling to forgive have failed to experience the transformative nature of forgiveness. Or one pastor has said, "Never are you more like God than when you forgive." Never are you more like God than when you forgive. And while this is a simple truth this morning, this is a really hard command. I know some of you here in this room have been treated very unjustly. Some have been irreparably harmed or financially destroyed. Some have suffered abuse at the hands of someone who should have protected you.

26:45Some have been violated and their innocence taken. Some have been blamed and lied to or betrayed again and again, or for years or decades. And so I don't want to minimize sin. The sins against you are real, and they're serious, and the scars for many of us run deep. Our world is deeply broken, and many of us wear these wounds of the offenses against us. And we have sinned and wronged others as well. And so I know there's all sorts of questions that come in a text like this. How do we know when repentance is real? How do I reconcile a relationship when trust has been betrayed, or they haven't yet repented, or they've repented of some of it, but not all of it?

27:42What if I'm not ready to forgive? What if I can't just get there? Does this mean things like a lawsuit or criminal prosecution or even church discipline should continue, or should it stop even if I forgive someone? I'm not going to answer all those questions. Let me encourage you to talk to your elder or grab a pastor to work through some of those specific situations or talk about it in your small group. While there are no easy answers when it comes to forgiveness, Jesus' teaching is crystal clear. Reflect the merciful and long-suffering heart of your Heavenly Father. We are to be more and more like Jesus and more and more like God.

28:32Matthew 5:44, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Or Matthew 5:48, "Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect." And so this morning, be slow to justify why you don't need to forgive someone. Forgiveness does not negate true justice and real consequences, such as prison potentially, or financial compensation, or church discipline. Forgiveness does not mean that we immediately restore them to a position of authority or influence or trust. We don't allow someone guilty of stealing to collect the offering. If someone borrows money and fails to repay, you can forgive them.

29:21You don't have to lend them money again or let them borrow your car. If someone has repeatedly lied, we may be slow to believe later confessions. We may need to establish boundaries where trust has been betrayed. Forgiveness may take time. It may take years of counseling. And even those who refuse to repent, we need to get to a place, vertically at least, so that we can desire their good. Romans 12:18 says, "If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all." We are to overcome evil with good. And yet our world sees forgiveness as weakness or just for sort of your psychological, emotional healing.

30:10And what Jesus shows us in this teaching is that forgiveness is rooted in one place and one place only, in His sacrificial death for sinners. We don't just forgive ourselves, and we can't forgive others unless we truly understand how much we have sinned against an infinitely holy God, and that He's forgiven us. And then we, in turn, extend difficult, painful forgiveness to others who have wronged us.And every sin will be held to account. That we can be sure of. Ecclesiastes 12:14 says, "For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil." Every sin will be accounted for.

31:04You can take that to the bank. It will either be paid for by Jesus on the cross, and he will provide more than sufficient payment for those sins, or it will be punished in hell for all eternity. No sin will escape judgment. Every word, thought, and deed will be accounted for. So how do we possess the merciful and forgiving heart of the Father? I have one application for us this morning. Be amazed at the grace of God in forgiving your sins. Be amazed at the grace of God in forgiving your sins this morning. Look how much you've been forgiven. Meditate upon how great a debt we have been forgiven. Consider Psalm 103:12, "As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us."

32:08The Lord does not hold our sins against us. He doesn't pull it out and say, "But what about this? You still did this." He wipes it clean. Isaiah 53:6, "The Lord has laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all." Or Isaiah 1:18, "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool." For all those who are putting their hope and trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, we will one day stand in his presence, clothed in white robes that will signify no sins are held against us. No little tiny oil stain, no little blood stain. We will have been washed clean.

32:57Revelation 7:14 says that, "These robes have been washed white in the blood of the Lamb." How amazing is that? His blood turns our robes white. We are to marvel this morning, God's good pleasure in giving us his Son for the forgiveness of sins. What was Jesus' mission? What did he come to do? He came as the Lamb of God to provide forgiveness of sins. Jesus came to reconcile a fallen humanity. God was not stingy in giving us his Son. He wasn't resentful like, "Good grief, they did it again. We've got to find a way to fix it." He said, "I know you weren't going to be able to follow my law perfectly. All of it was pointing to the perfect solution that would come in the person and work of Jesus.

33:56This has been planned before the foundation of the world because I knew you couldn't do it, but I can, and I'm happy, overjoyed to provide my Son as the atonement for your sin." He lavishes his grace upon us, makes us objects of his mercy. It's like a dad takes his family out for a fancy dinner. He might be tempted to say, "Kids, don't you know how expensive this was? I want you to really appreciate it." God doesn't say, "Look how expensive this was." He just lavishes his grace upon us and says, "I love to bless my children with forgiveness of sins because there's no other way apart from the infinite blood of Jesus, the infinitely worthy blood of Jesus."

34:50Think. How many sins do you think you commit every waking hour? Don't say it out loud. How many sins do you think you commit every waking hour? There are sins of omission, good things we fail to do, so include those in there, such as a failure to pray without ceasing, a failure to trust God at all times, a failure to bless the Lord always, failing to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, failing to give thanks in all circumstances and in all situations. We fail to meditate on his Word constantly, like the Psalm 1 man. We fail to set our minds on things above. And then there's the things of commission, things we actually do that are wrong, whether your mind or thought or actually action.

35:43Lust and greed and anger, idolatry, pride, self-righteousness, hypocrisy, loving the world, sinful apathy, grumbling, envy, bitterness, anxious unbelief, self-ambition, corrupting talk, gossip, lying, flattery, quarreling, boasting, dishonoring your parents, showing partiality, sexual immorality, drunkenness, gluttony, and I could go on. If we sin five times every waking hour, and again, I think it's a conservative estimate, if we sin five times every waking hour, you're awake 16 hours of every day, and you live to 65, you will have sinned 1.8 million times. And the wonder of the gospel is that Jesus does not keep count for those who are his children.

36:49The record of debt that stands against us, Jesus nailed to the cross, taking away its shame and its punishment. He remembers our sins no more. And so when we're tempted to be angry, maybe angry at your spouse, can't believe they did it again. That's so disrespectful. You forgot Mother's Day, whatever it may be, we recall the hundreds and thousands and millions of times that we have been greatly forgiven by God, and we think, "Oh, I can't believe you forgive me for all those things, all the ways that I've sinned against you. When I knew what was right, and I still sinned. The things that I shouldn't have been rescued from." The Lord was gracious.

37:42Jesus loves to apply his blood to wash us clean. And so despite real and serious wrongs against us, how much more have we been forgiven? So come under the waterfall of grace this morning, and then in turn, be those who show that forgiveness, show that grace and mercy to others as well. Let's pray. Father, bring us under that ever-flowing waterfall of grace that flows from Jesus' side that cleanses us, and help us to be the people, the type of people, who truly know forgiveness. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Jump to live

Jump to live

Sermon Text

Matthew 18:21-35

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