Good morning, friends. We’re going to invite our kids who are in kindergarten through fifth grade to head off to Sunday school so you can get your own lesson today. Hang out there, have some fun. Well, welcome. We’re glad you’re here this morning, especially to you students who are coming back. We’re glad you’re here. We always love the energy that you bring. And for those of you who are new, welcome to Community Covenant. My name is Brian Asker. I’m also one of the pastors here. Sandi and I are married and we pastor a community covenant church today together and we love doing life and ministry together.

But I got to be honest with you, when we were first married, I thought that all of the problems and well I should say all of the conflict, not all the problems, all of the conflict in our marriage was Sandi’s fault. I know you’re laughing because it’s ridiculous, right? But hear me out just for a moment, okay? All right, just for a moment, entertain me. Uh, you know, anytime that we would have a conflict that would arise, it was because Sandi would bring it up. She would tell me, you know, we’re having these problems, and I’d be like, okay, I’m sorry. I would apologize right away, immediately. And I was like, why can’t we just move on? Make this, you know, go away. Like, I didn’t bring up any problems. Like, there was nothing wrong as far as I was concerned. Everything was going great.

I’ve come to learn that I am a classic conflict avoider. Anybody else in the house? Yeah, a few of you out there. Okay. Well, I will let people stomp all over me before I say anything. And I might not ever say anything. And once somebody does bring a problem to me and make me aware of it, I am very quick to apologize and try to make things smooth out as quickly as possible. For me, my aim is to reduce the anxiety and the stress and the uncomfortable feeling that I have as quickly as possible in whatever means that I have to to get there.

Maybe you can relate. I want you to think about how you handle interpersonal conflict. Are you the classic conflict avoider like me? Are you the win at any cost kind of conflict person? Or are you the peace at any price kind of conflict, interpersonal conflict person? Or do you try to settle everything as quickly as possible? Or do you do something else? I want you to think about how do you handle interpersonal conflict?

At Community Covenant Church and probably for you as well, we believe that conflict is actually normal. It’s an everyday sort of thing. The reality is that in any relationship, given enough time, enough interpersonal connection and interaction, eventually we’re going to come to find that we’re at odds in some way, shape, or form, and conflict is going to arise. And the question is how are we going to handle that? And in some cases the conflict that arises, the thing that happens, the thing that is said cuts so deep. The question becomes, what do we do then? What do we do when it cuts so deep that we feel like we can’t move forward?

Well, today’s passage we’re going to talk about forgiveness. You’re all excited. I can see it in your faces. Well, this is part of our unbelief help my unbelief series. In ancient Jewish uh culture, belief and practice went handinand. They were interlin. You couldn’t separate them. In today’s modern world, we tend to think of things in our enlightenment of, you know, we can believe one thing but act a different way. But in Jewish culture, those things were linked together. And so, we’re working our way through a number of different beliefs that we struggle to practice. And so, forgiveness is one of them. Our theme verse is Mark 9 24, which a man, a father says to Jesus, I believe. Help my unbelief. And that’s what we’re doing with these. When it comes to forgiveness, we might believe in God. We might believe that Jesus has forgiven our sins, but we wonder, could I possibly forgive someone else? That seems impossible.

American uh psychology association says that forgiveness and I have this up on the screen I’m paraphrasing is a choice to let go of resentment towards the person who has harmed you and by letting go it then frees us to express compassion and generosity towards that person. But I think we all know forgiveness is hard. When someone betrays you, it is hard to let go. We want revenge. We want justice. When someone intentionally sabotages us, we want them to know what that feels like. And forgiveness is particularly hard when the offense happens over and over and over again. then it feels like it’s impossible to forgive.

So, we’re going to be in Matthew chapter 18 today, starting in verse 21. If you want to open up your Bibles, you can join us. We’re going to be in verse 21. I’m sorry, we’re going to be in the NIV version. Uh but any version, you can read along. Uh that should also be up on the screen here. So 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.” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but 77 times.”

All right. I like to pause early on in our passage just to kind of get us oriented in terms of where we are. And so, similarly here today, Jesus has been talking, doing some teaching about how to deal with sin in the church. And he’s talked about in verse 17 the idea that at some point in time there may be a sin that comes along that you literally will need to kick that person out of the church and they are no longer a part of the church. That’s pretty serious. We don’t do that very often. And so Peter is probably I’m imagining thinking like whoa that’s a kind of a big deal Jesus. Like what do we do until then? Like what if the behavior is kind of bad but not quite that bad? Like how many times do we need to forgive a person? Well, most rabbis would suggest at that time that three or four times was the number of times that you should forgive somebody and then at that point in time you could sort of let it go. So I sort of imagine Peter’s seven times is pretty generous. Double the amount, right? But uh and maybe I love this. I love to think about this. Maybe Peter’s trying to score some good student points, you know, like double the amount that the rabbis are.

But Jesus, uh response totally obliterates any number that we could imagine. He says we should forgive 77 times. That’s a lot. It’s possible maybe that you could count that high as you’re forgiving, but that’s not the point, right? So this number is actually connected back to Genesis uh chapter 4 where there’s a man named Lamech that boasts that if Cain is wounded and gets seven times sort of redemption then I get 77 times. In other words, we’re talking about pure vengeance. And Jesus flips that on its head using that kind of connection to the to the Genesis 4 idea and said, “What if we offered mercy the same number of times as Lamech took vengeance? That would be unthinkable, unimaginable.” So the point isn’t to count how many times you’ve forgiven. The point is that Jesus is actually telling us that forgiveness is unlimited.

You might be thinking, “That’s great, Brian, but what are we really talking about here? What is biblical forgiveness? We know what the, you know, American Psychological Association says.” Uh, well, the Greek word here that we see is aim, translated to forgiveness in our English, uh, versions here. And in this section, it literally means to send away or to let go or release, which is very similar to our American psychological definition. So, it connects there. Uh, and what we’re going to see in the parable that we follow is that Jesus is going to show us what this looks like in story form in this uh parable that he tells us. But you might miss that this show word actually shows up a few more times because in English now we’re going to see that aphim word gets translated to cancelled. So look for that as we read on. Also this parable is going to illustrate just how much it enables our generosity and our compassion when we actually do live into forgiveness. And it’s going to illustrate why unlimited forgiveness is so important. So pay attention to those things as we keep reading.

Verse 23. 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 10,000 bags of gold 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. At this, 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, cancelled the debt. There’s that ephe word. And let him go. Letting go.

I think it’s helpful anytime we look at a parable, and there’s going to be more to this parable that it’s a story that’s told to illustrate one main point. So, we’re going to be looking for that. I think it’s also helpful to remember that this is ancient literature. So, while we would kind of frown on selling family members to get out of debt, uh, today, that was fairly common back then. Okay. So, but that’s not the point here. We’re going to move on from that. 10,000 bags of gold is part of the point. That is a lot of money. U scholars today estimate that the amount of money that we’re talking about probably equates to about 200,000 years of wages. Do you think you can pay that back? I don’t care what you make, you’re not paying that back. And the servant begs for forgiveness and he gets it. It’s a nice story, right? Sounds great. We would all love to be forgiven whether we’re talking about, you know, massive amounts of debt or maybe something that we did wrong to our neighbor or our spouse or somebody that we care about. But that’s not the end of the parable.

Verse 28 continues, “But when the servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. A silver coin worth about a day’s wage.” So 100 days worth of work. He grabbed him and began to choke him. “Pay back what you owe me,” he demanded. His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him. Kind of sounds familiar. “Be patient with me and I will repay it back.” This sounds a lot more plausible given the numbers here, right? But he refused. Instead, he went off and he had the man thrown into prison until he could repay the debt. Same scenario, right? But this time, the debt is significantly, let’s call it, drastically different. You could probably eventually make up the money to pay back a 100 days worth of wages, right? It might take some time, but you probably could. But the unmerciful servant has the audacity to jail his fellow servant.

And not surprisingly, in verse 31, as the story continues, when the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged. And they went and told their master everything that had happened. Then the master called the servant in. You wicked servant. He said, I canceled all the that there’s that Epheim word 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 handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all that he owed. Sounds like forever. This is how my heavenly father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart. Okay?

Again, this is a parable. So, we want to look for the main point of the story, not the extra things on the side. So, God is a merciful God. That is the main point of this passage. God is a God who will forgive huge mistakes. God is a God who will forgive huge failure. That is the message of this parable. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. God will forgive you when you ask. And that I hope lands in you today because that is the message of forgiveness that God has for us.

But the passage also has this funny little thing in verses 34 and 35. If you don’t forgive, somehow you’re going to get tortured forever. Sounds a little strange. So let’s talk a little bit about that. Uh the reality is that this particular verse is supposed to reveal our understanding of our forgiveness. When we fail to forgive someone, when you fail to forgive someone, it reveals that you actually don’t understand how much you have been forgiven. You don’t understand your own forgiveness. It’s not that Jesus is sort of repaying us. It’s that we don’t understand our forgiveness. Jesus will never take back his forgiveness. When we fail, when you fail to forgive somebody, it reveals that we do not understand our own forgiveness.

Like many of the beliefs that we are looking at in this series, I think most of us believe we should practice forgiveness. The challenge is actually doing it, actually forgiving somebody. So I want to a offer some practical tips to help you think about forgiveness and how to practice it starting this week. So I want to start with the reality that some of us struggle to forgive ourselves. And I want to remind you that if God can forgive the unmerciful servant who owed 200,000 years of wages, God can and will forgive you if you ask or more likely when you ask.

Also want to give this tip. I think it’s helpful to remember that forgiveness is the oil of relationships. It reduces friction in our day-to-day relationship and it actually allows us to come closer to one another. So that motivates me to think about offering forgiveness because I don’t like that tension and friction, right? I’m that conflict avoider. So when I actually offer forgiveness or when I ask forgiveness, I’m actually creating an opportunity for relationship to grow.

I think it’s also helpful to recognize that forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation. So what do I mean by that? You can forgive somebody, which means you release your sort of right to revenge, but you may not be reconciled with that person. Your relationship may not be pieced back together at that point in time. So those are two different things that we’re working on. Reconciliation is actually a two-person process. Requires both individuals to work towards one another. It’s a mutual process of rebuilding trust and restoring that relationship and restoring the damaged relationship that has taken place. And you may need to do some things to make amends uh to make that right. You may need a long time. It may take a long time, years in the making to restore a relationship. But forgiveness is different than that. It is something that happens within an individual person. It’s an internal oneperson choice to let go of anger to let go of the desire for revenge. But if that’s something that you’re going to do, those feelings of bitterness and anger may resurface at some point in time. So you may say, “I want to forgive.” And you may say, “I forgive you.” And you really mean it. And then a few days later, those feelings well back up within you. What do you do then? That’s when we get to practice that unlimited forgiveness that Jesus is talking about. something that is difficult but something that we have to keep coming back to again and again and that’s what forgiveness looks like in Christian community that we would continue to forgive one another even when those feelings continue to well up again and again even when that person might continue to hurt you over and over again. Now that doesn’t mean that you stay in the relationship or that you don’t create some boundaries. That’s appropriate. But we continue to offer forgiveness. Whether that person is continuing to hurt us or not, we have that unlimited forgiveness that we continue to give. Something that God has first given to us. And if we don’t offer that forgiveness, it shows that we don’t understand the unlimited forgiveness that God has given to us.

I think this is a really good time to pause and say we have prayer ministers who are going to be standing over there today. The reality is that I think there’s a lot of things that many of us are holding on to and we need help letting go of those things. We need help with forgiveness and reconciliation. Today we’re talking about forgiveness, but we need help with those things. And if that’s you today, people would love to pray with you and for you. You don’t have to tell them what what it is. You know, there’s no shame in that. they would love to carry that with you. Um, these are things that are hard to do on our own. We need a community to help us. So, take advantage of that if that would help you.

In closing, I want to recall the story of Corey Tenboom and her sister. If you don’t know, Corey Tenboom and her sister were prisoners in uh Hitler’s concentration camps. an awful experience, no doubt. And Corey’s sister eventually would die in one of those concentration camps. And after the war, um Corey was going around teaching people about forgiveness. And at one point in time, she went back to Germany to share that message of forgiveness. Famously, she said, “When we confess our sins, God casts them into the deepest ocean. gone forever. After sharing in a church uh in Munich, one of the guards approached her, thrust out his hand, saying, “A fine message, Freyine. How good it is to know that all our sins are at the bottom of the sea.” He said, ‘I was a guard at one of the camps that you mentioned and I have become a Christian and I know that God has forgiven me, but I would love to hear it from your lips. In that moment, Corey had a choice. She knew about Matthew 18 and the call to unlimited forgiveness. But she remembered this guard. She remembered his face and what he had done to her and her sister. In an essay published in Guidepost in 1972, Corey had this to say when the man showed up. I prayed silently. Jesus, help me. I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling. And so, woodenly and mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, and sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes. I forgive you, brother, I cried with all my heart.

At Community Covenant, we want to be a community of forgiveness in part because research shows from John Hopkins, John’s Hopkins, that people who hold on to grudges, resentment, and anger are more susceptible to severe depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, along with poor immune system, heart health, all sorts of things. Unforgiveness can trap you in your past and keep the pain alive. So when you find difficult, when you find forgiveness difficult, because it can be and it will be, I want you to pray as our sermon series talks about and as the man in Mark chapter nine prayed, I forgive. Help me forgive.

Let’s pray. God, forgiveness is hard. There are things that people do and have done to us that hurt so deep that it feels impossible to forgive. And yet you have called us to forgive, knowing that it is best for us. And you have modeled forgiveness for us. You have forgiven us for all of the crazy awful things that we have done as individuals and as humanity. You offer forgiveness to those who ask. So, Father, forgive us for the things that we have done, for the things that we have left undone, for the things that we have said and for the the things that we have not said. and help us to offer forgiveness to others, those who have hurt us. Amen.