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Matthew 18:21–35
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Today I'm teaching forgiveness over revenge. This is important because the body of Christ needs to do better with forgiveness. I know people who are terrible at forgiveness, but they think they're spiritual. They grew up in church, they speak in tongues but won't talk to you. They can quote scripture, but only the verses that are convenient for their lifestyle—never the ones that point them out.
Matthew 18 is a beautiful chapter where Jesus exposes what a kingdom community is supposed to look like. He talks about who is the greatest, and He says, "Whoever's going to be the greatest among you, let them be your servant. Let us serve our way into greatness." He discusses not causing believers to stumble, leaving the ninety-nine to get the one, and how to restore a brother or sister who has fallen into sin.
We live in a generation where when somebody makes a mistake, they get crucified. As if we all haven't made mistakes. As if some of you didn't make your last mistake this morning. But you're still here, right? Jesus is talking about how we restore a person so they don't make their identity their sin.
Whenever I teach on forgiveness, there's always a question: "Does forgiveness mean reconciliation, pastor? Does that mean I have to let that person back into my life?" I want to be very clear: forgiveness and reconciliation are like siblings, but they are not identical. They're in the same family, they can go hand in hand, but they are not the exact same thing.
This passage commands us to forgive, but it does not require immediate restoration of trust. Verses 15-20 actually explain the process: if a person has a fault, go to them. If they don't listen, go with a witness. If they don't listen, bring it before the church. If they still don't acknowledge it, you can treat them as a tax collector and a pagan. That means there are going to be some people you can't reconcile with because they refuse to acknowledge the wrong they're constantly doing.
So a person can genuinely forgive while recognizing that reconciliation requires repentance and a rebuilding of trust. When I'm teaching you to forgive, I'm not saying you have to invite them over for dinner after church. Forgiveness is about releasing the offense. Reconciliation is about restoring the relationship.
Matthew 18:21 says, "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?'"
Peter's question comes directly after Jesus teaches about discipline with other Christians. He's essentially asking: how many times if my brother keeps on sinning against me? How long do I keep forgiving him? That's a real question because Peter isn't asking based on theology. He's asking as a person who's been hurt before—a person who's trying to get it right but keeps getting betrayed, keeps getting hurt.
Maybe you can identify with that. It's not that forgiveness is an issue—you're just tired of being stabbed. Tired of being hurt, tired of being let down. Peter asks a very pointed question: "Lord, I get that I have to forgive. Just let me know how many times do I have to keep putting up with this before I can finally say, 'God, enough is enough'?"
Peter thought he was being generous because back in biblical times, rabbis taught that three times was enough. If somebody wronged you three times, that's enough—they should have learned their lesson. Peter thought he would one-up the rabbis and go higher, saying, "Lord, is seven times enough?" Seven is a number of completion. "Is seven times enough to completely be done with somebody?"
Notice the noun: "my brother or sister." He doesn't say strangers. These are people who are intimate and close to him. Which means they should know better than to do me like that. And that's when forgiveness is hard, isn't it? When it's people that you think you know better.
The difficulty of forgiveness is often based on the level of access someone had to your life. Access is built on time and intimacy. The closer somebody is to you, the harder it is to forgive them once you feel betrayed. Why? Because you let them deeper into the process of your heart.
This is why we use the term infidelity. I'm not using it to shame anybody—I'm using it because infidelity often comes up in counseling and in our culture. The reason infidelity feels like such a deep stab is because of the level of intimacy. When it's somebody that you laid with, somebody you shared your bed with, you shared your secrets, they shared their secrets, you shared tears, you shed fears together—and then they betray you. It hurts so much because they had to cut more of you to get out of your heart. Does that make sense?
It's almost easier when it's a sibling you don't really talk to because you're like, "Well, I didn't want to talk to you anyway." Or that one friend you were waiting for a reason to cut off. But it hurts when it's somebody you spent years building trust with, and what you realize is that what you built was broken in a moment. Forgiveness comes in levels. You'll get to certain places and it's harder to forgive certain people based on how hurt you feel on the inside.
Verse 22: "Jesus answered, 'I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.'" Some translations say seventy times seven. Scholars go back and forth on this, but at least what Jesus was saying was, "I'm going to make you lose count before I tell you that you can stop forgiving."
That's hard. I'm like Peter. I'm going to be honest with you—I kind of wanted a number too. I can see why you're laughing because it's in you too a little bit, right? Ain't nobody trying to give unlimited passes to disrespect. I'm not about to give unlimited passes either. I'm not trying to play around with people—not even my kids.
But Jesus comes and He confronts Peter because Peter wants a number. But Jesus gives him a lifestyle. He tells Peter, "Oh friend, you thought there was going to be a day when I could tell you to stop showing mercy, but that day is never going to come. I am always going to challenge you to forgive."
Why? Because following Christ means you don't keep score.
Jesus immediately jumps into a parable to break this down. I know why He did this: because it was hard for the disciples to receive this, especially Peter. If you are a person built on vengeance, it's hard to hear forgiveness. I'm that person. When I'm watching a movie and somebody gets done wrong at the beginning, I want them to win. That's just how I am. I want the underdog to win, whoever got damaged, I want them to have justice.
When your personality or character is built on vengeance, every time you forgive, you feel like you're letting somebody get away. You feel like they're playing with you and you're a fighter. You don't want to let people play with you. And that's how many of us are wired.
Verse 23: "Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And as he began the settlement, a man who owed him 10,000 bags of gold was brought to him."
Scholars argue that this could have been considered billions of dollars. But regardless of the amount, what we do know is that this represented an immensely large amount of money—an amount so large that it would have been impossible for him to pay it back. We live in a time where you can file bankruptcy and write it all off. But in these times, there was no writing off. You had to pay in blood what you took.
The servant is in a position where he's saying, "It's 10,000 bags of gold. There's no way I'll ever be able to repay."
Verse 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."
I know this seems harsh, but this was the only way in ancient times to make sure people weren't just going around stealing money. There had to be a system where you paid for taking something you knew you could not repay. Their system was: I would sell you and get back whatever you're worth. But you weren't even worth what you borrowed, so I have to start selling other stuff connected to you. I take your family, your kids, any other possession—just so I can recoup some of my money because I'm taking such a big loss.
Verse 26: "The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.'"
Here's the reality: that was a lie. He's saying, "Be patient," but even if he worked for four lifetimes, he couldn't pay back what he owed. That sounds like us before God. That's humanity before the Father. The price that Jesus paid for our sins is so great that even if we tried to pay God back, we couldn't because Jesus took our place with His life.
We owe God so much for our constant mistakes. And when I say constant, I mean constant mistakes. Because even if you are saved and have been saved for years, that does not mean you have been sinless. You have not been perfect. You've made mistakes. Every day I need new mercy and every day I need new grace. Which means every day I need God to extend extra helping hands to me.
Verse 27: "The servant's master took pity on him and canceled the debt and let him go."
The king does something unheard of. I need you to hear this: He didn't ask for the debt to be canceled. He asked for patience. Just give him some time. He'll do whatever he can so his family doesn't have to suffer. The king looks at him and has a heart. He says, "You know what? I'm not going to restructure the loan. I'm not going to reset it. I'm just going to cancel the whole debt. Don't even worry about it."
Now, listen. The king was still owed money. So when he canceled the debt, that means he had to take the loss.
Grace always costs someone.
When I'm asking you to give grace, I don't want to play with you. I know that when you have to extend grace, it's going to cost you something. Maybe it'll cost you your ego. Maybe it's going to cost you your pride. Maybe it's going to cost you your need to get revenge. But whenever you extend grace to someone, it's going to cost you something.
And why does it cost you something? Because the reality is it's probably true that they owe you. Let's be honest: the person you're holding unforgiveness toward, they really did damage you. It really did hurt. And so it costs you something to zero out a payment you feel like you owed. It costs you something to say, "You know what, I'll walk away and let bygones be bygones." Because inside our humanity, we all feel like, "I don't want somebody to get away with damaging me and just go on and live life like everything is cool."
But every day you ask God for mercy so you can go on living life like everything is cool.
Verse 28: "But when the servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. And he grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me,' he demanded."
This is crazy. The forgiven servant immediately finds somebody else that owes him 100 days worth of wages. I want to be clear: this is not like nothing. 100 days worth of wages means that essentially they owe you for three and a half months of pay. If you worked at a job and they didn't pay you for three and a half months, some of you might have that same attitude right now: "Pay me what you owe me. I need my money." Right?
You have a little bit of a right to be upset. But compare it to what the king just forgave him—it is microscopic. And that's the reality.
This is why I'm saying: you may have a real feeling and be saying, "But pastor, they really did me wrong. What am I supposed to do?" Compare it to the wrong God forgave you.
He goes to this man and he chokes him. He grabs him by the most vulnerable part of his body. He publicly embarrasses him in front of everybody outside. "Give me my money." He threatened his life. Imagine you walking down the street watching this man choking somebody. "Bro, you owe me three months worth of cash. Give me my money. I'M CHOKING HIM." Imagine the life being squeezed out of his body.
When you look at this situation, you realize that this man responded how he thought his master was going to respond. You just begged for mercy and after receiving it, it didn't even click to show the same thing you were just receiving. That means the grace he received never transformed him.
And that's what scares me about us sometimes. That's what's scary. Because the grace he received never clicked to make him think, "Why am I still holding a grudge on somebody else?"
I'm talking to you now. Every day we get brand new grace and brand new mercy. Every day you get a brand new opportunity to live for God. Have you been taking God's grace so for granted that you now think you have the right to hold on to what God released?
Verse 29: "His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged them, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.'"
Notice the exact same words. God makes it so exact so that he can't miss it. And still he does. Same words. "Be patient with me and I will pay it back." He hears his prayer coming out of somebody else's mouth. Those were his words. He was just begging for his own family's safety. And now there's another man saying to him what he said to God. Yet he shows no mercy.
This is a story, but it's actually talking about us. We'll come to church and say, "Oh, God, forgive me. I know I keep making the same mistakes over and over, but God, give me grace. I really want to be better." And then you'll leave and somebody in your family hurts you for the 17th time. "I'm sorry. I know I keep making the same mistakes over and over." And you're like, "Yeah, this is the last time. I'm done with you. I ain't about to play a game with you."
What if God were to tell you, "No, no. You know what you're doing. You're not dumb. You didn't fall. You crawled into that bed. You're not dumb."
You're begging for mercy—"I need help, God. I need another chance."—and a person comes to you needing the same mercy you just received. And all of a sudden, you don't remember. You have nothing to give to them.
Verse 30: "But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt."
He goes off feeling justified. He has what we call selective amnesia. We tend to only remember the good we did to others and the bad they did to us. That's all we remember.
People are been together for 15 years and they be like, "Yeah, it was terrible the whole time." Not for 15 years. There would have had to be something good in the story. It's the same way with us and God: you remember everyone else's sins by forgetting your own sins against God.
You can remember every person that didn't pay you back that $20—or was it $50? You remember every person that lied on you. You remember every person that scandalized your name. You remember every person that was a friend and then they weren't. You remember every person that dropped you when they could have been real. You remember every person that ever wronged you.
As a matter of fact, some of you use it as motivation: "Yeah, they played me, but I'm gonna show them." And now you remember everything they did wrong. But for some reason you forget all the things you did. "Well, I'm a good person because..." It's 10 people with 10 different experiences that would say something different about who you are.
He's having selective amnesia to hold on to unforgiveness. I tell people: to have unforgiveness means you got a lot of audacity. You are audacious because you know that not only all the mistakes you made, but you know you're going to have to ask God for forgiveness tomorrow. And you're still holding unforgiveness today? It's crazy to me. It's crazy to know you're going to mess up again and you're going to need to ask God again to give you grace again. And you have the audacity to hold unforgiveness on what they did? It's crazy to me.
Verse 31: "When the other servants saw what happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened."
The community was grieved. They were angry. Why? Because unforgiveness always damages more than two people.
Your unforgiveness damages more people than you know. A lot of people don't like talking about that kind of stuff. But because we're transparent and real, let me say this: I'm a co-parent. Any other co-parents here, you know what I'm talking about. Often times it's easy to not be on the same page. It's two different households trying to parent one child in two different ways. Sometimes there just isn't agreement.
I see so many people who allow unforgiveness to stay and they think that it's localized. But who's really paying the price? The child is paying the price because bitterness always has collateral damage. Always somebody else who didn't have a choice to be in it. It's happening to them.
It's affecting me now because you decide, "I'm going to hold on to how I feel." And so many people get petty—let me be real with you. You're broken and unhealed and you're now asking somebody else to carry your own offense. I'm just having a real conversation.
Even if you feel like it's justifiable, I am not saying you don't have a right to feel what you feel. I am not saying that there weren't real injuries that happened and affected you and affected the child. But what I'm saying is: who is still paying the price?
If I really love my son, I got to forgive. Yes. It's the only way to make sure I protect him. Some of y'all aren't ready for that conversation, and that's okay. But the only way to protect them is to say, "I want to honor the other one. I want to speak well of them even if I feel differently." And they can feel what they feel—that's fine. I hear people say, "But you don't know. My situation is different. Mine's crazy." They all crazy. I haven't met the one that was saying, "That's why y'all ain't together."
Verse 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. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had mercy on you?'"
He calls him wicked. And this is where church gets uncomfortable because we don't ever think we're in that category. He didn't say, "Oh, you made a mistake." He didn't say, "You're a good person having a bad year." He said, "You are wicked."
And if you don't pause to sit with that, what you'll do is escape the message and point it at somebody else. But any one of us holding unforgiveness after the days and weeks and months and years that God has had to walk with us—watching us ignore Him and still give us grace—and then to walk away and think we can hold a grudge? He said that's wickedness.
Anytime you won't extend what you got for free, it's wickedness.
Here's an example: If you are hungry and God brings you an entire pallet of food for free and says, "Why? Because you asked, I gave it to you." And then you see ten hungry, starving kids. They come and say, "Well, can we get something?" You say, "Well, how much money y'all got?" Like immediately you're asking them to pay right now.
Why are you making them pay for what you never paid for? But isn't that what forgiveness is? Forgiveness, broken down etymologically, is 'to give before a person deserves it.'
God is saying, "I am forgiving you. I am giving you a chance you don't even deserve. I'm asking you to do the same. I'm asking you to give where they don't deserve it either." That forgiveness flows from the grace you receive. It flows from the grace that God gave to you.
And let me just say this: forgiveness doesn't need to wait until you're done being mad about it. Forgiveness doesn't need to wait until you're done being hurt. "Well, once I finally process this, then I'll forgive." That sounds cute because that's what they told you was okay, but that's not what Christ told us to do.
The proof of it is that while bleeding, while on the cross, nails in His hands, nails in His feet, crown of thorns on His head, pierced in His side, He still said, "Father, forgive them."
They don't know. Even if they think they know, they don't know what they're doing. They're acting out of their emotion and out of their zeal, but they don't know who I am. So God, I'm asking you to forgive them while I'm bleeding. While I'm hurting. While I'm dying. I'm asking you to forgive them.
And this is why I'm setting some of you free. Because some of you think the healing is you getting to this peaceful, melancholy place where you can look back and say, "Oh, I released all of the ones I was mad at. Once I finally got to a place of successful healing and I went to all these conferences and met with my therapist ninety-five times and I'm finally at a place where I can look back over my life and I feel good"—that is not what real forgiveness is.
Real forgiveness is: I am still actively bleeding from the nail you put in my hand. But I make a decision today. If you ain't ready for that, that's okay. I make a decision today. I'm releasing it because I cannot carry this over into glory.
Verses 34-35: "In anger, his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all that he owed. This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart."
I love Jesus because Jesus closes out the story making it very clear. Because you know Christians always try to act dumb. Let me make this very clear. He said, "I want to be very clear. This is how God in heaven is going to treat you if you do not forgive from your heart."
This wasn't made to be a celebration message. My prayer today was that this would be a sobering message because some of us will shout our way out of here while still carrying unforgiveness.
He said, "God says you need to forgive." And hear me: not just say the words—do it from your heart.
Every parent here knows what I'm talking about. When you tell your kid to go say sorry and they say it to get you off their back, you know they don't mean that. Well, what does God say? "You know you didn't mean that. I can tell when you're pretending. I can tell when it's not coming from your heart."
And the question is: How could it not come from your heart knowing everything that's in there? You're talking to somebody that knows everything about you, even the stuff you won't say out loud. He said, "It needed to come from your heart."
And that's my prayer today: that some of you walk out of here realizing who you need to release and do it quickly.
"Father, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Forgive us our transgressions, our trespassing, as we forgive anybody who has double crossed us. No matter what it was, even if they never apologized, thank God I don't need them to be free."
I'm going to say this to you: I am not saying that your pain is not justified. I want to be very clear. What you went through was real. The pain was real. The tears were real. But God's grace is also real. And I'm challenging you today. Please hear my heart because if you miss this, you miss God.
Father, this is my prayer: that Your hands, Your love, Your strength, and Your grace will continue to move in all of our lives. Lord, I pray today for this spirit of unforgiveness that tries to creep in. For many of us, because of the pain we experience, we feel justified—hurt, crossed, stabbed, dropped, whatever the word, whatever the verb—we felt it. And so, Lord, today we make an open decision to put down the offense, to put down the unforgiveness, and to forgive. Not because they deserve it, but we didn't deserve grace either. And so we release for free what we received for free.
Father, we say out loud: we forgive them. But they don't even know what they're doing. In Yeshua's name, we pray. Amen.
