One Little Word---Forgiveness
“One Little Word” Matthew 18:21-22
A. Jim Witter wrote a song simply entitled “Forgiveness”.
1. “Little Mickey Johnson was my very best friend,
First grade we swore we’d stay that way to the end.
In 7th grade somebody stole my bike,
I asked Mickey if he did it and he lied.
You see it was him…Oh when I found out
it hit me like a ton a bricks.
I can still see the look on his face
when I said, “I never want to talk to you again!”
Sometimes we lose our way
and don’t say things we should say.
We hold on to stubborn pride
when we should put it all aside.
To waste much time forgiving seemed so senseless,
When one little word shouldn’t be so hard—Forgiveness.
B. One of Satan’s favorite weapons of mass destruction is the missile of unforgiveness he fires
at us when people hurt us.
1. There are some things people have to face in life that others don’t have to face (cancer,
loss of a child, getting fired).
2. There is one crisis that none of us will escape in this life and that is the effects of offending
someone or being offended and the fractured relationships and the ensuing pain—follows.
3. Jesus knew we would have trouble with broken relationships, so in Matthew 18, He told a
story about financial loans that had nothing to do with money and everything to do with
forgiveness. (Let’s look at three scenes in this drama—application.)
I. THE KING’S AMAZING GRACE (v. 23-27).
A. Jesus told a story about a king who loaned an unbelievable amount of money to one of his
slaves.
1. The note in my Bible says ten million dollars in silver content, but worth much more in
buying power. (One commentary estimated you could hire 1,000 men for 100 years with
this amount of money.)
2. This debt was “the mother of all debts.”
a. When it came time for the loan to be paid back, the slave didn’t have the money so the
king commanded that he be sold, but not only him, his wife, children, and all his
possessions (we would say “lock, stock and barrel”) until it was repaid.
3. The slave fell down at the king’s feet and said, “Have patience with me and I will repay
you everything.” So, the king felt compassion for the man and he forgave the debt!
a. Imagine if your mortgage company called you up and said, “We recognize you are
having a hard time making your house payment…so jut forget about it—the debt is
released.”
4. Jesus didn’t tell this story because He knew a multi-millionaire who was generous with
his money. He told the story to illustrate forgiveness based upon Peter’s question.
B. Let’s identify the “players” in this story.
1. The King is God. The man who owed the “mother of all debts” is Peter, you, and me. The
debt represents our sins which their forgiveness cost a price that we could never pay.
1 Peter 1:18-19“knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like
silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with
precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.” (“P”)
2. Grace is a character trait of God, but can you define grace? Grace is treating a person in
the opposite manner of what they deserve—not worse than they deserve but better. Grace
is God willing to treat Jesus like we deserved so He could treat us like Jesus deserved.
3. When it comes to forgiving others, we need to realize that God has already erased a
mountain of sin debt on our behalf, that we didn’t deserve, just like that slave didn’t
deserve to have his loan forgiven.
II. THE SLAVES UNBELIEVABLE RESPONSE. (v. 28-30)
A. You’ve heard the saying “the shoe is on the other foot”—perhaps this is where it originated.
1. The slave who had just been released of the “mother of all debts” went out and found a
comrade who owed him a 100 denarii which would have been about a 3-month-salary
since a denarius was one day’s pay. It was pocket change compared to what he had owed
the king
2. He said, “pay back what you owe!” His fellow slave said, “Have patience with me and I
will repay you” which is the same thing He had asked from the king in regard to his huge
debt. He refused and he had the man thrown in prison until he paid back everything he
owed. (Talk about a short memory!)
3. Jesus didn’t tell this story to show how we ought to treat people who owe us money, but to
illustrate forgiveness based upon Peter’s question.
B. Let’s once again identify the “players” in this story.
1. The slave who was owed the 3 months pay is us. The man who couldn’t pay back the debt
represents someone who offends us.
2. The point of this aspect of the story is this, if God forgave us the huge debt of our sin, we
ought to be able forgive someone who sins against us? It’s not that we haven’t been
wronged or that our hurt is trivial, but it’s the fact that whatever has been done to us is like
3 months wages compared to the price Jesus had to pay to remove our sin!
3. Those of us who have been forgiven by God ought to be able to extend forgiveness
because we have already receive forgiveness we didn’t deserve anyway.
a. Eph. 4:32 “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in
Christ also has forgiven you.”
4. “A little card arrived on my wedding day, best wishes from an old friend was all it had to
say, no return address, no not even a name—the messy way that it was written gave it
away. It was him…oh, I just had to laugh as the past came flooding through my mind. I
should have picked up the phone right then and there, but I just didn’t make the time.
Sometimes we lose our way and don’t say things we should say. We hold on to stubborn
pride when we should put it all aside. To waste time forgiving seemed so senseless and
one little word shouldn’t be so hard—forgiveness.”
III. THE KING’S RIGHTEOUS ANGER. (v. 31-35)
A. When the other slaves found out what their comrade had done they snitched on him to the
king.
1. The king called him on the carpet and he said, you wicked slave, I forgave you all that
debt because you asked me, shouldn’t you have done the same as I did for you? YES he
should have. Therefore, the king said, remember your big debt I released, it’s back on the
books and he handed him over to the torturers! (Remember, this story—not about money!)
B. For the last time, let’s identify the “players” in this story.
1. 1) The king is God. 2) The first slave is us. 3) The great debt he owed—our sin which
God forgave on the cross. 4) Other slave is someone who offends us. 5) His small debt is
an offense committed against us. Moral of the story: the debt of our sin is reinstated by
God if we refuse to extend forgiveness which God first extended toward us. (“So shall
my Heavenly Father do to you who does not forgive…”)
2. The statement is true “He who fails to forgive burns the bridge which he must cross.”
3. Matthew 6:12,14-15 “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors…
For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive
you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your
transgressions.” (This can be a dangerous prayer.)
IV. TEN PRINCIPLES OF FORGIVENESS.
1. Forgiveness does not mean forgetting.
a. We have head the statement, “forgive and forget—forgive and forget.”
b. Sometimes people feel guilty because they think because they can’t forget the issue they
haven’t forgiven the person and that’s not true.
c. It is impossible to erase your mind like you erase a chalkboard. All of us have had some-
thing take place that reminded us of something that happened years ago. We hadn’t
thought about it years, but it was still on the hard drive of our mind. (Choose not to dwell.)
2. Forgiveness does not mean the offense was okay.
a. Sometimes people think if they forgive someone they are “rubberstamping” or approving
of what they did to them and that is not so.
b. For example: what Joseph’s brothers did to him was not okay—he said “you meant it for
evil”, but Joseph forgave them. The people who stoned Stephen committed murder, but
Stephen forgave them anyway. The people who executed Jesus were godless men Peter
said—Acts 2, but Jesus forgave them. Forgiveness does not remove the guilt of—offender.
3. Forgiveness does not mean you have to trust the offender.
a. Some people should not be trusted even though you must forgive them.
b. A person who has been physically, sexually abused does not have to trust their offender,
but they do have to forgive them.
c. You may have to forgive someone you don’t know. One of my professors in college lost
both of his parents to a drunk driver. He never knew the man, but he had to forgive him.
4. Forgiveness means the situation becomes a dead issue.
a. Once forgiveness has been extended and the relationship restored, the situation becomes a
dead issue. One man said, “every time my wife and I have a disagreement, she gets
historical.” His friend said, “You mean hysterical don’t you?” He said, “No, historical,
she brings up everything I did wrong in the past.” “Love keeps no record of wrongs”
b. Once I went with a man who needed to seek forgiveness from someone. He asked her to
forgive him and they did. 6 weeks later I heard them telling someone else what he had
done.
5. Forgiveness is not pretending you were not hurt. (“Sticks and stones may break…”)
a. If you have been offended, the thing you must do is deal with it. If you don’t, it’s like
trying to suppress a beach ball under the water—after a while it comes to the surface.
b. When we are offended what we really are is we’re angry. Hurt and anger are fraternal
twins. When that hurt and anger is swept under the rug an internalized, guess what it
shows up in our life as—depression. (Depression is internalized anger.)
6. Forgiveness is a decision of the will not a feeling. (“Forgive from heart”—mind, will,
conscience, emotions are involved in the biblical “heart”).
a. You will never feel like forgiving someone who has offended you. You decide to forgive
them and once you do, you feel good about your decision. (Right feelings follow right
actions and not the reverse.)
b. William James, “If you act the way you wish you felt soon you’ll feel the way you act.”
7. Forgiveness is an ongoing process.
a. If you need to forgive someone today, do it. When tomorrow comes and you are still
having ill feelings, emotion, and bitterness toward them, you must choose to forgive them
again until its no longer and issue with you and there is no emotion tied to the situation.
8. Forgiveness is surrendering the right to get even.
a. Rom. 12:19 “Vengeance is mine, I will repay says the Lord.”
b. Forgiveness and the “I don’t get mad I get even spirit” doesn’t work.
9. Forgiveness is not understanding what happened to you.
a. Sometimes people say, “If I could just understand why they did this to me, I would forgive
them. Sin doesn’t make sense and you may die with that question being unanswered.
b. If you have been abused by a parent or family member, you have to forgive even though
you will never understand why someone who was supposed to love you ruined your
childhood.
10. Forgiveness is for you not the person who hurt you.
a. A lot of people are in what I call, “no forgiveness jail.” They are like Otis Campbell on
the Andy Griffith show. They have the key within reach, but they choose to stay in their
own self-imposed jail.
b. Forgiveness is setting the prisoner free and then discovering you were the prisoner.
c. In the summer of 1986, Frank and Elizabeth Morris’ son was killed by a drunk driver.
Driven by hatred, they monitored his every court appearance, followed him to jail to make
sure he was serving his weekend sentence. They even watches his apartment to try to
catch him violating his probation. Mrs. Morris said, “We wanted him in prison. We
wanted him dead.” Tommy Pigage, the young man who caused the crash still gets a lot
of attention from the Morises.
They drive him to church twice a week and often set a place for him at their dinner table.
The Morrises decided to forgive Pigage and try to rebuild his life along with their own.
Mrs. Morris said, “The hate and bitterness I was feeling was destroying me. I needed to
forgive Tommy to save myself.” (FORGIVENESS HEALS YOU.)
d. Someone said, “bitterness is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die.”
CONCLUSION
A. Peter said to Jesus, “how often should I forgive my brother, up to 7 times 7. Jesus said, ‘I
tell you, no, but up to seventy times seven.’
“Sunday morning paper arrived on my step
first thing I read filled my heart with regret.
I saw a name I hadn’t seen in a while
said he was survived by a wife and a child.
And it was him…Oh, I found out
tears just fell like rain.
And I realized that I had missed by chance
to ever talk to him again.
Sometimes we lose our way
we don’t say things we should say.
We hold on to stubborn pride
when we should put it all aside.
To waste much time forgiving seemed so senseless s.
How one little word shouldn’t be so hard
Forgiveness.
One little word shouldn’t be so hard.
Little Mickey Johnson was my very best friend.”
2. Some of us no doubt have some things to forgive. Things that have been said and done.
Forgiveness is not easy, but when you realize how much we been forgiven—easier.