What does the world tell you when you’ve been wronged? You’re told to hold a grudge. When you’ve been injured, you’re told to get even. When you’ve been hurt, you’re told to never let those people hurt you again.
Our hymn this week teaches us a better, godly, more merciful option. It teaches us to forgive the sins of others just as Jesus has forgiven our sins.
Verse one: “Forgive our sins as we forgive,” you taught us, Lord, to pray, but you alone can grant us grace to live the words we say.
The way to deal with the hurts others have caused us is to remove the debts those others owe us. Jesus teaches us a parable about forgiveness in this week’s Gospel lesson from Matthew 18:21-35. In the parable of the unforgiving servant, Jesus shows that forgiveness means no longer holding a person’s debt against them. A servant is forgiven a very large debt, but then he goes out and refuses to forgive another servant’s much smaller debt. The point of the parable is that we all owe a hopelessly huge debt to God. But our heavenly King has forgiven that huge debt of our sins. Now we are to forgive the much smaller debts that are owed us by others. We can’t do this on our own. Only the love of the Lord inside of us moves us to live with this kind of forgiveness.
Question: What does it mean when we sing “forgive our sins as we forgive”?
Verse two: How can your pardon reach and bless the unforgiving heart that broods on wrongs and will not let old bitterness depart?
We sinfully love to hold grudges. Holding a grudge makes us feel good. When we hold a grudge, the other person is the bad guy, and we are the righteous victims. We like to remember all the slights and wrongs people have done to us. We want to get even. This gives us a sense of power over that person and allows us to justify committing all sorts of other sins. They wronged me, so now I can speak badly about them to others. They wronged me, so now I don’t need to help and be a friend to them. They sinned against me, so I don’t need to forgive them.
Question: Why is it so hard to forgive other people?
Verse three: In blazing light your cross reveals the truth we dimly knew: how small are others’ debts to us, how great our debt to you!
Our God is like the master in Jesus’ parable. “Then the servant fell down on his knees in front of him, saying, ‘Master, be patient with me, and I will pay you everything!’ The master of that servant had pity on him, released him, and forgave him the debt” (Matthew 18:26, 27). We are
really big sinners! We have our inborn sin, our sins of commission that we commit with our naughty thoughts, our nasty words, and our not-so-nice actions, and our sins of omission where we fail to do all the good and godly things God wants us to do. This is a huge debt we have created before our God and King!
Yet God forgives our debt of sin! Except, that God does not forgive our debt by simply cancelling it. The King’s Son – Jesus Christ – paid off our debt. Not with gold or silver, but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death. Our King has turned his mercy on us his servants because he treated his own Son as if he was a guilty servant with a huge debt of sin.
Question: Why do the sins of others often seem so big and your sins often seem so small?
Verse four: Lord, cleanse the depths within our souls and bid resentment cease; then, bound to all in bonds of love, our lives will spread your peace.
Instead of holding grudges or getting even, the apostle Paul gives us a better way to deal with sin: “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32). The forgiveness of Jesus gives you the power to forgive others, to release old grudges, and to dismiss old grievances that you have been holding on for too long.
Because God has canceled your huge debt of sin against him, now you can cancel someone else’s smaller debt of sin against you. You don’t have to resent them. Instead, you can release them. Instead of being unloving towards them, you can show Jesus’ love to them. You can forgive them … just as in Christ God has forgiven you.
Question: How does Jesus’ forgiveness help you to forgive others?