Forgiven People Forgive People – June 14, 2026

Genesis 50:15-21, Matthew 18:21-35
June 14, 2026

I’d love to say I made up the title of this sermon.  I didn’t.  But when I saw it, I liked it so much I had to use it.  (Who’s gonna know, right?)  Actually, if I knew who to give credit to, I would!

But it’s a great thought, isn’t it?  “Forgiven People Forgive People.”  In other words, we are forgiven, therefore we forgive.  And notice, it’s not the other way around.  It’s not “We forgive in order to be forgiven!”  Some people think of it that way, don’t they?  “I want God to forgive me, so I’d better forgive!”

Peter approaches Jesus and asks this question.  “How many times am I to forgive my brother?”  Now, I’m sure he wasn’t the only one who wanted to know this.  This was a dilemma for those people then, and it’s still a question for us today.  And I’m sure Peter knew people this question applied to.  I’m sure he knew people who repeatedly hurt other people.  Maybe we do, too.  Maybe there’s someone in your life that you’ve forgiven once, (or twice, or however many times!) but then they turn around and hurt you again.  What do you do?

So, Peter was asking an important question here.  And his suggestion for an answer was reasonable.  Is there a limit to our forgiveness?  “Seven times” probably seemed like a good limit to him.  Others may have seen it as reasonable, too.  But Jesus gave Peter an answer that is fraught with hyperbole!  “Not seven times,” he said, “but seventy times seven!”  So, do the math!  What is that?  How many got 490!  (Now let’s not always see the same hands!)  That was Jesus’ way of exaggerating to make a point.  That’s hyperbole!  “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times!  Well, the point he was making was “forgiveness doesn’t keep score.”  Forgiveness is without limit!

Now, that seems like a tall order, doesn’t it?  And please understand me!  That doesn’t mean when we forgive someone we necessarily put ourselves in a position for that person to hurt us again.  I don’t think Jesus meant that.  I think he would want us to be careful.  He would want us not to assume that forgiveness is the same thing as reconciliation!  Forgiving someone doesn’t mean that relationship is completely healed, and nothing can every happen again!  On the other hand, the prospect of that relationship not being completely healed should not prevent us from forgiving!  “Why should I forgive that guy?  He’s just going to hurt me again!”  Jesus wouldn’t want us to go there!

That brings up something I’ve always wondered about forgiveness.  Maybe you have, too.  When Peter asked that question, “How many times do I forgive my brother?”  Does that question carry with it the assumption that this brother is asking for forgiveness each time?  And does it change things if he isn’t asking?

We know God forgives us when we confess and ask for forgiveness.  But does he forgive us if we don’t confess, or if we refuse his forgiveness for some reason?  And what if we don’t confess because we’ve decided we haven’t done anything wrong?  There’s that whole “original sin” thing I was talking about last week!  And what of the person that doesn’t ask for forgiveness?  Does that change our obligation to forgive him?

While you’re thinking about that, what about the person who does ask for forgiveness, but then continues to do the same thing to us?  When my kids were little, and they would do something wrong, and then say they were sorry – more than once, I had a line I used to say to them.  I’d say, “Don’t be sorry!  Don’t do it!”  In other words, asking for forgiveness goes hand in hand with “not doing it again,” don’t you think?

I’ve struggled with those kinds of questions over the years.  And again, maybe you have, too.  But what I’ve found was that I was in a not-so-good place when I was limiting or qualifying my forgiveness.  And there were times I had good reasons to limit my forgiveness.  “That person doesn’t care if they hurt me.”  “That person doesn’t think they’ve hurt me.”  “That person continues to hurt me.”  “That person isn’t sorry!”  “That person doesn’t deserve my forgiveness.”  The more I think about it, Jesus was right.  He knew that we’re not going to be in a good place when we qualify or quantify our forgiveness like that!

“But!” I hear you say, “It’s hard sometimes to forgive when someone has hurt us.”  That’s true! Especially if it’s a deep hurt!  That’s a part of this we all struggle with.  “I can’t get over the hurt that person has caused me.”  Or “I’m still angry with them!”  That hurt and anger doesn’t go away very easily, does it?  And sometimes we hold on to it, and it gnaws at us.  Well, the thing is, if we’re going to get over it, we have to choose to!  Yes, there’s that word again!  Forgiveness is a conscious choice!  It doesn’t happen automatically.  The feelings of hurt and anger don’t go away so easily.  And the grudges we hold can hurt us!  They can be detrimental to our minds, and even our bodies!  And of course, they can affect our spirits!

Now, I have to say that, unfortunately, some of the wounds I’ve seen in people – wounds that take the longest to heal – have been in churches.  There’s some sense in this story that the “brother,” Peter is referring to here, is a “spiritual brother.”  And I hate to say it, but spiritual brothers and sisters can hurt each other, too!  And those “wounds” among church members can be some of the hardest to heal.  In my church in Kansas there were wounds that happened years before I arrived there.  And they took a very long time to heal.  And some of the scars from those wounds where still there even when I left 20 years later!

Churches can be the source of our wounds, so we should guard those relationships very closely!  It’s the same with families.  Families can be another source of wounds.  And those can be deep wounds, too!  And they too can take a long time to heal!  Just think about that.  There are people around us every day who are carrying around the scars from those family wounds!

Another thing I learned over the years is that forgiveness is as important to us as it is to the person we’re forgiving.  Isn’t that true?  Again, the grudges we hold are detrimental to our well-being – physically, mentally, and spiritually!  The Apostle Paul knew that.  To the Ephesians, he wrote this.  “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:31–32)

Paul was very concerned about peace in the body of Christ.  He knew how important that was for his people, and how important it was to their witness!  “Put away those things.” he said.  In other words, “Choose to put them away!”  (Paul liked the word choose, too!)  “Put away those things,” because they are detrimental to the body of Christ!  They take away our peace!  They gnaw at us!  And they can consume us!  If we hang on to our hurt and anger, and feelings of bitterness, what does that do to our whole demeanor!  What does it do to the body?  And how does that look to the world around us?

Again, I would say that forgiving a person is not the same thing as trusting them again.  We can forgive someone, and still be cautious in dealing with them.  We can set boundaries that will not allow them the opportunity to hurt us again!  But we can still choose to forgive them.  Maybe not verbally, but in our hearts.  Maybe we don’t tell them, but we tell ourselves!

So, Jesus was right on here.  And he gave us the basis for our forgiveness.  And this is what we started with.  We forgive because we have been forgiven.  And you ask for forgiveness on that basis every week!  I’ve heard you!  And if you think of it, we don’t deserve to be forgiven ourselves, do we!  So what does that say about forgiving someone who doesn’t deserve it?

Jesus said, because we are forgiven, we forgive.  In other words, “Forgiven people forgive people!”  And then he told them this very dramatic story!  This man owed the king a great deal of money.  Ten thousand talents.  That’s an entire lifetime of money!  (Is that more hyperbole?)  Well, the man begged the king to have patience, and he would pay.  But instead, the king had mercy and forgave him – the entire amount.

Then, as Jesus tells this story, that man came upon another man who owed him, only one hundred denarii.  That was seen as a small amount – relatively.  A denarius was one day’s wages.  So that was meant to be a huge contrast in this story.  And the man “seized the other man by the throat.”  I love that dramatic description!  “He seized him by the throat and said, ‘Pay what you owe!’”  And he gave him the same demand for payment that the king made of him – except for the “seizing by the throat” part! However the King did order the man to be sold, along with his wife and his children and all his possessions!  I guess that’s akin to being seized by the throat.

But of course the upshot of the story is that the man who was forgiven did not show forgiveness, himself.  And that was Jesus’ whole point!  Because again, he knows what happens to us when we are unforgiving!  And if you think about it, so do we!  We know what holding grudges and “stewing” about our hurts can do to us!  We know!

And we know that’s not what God wants for us.  Remember, God always wants the best for us!  It’s when we resist his ways, and insist on our own ways, that we make our own lives miserable.  And of course, the problem with that is that sometimes we’re willing to quantify our misery!  In other words, we think to ourselves, “I can live with a certain amount of misery, if it means I don’t have to forgive someone.”

While you’re thinking about that, think about how our hearts hurt when our own children reject our wisdom, choose their own path, and end up hurting themselves.  Can you imagine how God’s heart hurts when he sees what we put ourselves through by resisting his ways, and insisting on our own?

So, God wants us to be forgiving people!  He knows how good that is for us!  And as a wise man once said, “Things are not always righteous just because God says them.  Sometimes God says things because they are righteous!”  God wants certain things for us because he wants the best for us!

So, “Forgiven people forgive people.”  The other thing I like about that title is that it’s the kind of wording that sticks with us.  It can run through our minds like a song – you know, that song we can’t get out of our head?  Well, I hope that phrase runs through your heads, just like that!  “Forgiven people forgive people.”  (Say it with me!  “Forgiven people forgive people!”)  And in the end, I hope you remember that comes from Jesus himself!  He who gave his life so that God has made you “Forgiven people!”

Prayer

Eternal God we thank you for your steadfast love and mercy toward us.  We thank you that you have forgiven us, even though we don’t deserve it.  Help us to have the strength to choose to be forgiving people.  Grant us your peace as we seek to be people of Grace, the Grace you so freely give us.  For this we pray in our Savior’s name, Amen.