Forgiveness Doesn’t Count :: Matthew 18:21-35

[Introduction]

Forgiveness doesn’t count. It never counts.

Now don’t misunderstand what I just said ... I don’t mean that forgiveness doesn’t matter. Forgiveness DEFINITELY matters. It actually is the most IMPORTANT thing in our lives. 

We always need forgiveness. We need it from God. We need it from each other. We need it daily. We need to receive it. We need to give it. We need to share it. We’d be lost without it. That’s what Jesus teaches us today. 

Matthew writes: When Peter came up to [Jesus], he said, ‘Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I release him [from the consequences]. Up to seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I tell you, not up to seven times, but up to seventy-times seven’ (vv 21-22). In other words, forgiveness doesn’t count.

By telling us to forgive ‘seventy-times’ ... seven, Jesus was not giving us a math problem to solve. He was not saying it is okay to draw a new line at 491. He was describing what perfect and complete forgiveness really looks like. 

The word “seventy-times” ... (it is literally one word, not two) ... seventy-times is a word of perfection and completeness. So too is the word “seven.” He is therefore saying that ... like our heavenly Father ... Christians are to forgive perfectly and completely. And after we have done that, we are to do it again, perfectly and completely ... over and over. 

Forgiveness is so perfect and complete it doesn’t keep track of how many times it has to forgive. It doesn’t rehash the past. It doesn’t keep track of how many times it is delivered in the Divine Service. It doesn’t worry about tomorrow.

FORGIVENESS DOESN’T COUNT

I. Jesus teaches us this because that’s the way it is with God.

As the Psalmist reminded us today ... If you, YHWH, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, so that you may be revered (130:3-4). 

Thank God he has stopped counting. There is nothing you can say that will ever merit that forgiveness of sin. There’s no confession of sin that will ever be good enough ... or complete enough ... to actually warrant the forgiveness of sins. You can’t show enough repentance. Repentance is a fruit of forgiveness ... not the cause. Instead, God has simply erased the record of sin against you in mercy ... not giving you what you deserve ... death. 

There’s also no sacrifice you can make to merit the forgiveness of sins. As the prophet Micah reminds us today in our Old Testament reading (6:6-8) ... Year-old calves are not a sufficient payment for sin. Thousands of rams also are not enough. Neither is ten thousand rivers of oil. Or my firstborn son.

We just won’t cut it.

II. But God’s one and only son did ... All sin was counted against him.

As Saint Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5[18-19]: In Christ, God has reconciled the world to himself ... and stopped counting our trespasses against us. 

Let this word of God sink in. He stopped counting your sins against you on account of Jesus ... his life, his death, the blood shed. God has canceled the record of debt that stood against us ... by nailing it to the cross of Christ (Col 2:14).

Our stripes have been counted against Jesus. He is the one who was despised and rejected by men ... not you. He was beaten for you and afflicted for you. He was scourged, mocked, pierced for you. Our Heavenly Father counted all of our iniquity against him ... which, I will remind you, includes our refusal to forgive and our insistence on counting iniquities against one another ... keeping track ... keeping score. But Jesus paid the price of our sin with his death on the cross. And because of his sacrifice ... in him, we have redemption through his blood, that is, the forgiveness of sins (Col 1:14). Now we can live and forgive ... because he is risen and he lives in you and me (Gal 2:20).

All of our sin ... mine, yours, the world’s ... has been and continues to be cleansed by the blood of Jesus ... absolved by the Word of Jesus. Through his word and his sacraments, your sin is released ... it is no longer counted against you ... with tangible means. As Paul says in Colossians, Jesus has erased the written record of it (Col 2:14). He stopped counting. 

III. That means we need to stop counting, too. 

To illustrate this point: Jesus told us the so-called Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. 

The unforgiving servant was a man who owed his king more money than you can count ... 10,000 talents, which might as well be described as a gazillion-bazillion dollars. Think of it this way: The seven richest men in the world don’t have that much money. It would take a man nearly 20 years to earn one talent alone. And this guy was in debt by 10,000.

So when he was shown the record of his sin, he pleaded for patience, not mercy. Though he recognized the gracious character of the King ... notably long-suffering (or patience) ... he actually thinks he can make amends for his sin. 

The King knows better. You can’t and you won’t. But instead of tossing him in prison, the gracious King has mercy on this one servant ... and takes the hit for the debt himself. 

You know, just like Jesus. 

The Lord released him. 

I mean, it’s probably just $1.6 trillion. But who’s counting?

It certainly wasn’t the king.

It was the unforgiving servant. Though he’d been shown what actual forgiveness looks like, you’d think he would have learned to do what the king does. Instead, the first thing he did after being forgiven was find the guy who owed him 100 days of wages. For those of you counting, that would be something like $25K. ... He then seized this poor man ... choked him ... ignored his plea for mercy. And he had him imprisoned, demanding payback. 

While it certainly was within his legal right to count the pennies he was owed, the Unrighteous Servant held a grudge and stewed with indignation over how he felt someone treated him and did every he could to make someone regret that repayment wasn’t made the way he wanted. Ultimately he ended up imprisoned in the prison he built.

[As] Jesus said, in this way, my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.

[Conclusion]

Brothers and sisters in Christ ... God desires mercy, not sacrifice. He desires you to stop counting. You can do this because you are the Baptized. You have heard absolution. You are about to receive the Lord’s Supper. In these means of grace, your heavenly Father not only delivers the forgiveness of sins on account of Jesus’ death and resurrection, he proves he does not count them at all. And now he empowers you to do the same. 

Forgiving one another is what Christians do. This truth is at the heart of our faith. 

The joy of freely receiving forgiveness from God becomes the joy of not counting sins against one another ... in Jesus’ name.