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Forgiveness: The Great Debtor Society
Lead Pastor: Rollan Fisher
Focus: We will be expressions of the grace of God when we remember the great debt that Jesus Christ paid for us.
The Great Debtor Society
Who Has the Greater Debt?
Fully Paid
Matthew 18:21-35
Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.
23 “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants.
24 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.
25 And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made.
26 So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’
27 And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.
28 But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’
29 So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’
30 He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt.
31 When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place.
32 Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.
33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’
34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt.
35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
The Great Debtor Society
We are all great debtors to whom others also owe debts.
When we think of debt, we think of it at something that we owe someone financially, or some honor that they are due from us for good that they’ve loaned us to literally save or make our existence better, or to literally save them.
We are in debt to God when we sin against him by breaking his commands, mishandling the relationships, opportunities and resources that he’s give us to use for his glory.
We are in debt to others when we’ve sinned against them in some way.
Forgiveness is the mercy of God absolving us of the debt that we can never pay to make things right with him.
Our good works would continually fall short of his perfection and our motivations are like filthy rags used to clean our stains.
Who Has the Greater Debt?
We are rough with others when we forget our own debt before God.
At the heart of the gospel, Jesus Christ, who alone was completely innocent, proactively pursued reconciliation, offering forgiveness and healing to those who would falsely accuse and murder him.
Without a Biblical orientation regarding forgiveness, cries for righteousness and justice turn into cycles of vindictiveness rather than healing.
The damaging cycle of vindictiveness:
“When a society rejects the Christian account of who we are, it doesn’t become less moralistic but far more so, because it retains an inchoate sense of justice but has no means of offering and receiving forgiveness. The great moral crisis of our time is not, as many of my fellow Christians believe, sexual licentiousness, but rather vindictiveness. Social media serve as crack for moralists: there’s no high like the high you get from punishing malefactors. But like every addiction, this one suffers from the inexorable law of diminishing returns. The mania for punishment will therefore get worse before it gets better.”
-Alan Jacobs
The results of such vindictiveness:
We’ve served in some way and others have not pulled their weight.
*The relationships that we so desperately need will be cut off if we are full of judgment and offense towards others.
*This is a truth we must embrace:
If you continually hold people in your debt because of what they’ve done to you or how they’ve failed you, God will hold you accountable for the debt that you have before him (v. 31-35).
*We are most irritable, isolated and lonely when we focus on other people’s sin rather than our own.
*We are most healthy in relationships when we focus on the pity Christ expressed towards us and the great effort he made to reconcile great offenders to himself through the cross.
Forgiveness will always begin with a choice followed by a feeling.
Forgiveness begins with the humility to acknowledge that found in similar circumstances, but for the grace of God, we have done or might have done similar things to those who have sinned against us.
Even if you can not fathom the sin of others, reflecting on your own debt before God makes you merciful towards others.
We create our own prisons when we fail to forgive.
There is no moving forward in relationships in life without forgiveness.
Who do we need to pursue for reconciliation, forgiveness and healing?
Fully Paid
Because of Christ, your debts and the debts of those who owe you can be fully paid at the cross.
Now we spend our lives working off that debt in love toward others showing them the same grace that God himself has shown us.
When we look to the cross, we are able to treat others with the same grace that we ourselves hope to receive from Jesus.
The Unifying Power of the Grace of Christ
“Our community with one another [in Christ] consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us. Christian brotherhood is a spiritual and not a human reality. In this it differs from all other communities.”
-Deitrich Bonhoeffer
Forgiveness does not mean you do not address sin.
2 Timothy 2:19
But God's firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.”
Yet there is a life altering difference between building your life on seeking forgiveness and building it on seeking revenge.
There is a healing power in forgiveness, both for you and the recipient of your forgiveness.
Supernatural examples of the grace of God through forgiveness:
Shootings in Charleston, South Carolina June, 2015
Shootings in the Amish community in Pennsylvania - 2006
Let’s meet Jesus at the cross today to both receive and be empowered to give such grace.
Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher 2021