21Peter came up and said to [Jesus], “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” 22Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.
Jesus expects this of you. It’s not an option. It’s not Christian extra-credit or an optional overtime to earn something extra.
It’s not above and beyond your call as one baptized in Christ.
It’s expected.
“Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” 22Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.
Jesus expects this of us. Christians are to forgive.
“Yes, but…” we say.
And you know what? There’s room for some of those “buts…”
That we are to forgive is the beginning of the conversation and it’s the end of the conversation.
But there’s a lot of conversation that happens in the middle.
Our text is from Matthew 18 and Matthew 18 alone has a lot of conversation not just about our forgiveness but about sin in general. We’re not talking about sweeping sin under the rug.
If anyone sins against a little one, it would be better for him if a great millstone were tied around his neck and he be thrown in the sea.
Woe to the one by whom temptation comes. If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.
If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his faults, between you and him alone, and if he listens to you, you have gained your brother. ….
Unrepented sin is a danger for your brother and his faith and life. It is hurting your sister in Christ and those around her. It is separating her from God and from others.
Scripture has a lot to say to those who have been sinned against, the importance of justice, the gift and need of discipline and punishment in families and in the church and in the state.
But, let’s anchor ourselves in this expectation, that Jesus expects us to forgive. We begin there and we end there.
We have it right there in the prayer Jesus taught us. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Right after the Lord’s Prayer, Matthew 6 records that Jesus says
For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Our Catechism says that our Father in heaven does not look at our sins or deny our prayer because of them. We’re not worthy for the things we pray, nor have we deserved them, but we ask that HE would give us all things by grace….so we too will sincerely forgive and gladly do good to those who sin against us.
That’s the expectations.
Peter, before he asks this question today has been with and heard our Lord for quite awhile, and he begins to see the expectations and starts counting in his head about what he thinks he can expect from himself.
Peter thinks he can expect himself to forgive 7 times. And that might be pretty generous.
[baseball has three strikes and you’re out. Some jobs you get fired on the spot. Some laws put you away for life.]
If you are thinking about how others have hurt you, the seriousness of sin the intensity of the pain, the anger, the sleepless nights, the distracted days in which you’re replaying their sin, 1 might by your max of what you can expect from yourself. Maybe.
[lies, gossip, murder, dishonor, betrayal, murder, them ignoring their duties God has called them to and others are depending upon]
When Jesus says to Peter, I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven, we might hear Peter thinking, “Well, that was unexpected.”
And Jesus isn’t done teaching and preaching about the unexpected.
He tells a parable in which a man racks up a debt to a king of 10,000 talents.
A talent is about what a laborer would make in 20 years.
Repeat that again, a talent is about what a laborer would make in 20 years.
And this guy owes 10,000.
It’s a bit of an idea of what would happen if our Lord should mark our iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?
We don’t own anything. Our bodies, souls, mouths, hands, minds, money.
And on the day our Lord would settle accounts. We’d owe a debt that is impossible for us to begin to imagine, and more than impossible for us to work it off.
But this King, after the servant pleads with him for patience, forgives the debt.
Our King forgives the debt. He releases us.
That’s unexpected.
What’s even more unexpected is the broader Christian story.
That what would be expected, the man can’t pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made or at the end when the master delivered him to the jailers in anger until he should pay all his debt, happens instead, not to us unworthy servants, but to our King, to our God.
Sin can’t be ignored. It must be paid.
And our Lord was sold, betrayed by Judas for 30 pieces of silver.
Jesus received the anger and was thrown to the guards until He should pay all our debt.
Our Lord was the only one who could pay this debt, this impossible to count debt.
You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver and gold, but with precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. (1 Peter 1:18)
If you, O Lord,
should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.
And you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living Word of God. (1 Peter 1:22)…And this is the good news that is preached to you (1 Peter 1:25).
This is the unexpected things we as Christians can expect from our Lord.
He doesn’t count iniquities. He counts very differently than we would expect.
He goes after the 1 sheep when there’s 99 others that are found.
He feeds 5,000 with 5 loaves and 2 fish.
[He allows Himself to be anointed with a very expensive oil rather than selling it to the poor because the woman was preparing Him for His death and burial that will forgive the sins of the world and promise life here with God and life forever with God.
Jesus is way more important than money.]
So the rest of the parable has something very unexpected.
The servant who was forgiven much, doesn’t love much.
That’s what you would expect, that He would love and trust his master, that he would have patience and show mercy and have forgiveness to a fellow servant who owed him.
But very unexpectedly, he is resentful and greedy and bitter and angry at someone who owes him.
That then, for the Christian, becomes the unexpected thing.
Only because we know the heart of God – our heavenly Father. We are brothers and sisters of Jesus and brothers and sisters of each other.
Our Lord expects us to forgive, because He expects to hear again and again what we can expect from Him – forgiveness, patience, kindness, strength in the Supper we are about to receive in which we receive the body and blood of Jesus that reconciled us to God and gives us strength to begin to be reconciled with one another – having received the ministry of reconciliation.
Peter has something right in the question, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? He looks to the Lord for help on this question.
We can’t look to ourselves, we can’t look at our brother or sisters, we can’t look at their sin and expect us to be able to do anything.
But we’re here at church, not looking to ourselves, but looking to the Word, looking to Supper, looking to the prayers and the songs. What we can we expect from our Lord?
He does the unexpected for us and begins to do unexpected things through us.