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Peter came to Jesus to ask how many times he should forgive someone who sins against him. Before Jesus could answer, Peter already had a very holy number to throw out there. “Seven times?” Jesus told him: No, but seventy times seven! Jesus had a story to back up why forgiveness should be that over the top with us.
He said if we want to really understand what the Kingdom of Heaven is like, we should understand this story:
A king decided to bring his accounts up to date and realized one of his servants owed him millions of dollars. The servant couldn’t pay it, so the king ordered that he, his wife, and even his children be sold to pay the debt.
The man humbly begged at the master’s feet and cried out for patience so that he could pay it. Knowing the man could never pay the debt he owed, and seeing the servant pleading before him, the king was filled with compassion and cancelled the servant’s entire debt to him!
But when the man left the king, he went to a peer who owed him a few thousand dollars. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded payment for what he was owed. The fellow servant begged for patience so that he could pay him back, but he wouldn’t wait. He had the man thrown in prison until he could pay him back.
Some onlookers ran and told the king what they had just witnessed. The king called in the man he had forgiven and said, “You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?” The angry king threw the man in prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt.
Jesus ended the story with these words, “That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.”
We can look at this story and think, What a jerk! He got millions of dollars forgiven and he wouldn’t let go of a few thousand dollars that were owed to him! But, I have to think that we have all been that guy at some point in our life.
God is the king who has so graciously forgiven a debt that we could never pay. The payment of sin against our Lord is death. Jesus not only paid our debt, but reconciled us to the King. I have sinned greatly against a perfect God. I have turned away from my very own Creator. I have refused to love the one person in this world that has loved me with a completely perfect love. And He forgave my great debt to Him.
Then, I have had a peer. Someone I didn’t create. Someone I didn’t breathe life into. Someone I didn’t record every day of their life in an eternal book. Another human being, just like me, hurt me. Oh, did they hurt me. I see that they sinned against a fellow sinner – me. But I also have to see that they sinned against a perfect and holy God. That perfect and holy God forgave my million dollar debt, one that I could never pay back. And yet, I have the hardest time forgiving a thousand dollar debt owed to me.
What brought tears to my eyes during this story was when the man left the king’s presence and went to the man who owed him something. He grabbed him and demanded payment and threw him in prison when he couldn’t pay it back. How often do we do that to someone who has hurt us? We want it to be made right! We want the person who hurt us to make the pain go away. We want the person who hurt us to somehow wave a magic wand, go back in time, and stop the offense from ever happening in the first place. We demand payment for all the hurt they have caused us. We truly believe we should be recompensed by them for what they put us through. And when they look at us with hopelessness in their eyes because they know they can never make it right or take away the pain they caused us, we throw them in prison. We throw them in a prison that keeps our love from them, our affection from them, and our unjudging approval of them. We lock them in a prison that will never allow them to receive full reconciliation with us because they don’t deserve it.
But Jesus would tell us the same words He told the disciples. His heavenly Father will do exactly to us what we have done to our debtors if we refuse to forgive the ones who have hurt us from our heart. Some of us are already living out a sentence of torture because we refuse to forgive and it is an unbearable way to live. If we want to live in true freedom we have to unlock the door to the prison we put the person who hurt us in. We have to remember the forgiveness that has been freely given to us and through tears give someone else that same forgiveness.
Father God, I don’t want to be the unforgiving servant in the story. You have forgiven a debt of mine that I could never in a million years begin to pay back. Please help me forgive the person who has hurt me and can never pay back what I so desperately wish they could. It hurts, but it’s not worth it. Holding them captive will never bring me life. Releasing the bitterness and giving forgiveness to them is the only way I can experience a free life with You.