What's Next?

This week, we are talking about forgiveness. We ask the question, “Does God really forgive all my sins?” Simply put, YES! This question and answer, while simple in concept, is difficult to grapple with. When we ask this question, it’s very likely that our motivation comes from a dark place – a place of pain, secrets, regret and shame. We say something along the lines of, “Sure God forgives sins, but there is no way He can forgive me deep, dark sins. No way!” We are coming to God, with sins we have racked up or maybe one sin we think is MUCH bigger than other sins, sins we find difficult to forgive or don’t even think we can forgive, but God forgives those sins, and calls us to do the same.

In Matthew 18, Jesus tells the Parable of the Unforgiving Debtor. In this story, a servant owes the king what equates to over 100,000 years’ worth of debt. An unfathomable debt. A debt that can likely never be paid. When the servant could not repay this immense debt, the king ordered to have all of the servant’s possessions and family members be sold. The servant begged for patience from the king in repaying his debt. The king, instead, forgave the servant and released him from the large, unpayable debt. No strings attached. In the second part of the story, the man who was forgiven more than he could ever imagine, aggressively demanded that another man, who owed him the equivalent of three months wages pay it back or be sent to prison. How did he so quickly forget the debt he was released from? How could he not go on to forgive this other man of something so much smaller than he owed? Unfortunately, this is what we do a lot of times.

This parable draws the contrast between how much we owe God and how much others owe us. Can we forgive even less than what we have been forgiven? The debt doesn’t just disappear. So where did it go? It was bought on the cross. No conditions, no stipulations, no hesitation. The king, Jesus, is not asking us to repay our debt, because we cannot, instead, He paid for the debt Himself on the cross! Our response to this sacrifice is to both accept the forgiveness Jesus offers us and then extend that same forgiveness to others.

The Reason for God by Tim Keller
The Case for Christianity by Lee Strobel
Answering the Toughest Questions about Suffering and Evil by Bruce nickel and Stan Jantz
The Big Book of Bible Difficulties by Norman Geisler
Radical by David Platt