Forgiveness Abounding
TRANSLATION
(1) And Jesus said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to those through whom they come! (2) It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. (3) Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins against you, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. (4) And if he sins against you seven times in one day and seven times returns saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”
(5) The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” (6) And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. (7) Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or tending sheep. When he comes in from the field, would you say to him, ‘Come at once and sit down to eat?’ (8) Would you not say to him, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and serve me until I have finished my meal, and after that you can eat and drink?’ (9) Do you thank the servant for doing the things that were commanded? (10) Even so, when you have done all that you were commanded to do, you should say, ‘We are unworthy servants. We have only done our duty.’”
OBSERVATIONS
In this segment Jesus dealt with the difficult issue of “sin” (used four times, once each in the first four verses). He first cautioned against causing a brother to fall into sin, something so serious that we must do everything we can to avoid it. He then addressed the importance of “forgiving” (found twice in vss. 3 & 4) those who have sinned against us. Granting forgiveness to someone who has hurt or offended us is one of the most difficult commands we face as Jesus’ disciples.
The disciples must have struggled with Jesus’ teaching, for they interrupted him with the request, “Increase our faith” (vs. 5). He briefly answered them (vs. 6) and then returned to what he had been trying to teach them (vss. 7-10). In summary, we are to avoid causing offense, and, when someone sins against us, we are obligated to grant them forgiveness. The problem is not our lack of faith as the disciples thought but rather our lack of obedience. Will we do what we are “commanded” (used twice in vss. 9 & 10)? Just as a good “servant” (used three times in vss. 7, 9, & 10) unhesitatingly follows the master’s instructions, so are we to obey our master when it comes to forgiving others.
OUTLINE
I. Jesus taught his disciples regarding the necessity of forgiveness. (1-4)
II. The disciples interrupted him to ask for more faith. (5)
III. Jesus then taught his disciples that the issue is not more faith but more obedience. (6-10)
IDEA STATEMENT
Regarding sinful behavior, we must at all costs avoid causing a brother to stumble and, at the same time, grant forgiveness to anyone who has hurt or offended us even multiple times.
APPLICATION
The repeated granting of forgiveness was part of a spiritual regimen which the disciples struggled to accept. Jesus quickly dispensed with their appeal for more faith which was, in reality, an attempt at misdirection. His use of the mustard seed, the smallest seed in the garden, as a point of comparison shows that, as far as he was concerned, the issue facing the disciples was not more faith but more faithfulness to obey commands that seemed too difficult to carry out.
As we read Luke’s account of this conversation, we find ourselves likewise struggling with the issue of repeated forgiveness. Forgiving an offense once, twice, or even three times may seem possible, but forgiving the same offense seven times during the same day seems beyond the scope of even the most spiritual among us. How can we possibly be expected to carry out such a command? One answer that should settle the question for us is found in Jesus’ parable of the unforgiving servant (Mt. 18:21-35). There Jesus told the story of a servant whose master graciously forgave a huge debt which he could never repay. However, the forgiven servant then refused to forgive a much smaller debt of a fellow servant who had in turn appealed to him for forgiveness. The master rightly condemned the forgiven servant for his hard-heartedness. The principle is not difficult to grasp. Those who have been forgiven an immense debt impossible to repay by a gracious God are expected to forgive others with the same kind of grace that they have been shown. Like the disciples, we do not need more faith to understand this. We simply need more gratitude for the forgiveness that has already been shown to us and a realization that our becoming the beneficiaries of the master’s grace obligates us to forgive others who have sinned against us, both unconditionally and repeatedly.