You Are Forgiven
Matthew 18:21–35
Peter asks, "Lord, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?" And Jesus says, "Not seven times, but seventy times seven." The point was you don't quit forgiving. You have to keep forgiving.
Then he tells this powerful story. The servant owes an enormous sum of money — more than the entire Roman Empire took in each year. There's no way he could pay. And to everyone's utter shock, the king takes that page in the ledger and tears it out and wads it up and says, "You are forgiven."
I don't know about you, but I can tell you how I'd feel if I had been forgiven a huge debt like that. I don't think my feet would touch the ground till I got all the way down the steps. But this guy doesn't get it. That is the point of the story. He gets to the bottom, and there's a guy that owes him twenty bucks. Grabs him by the throat. "Pay what you owe." Where's the mercy? He had just received all that mercy. Where'd that mercy go?
How many Christians deal with guilt and shame and a sense of inadequacy as a spiritual person, and we miss the whole point: you are forgiven. The forgiveness you've received is the same forgiveness I've received, the same forgiveness all of us have received. It is unconditional grace.
If you really get it, if you really believe we are forgiven, it's humanly impossible not to have gratitude. Does that person deserve forgiveness? Probably not. I didn't. But we can forgive. And the strangest thing happens when we forgive. We change.
Sooner or later, we will all need forgiveness. And sometimes the shame, the heartache, the brokenness is so strong we think, "If you only knew how bad my sin was." But with God, there's no shame. This story means nobody's going to have to remind us how to behave when we're forgiven. Nobody's going to have to tell us what to do when we get to the bottom of the stairs.
Corrie ten Boom wrote, "When we confess our sins, God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever. And then God places a sign out there that says, 'No fishing allowed.'" When you are forgiven, God doesn't even remember. To me, that's good news. That is true forgiveness.
From the sermon of September 13, 2026
Pastor William Mitchell
Peter asks, "Lord, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?" And Jesus says, "Not seven times, but seventy times seven." The point was you don't quit forgiving. You have to keep forgiving.
Then he tells this powerful story. The servant owes an enormous sum of money — more than the entire Roman Empire took in each year. There's no way he could pay. And to everyone's utter shock, the king takes that page in the ledger and tears it out and wads it up and says, "You are forgiven."
I don't know about you, but I can tell you how I'd feel if I had been forgiven a huge debt like that. I don't think my feet would touch the ground till I got all the way down the steps. But this guy doesn't get it. That is the point of the story. He gets to the bottom, and there's a guy that owes him twenty bucks. Grabs him by the throat. "Pay what you owe." Where's the mercy? He had just received all that mercy. Where'd that mercy go?
How many Christians deal with guilt and shame and a sense of inadequacy as a spiritual person, and we miss the whole point: you are forgiven. The forgiveness you've received is the same forgiveness I've received, the same forgiveness all of us have received. It is unconditional grace.
If you really get it, if you really believe we are forgiven, it's humanly impossible not to have gratitude. Does that person deserve forgiveness? Probably not. I didn't. But we can forgive. And the strangest thing happens when we forgive. We change.
Sooner or later, we will all need forgiveness. And sometimes the shame, the heartache, the brokenness is so strong we think, "If you only knew how bad my sin was." But with God, there's no shame. This story means nobody's going to have to remind us how to behave when we're forgiven. Nobody's going to have to tell us what to do when we get to the bottom of the stairs.
Corrie ten Boom wrote, "When we confess our sins, God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever. And then God places a sign out there that says, 'No fishing allowed.'" When you are forgiven, God doesn't even remember. To me, that's good news. That is true forgiveness.
From the sermon of September 13, 2026
Pastor William Mitchell
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