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Life Application Sermon Series: Sermon #5
When You Can’t Forgive Someone
(Who is in your dungeon?)
Matthew 18: 22-30
Text Scripture:
22 Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.
23 Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants.
24 And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents.
25 But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.
26 The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.
27 Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt.
28 But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellowservants, which owed him an hundred pence: and he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest.
29 And his fellowservant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.
30And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt.
Intro:
Tonight I want to preach a sermon entitled: When you can’t forgive someone. WHO IS IN YOUR DUNGEON?
ILLUSTRATION:
During the Revolutionary War, a pastor named John P. Miller learned one of his greatest enemies was to be hanged for his crimes.
Immediately Miller set out on foot sixty miles to visit Gen. George Washington to intercede for the mans life.
The general heard the request and said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t set your friend free.”
Miller said, “He’s not my friend. He’s my greatest enemy!”
Washington replied, “Well, that puts the matter in a whole new light.”
Seeing the pastors forgiveness for his enemy . . . Washington signed the pardon.
Miller quickly carried the pardon another fifteen miles and arrived at the execution scene just as the condemned man was walking toward the gallows.
Millers enemy was set free that day . . . by the pastor who he hated most!
Did the two become friends? I don’t know!
But this I do know . . . when Miller put forth the effort to free his enemy . . . he became the “real” free man!
What a lesson for us to learn today . . . If we would be free, we must free those that we’ve imprisoned in the dungeon of unforgiveness in our own hearts and souls.
Jesus makes a haunting statement in Matthew 6: 15. He says, “But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
The meaning of this scripture is very simple to understand . . . If I cannot set you free from the dungeon of unforgiveness that I put you in when you do me wrong . . . neither will my Heavenly Father set me free when I fail!
*And let there be no misunderstanding . . . every day of our lives we decide to either lock people in our dungeon of unforgiveness . . . or set them free . . .
*We cannot control the events of life. We cannot control the things that happen to us . . . HOWEVER . . . WE CAN CONTROL THE WAY IN WHICH WE RESPOND TO THOSE EVENTS!
FORGIVENESS IS A CHOICE THAT WE AND WE ALONE CHOOSE TO EITHER MAKE OR NOT MAKE!
Today’s scripture deals with what I am speaking about . . .
1: A slave owed his master a great debt . . . ten thousand talents.
2: Ten thousand talents is not ten thousand coins as some people think.
A talent was a measuring weight that weighed between eighty to ninety-four pounds.
A talent then could be a sack of gold or silver coins weighing ninety-four pounds!
In today’s world that would be fifty million dollars that the slave owed.
*Someone calculated that at a slave’s pay it would have taken the slave 4,500 lifetime’s to repay the debt. IN OTHER WORDS . . . HE OWED A DEBT HE COULDN’T PAY!
The king decided that since he couldn’t pay he would sell the slave and his family to recover some of his losses.
3: The salve did something unthinkable. He threw himself on the floor before the king and wept and begged for mercy.
4: He told the king to be patient and he would repay all.
5: The king knew he couldn’t repay . . . but was moved with compassion by the brokenness and humility of the salve.
The king was so moved by compassion that he forgave him the entire fifty million-dollar debt, and set him free.
This is what Jesus did for us! . . . We owed a debt we couldn’t pay . . . but when we humble ourselves before Him, the entire debt is forgiven!
6: The slave then went and found a fellow slave that owed him a debt . . . fifteen dollars!
7: The fellow-slave did the same as the slave had done before his master . . . He begged forgiveness and patience. He even used the same words: Have patience with me and I will repay all!
8: But he who had been forgiven of the great debt . . . couldn’t find it in his heart to forgive the fellow-slave of his miniscule debt of fifteen dollars.
9: He placed his hands around his throat and began to squeeze the air out of him . . yelling . . . PAY ME WHAT YOU OWE ME!
10: And he cast him into prison until he could pay the debt.
11: When the master found out what the slave had done . . . he cast him into prison until he could pay all.
Tonight . . . you and I are as the salve . . . we have been forgiven a great debt!
But, tonight I want to ask you a question: WHO DO YOU HAVE IN YOUR DUNGEON OF UNFORGIVENESS “RIGHT NOW?” ($15.00 debt!)
Perhaps it is a parent that was abusive to you . . .
Perhaps it is a spouse that was unfaithful . . .
Perhaps it is a spouse that was abusive . . .
Perhaps it is a child that is wayward . . .
Perhaps it is a business partner that was crooked . . .
Perhaps it is a friend that betrayed a sacred trust . . .
Perhaps it is a pastor that suffered a moral failure . . .
And on & on I could go . . . .
But I don’t need too.
You can see them there right now.
You can see their faces . . . the faces of the people that you have placed the manacles and shackles on, and have the stretched out on the walls of your dungeon of unforgiveness!
Again, Matthew 6: 15 says, “But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
Tonight I want to look at six steps to forgiving the person that you just can’t forgive.
1: As Christians, we must base forgiveness on what God has done “for” us, rather than what the person has done “to” us.
A: We may think that what the person did to us is too big a debt to forgive.
Nearly everyone uses that as an excuse! . . . Preacher, you just don’t know what they done to me!
You’re right. I don’t! . . . But I know what they did to my Jesus. After being beaten with a cat-of-nine-tails, stripped, mocked, ridiculed, falsely imprisoned, falsely tried, falsely convicted, and crucified . . . HE PRAYED . . . FATHER FORGIVE THEM FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO!
Are we to do any less?
*The first principle of forgiveness is this: I cannot give away something that I haven’t received.
The truth of the matter is this: Just maybe you can’t forgive that person in your life because you haven’t experienced forgiveness from God in your life.
Three timeless principles of love:
1: Love doesn’t carry grudges.
2: Love doesn’t seek revenge.
3: Love doesn’t keep score.
Forgiveness is not based upon how much someone else owes us, rather upon the abounding mercy that God has granted us through Christ death on the cross.
1: As Christians, we must base forgiveness on what God has done “for” us, rather than what the person has done “to” us.
2: We must let God heal our past wounds.
A: Unforgiveness means we desire to hurt the people who have hurt us.
ILLUSTRATION:
Unforgiveness is like the little boy that was sitting on a park bench in obvious agony.
- A man walked by and asked him what was wrong.
- The boy answered, “I’m sitting on a bumble bee.”
- “Then why don’t you get up?” asked the man.
- The boy replied, “Because I figure I’m hurting him worse than he is hurting me!”
The healing process begins when we get up off the bench.
- God will only heal our wounds when we stop inflicting pain upon the one who hurt us!
- The seed of unforgiveness will sprout into the root of bitterness.
Hebrews 12: 15: “Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;”
There are many lonely, bitter people in the world today . . made so by unforgiveness.
ILLUSTRATION:
A man fell into temptation and had an adulterous relationship with another woman.
The man loved his wife dearly and confessed all to her.
He begged for forgiveness . . . but all of his efforts to win forgiveness was rebuffed by his wife.
She filed for divorce.
For five years after the divorce the man continued to do everything within his power to win forgiveness from his wife . . . to no avail.
Finally, in desperation he gave up and went on with his life.
He remarried and made a new life for himself.
On her death bed she told her daughters, “I will die a lonely, bitter old woman because I couldn’t forgive your father.”
Held prisoner of her own unforgiveness of her husband.
God will only heal our wounds when we stop inflicting pain upon the one who hurt us!
1: As Christians, we must base forgiveness on what God has done “for” us, rather than what the person has done “to” us.
2: We must let God heal our past wounds.
3: We need to feel compassion for the person that hurt us.
A: Forgiveness proceeds out of compassion . . . not anger.
This is the difference in the king and the salve . . . The king felt compassion toward the person that owed him the great debt . . . The slave felt anger.
Anger never leads to forgiveness!
In order to feel compassion for someone . . . we must view them through the eyes of Jesus . . . We must see them as He sees them!
When nailed to a cross praying, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do” did Jesus’ executioners really not know what they were doing?
Oh, it one sense they knew exactly what they were doing . . . they had crucified hundreds before . . .
But in the Spiritual realm, they were blind; they didn’t know what they were doing!
Many people who have hurt us are just as Spiritually blind as to what they are doing to us as Jesus’ executioners were to Who they were crucifying!
Jesus chose to look at His enemies through eyes of compassion.
1: As Christians, we must base forgiveness on what God has done “for” us, rather than what the person has done “to” us.
2: We must let God heal our past wounds.
3: We need to feel compassion for the person that hurt us.
4: We choose to pay off the debt the person owes us.
- The king forgave the slave his debt.
- That doesn’t mean the debt just disappeared.
- It meant the king decided to pay the slaves debt instead of forcing the slave to pay it.
Forgiveness will cost you something!
Somebody may owe you a debt of money . . . and hasn’t paid it back.
Somebody may owe you a debt of gratitude . . . a thank you . . . and you haven’t received it.
Somebody may owe you an apology . . . and you haven’t received it.
To forgive people of these debts we must:
Quit expecting them to repay the debt to us.
Choose to pay the debt ourselves.
Take our hands from around their necks.
Stop choking them demanding they pay us back.
And love them!
5: We stop replaying the hurt on the screen of our minds.
A: Whenever somebody hurts us we record the event on the videotape of our minds.
Every time we recall the hurt . . . we hit the play button on the VCR of our minds and watch the hurt happen again.
The remembrance of the event brings back the painful feelings we experienced.
Every time we replay the event we get wounded one more time.
In reality, the event may have only occurred once, but we’ve been wounded hundreds of times by rewinding and replaying the event in our minds.
Our own unforgiveness causes the hurt to be multiplied much worse than the original wound.
*When we forgive . . . we choose to stop recalling the past!
No . . . we don’t “forget” we just choose not to remember!
ILLUSTRATION:
I have a computer.
When I start to delete a file I put my pointer on “delete file” and I choose “delete.”
The computer the flashes a message: About to delete file so & so . . . are you sure?
The reason the computer asks you this question is because it knows that once you hit the delete button the second time . . . the file can never be recalled!
Too many time we call ourselves going through the forgiveness process . . . but we only hit the delete button once . . . we don’t hit it the second time. Therefore, we can still access the file and recall it to our memory and continue to be hurt over and over again!
6: We must release the person from our prison.
A: We must release the person that has offended us.
The king forgave and released the slave. The slave threw his fellow-slave in jail.
BY NOT RELEASING HIS FELLOW SLAVE THE SLAVE SIGNED HIS OWN CONDEMNATION . . .
Matthew 7: 1 & 2:
1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
2For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
*If we don’t release the person from our dungeon of unforgiveness . . . then we take them with us wherever we go!
When you go to bed at night . . . the person is there to keep you awake . . .
When you go on vacation . . . they’re there to keep you from being happy . . .
If you don’t let them go . . . they are going to eat you alive!
THEY’RE IN YOUR PRISON . . . BUT THEY ARE HOLDING YOU CAPTIVE!
Close:
As I close this service tonight . . . I want several things to happen:
1: I want you to make a mental list of the prisoners in your dungeon. (And be honest and don’t overlook anybody!)
2: I want you to realize that Jesus didn’t just die for “your sins” on the cross . . . he died for the sins committed against you by the people who have hurt you . . .
Picture in your mind Jesus dying for those sins and those people.
3: When the time comes . . . I want you to come to this altar and announce to God that you are setting these people free.
4: Destroy the mental VCR tape of the event so that you can’t replay it anymore.
Finally . . . I want you to mentally visualize your dungeon of unforgiveness . . .
I want you to picture yourself walking up to each prisoner . . .
Call them by name . . .
Reach up and unlock the manacles and shackles . . .
One-by-one, take them by the hand and lead them up the stairs . . .
And as you are leading them out . . . announce to them . . .
I’m letting you out now. I’m not going to whip you anymore. I’m setting you free. I release you from the prison that I have kept you in.
Before you leave, I plead with you, will you forgive me for keeping you imprisoned for so long and torturing you for all these years.
Once you have set them all free . . look back in your dungeon . . and you will discover that for the first time in years . . . it is empty . . .
You will sense a peace that passes all understanding when you realize that in reality that it wasn’t those that offended you that you just set free . . . THROUGH JESUS CHRIST . . .YOU JUST SET YOURSELF FREE!
And whom the Son sets free . . . is free indeed!
Preached: 5-6-99 @ PineMountainValleyFirstBaptistChurch.
Preached: 5-9-99 @ Roper Heights . . . recorded for radio & series.
Preached: 8-26-99 @ CenterChapelBaptistChurch in Roanoke, Alabama.
Preached: 10-4-99 @ Sunnyside Baptist in LaGrange.
Preached: 5-24-06 @ Southwest LaGrange Baptist Church