Sunday 6th September – From the Heart – Pastor Adrian Kitson

6-09-2026, forgiveness, From the Heart, Matthew 18:15-35, pastor adrian kitson

¹⁵‘If your brother or sister sins^] go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. ¹⁶But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that “every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.” ¹⁷If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

¹⁸‘Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

¹⁹‘Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. ²⁰For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.’

²¹Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, ‘Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?’

²²Jesus answered, ‘I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.

²³‘Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. ²⁴As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold^[^h^] was brought to him. ²⁵Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

²⁶‘At this the servant fell on his knees before him. “Be patient with me,” he begged, “and I will pay back everything.” ²⁷The servant’s master took pity on him, cancelled the debt and let him go.

²⁸‘But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins^] He grabbed him and began to choke him. “Pay back what you owe me!” he demanded.

²⁹‘His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, “Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.”

³⁰‘But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. ³¹When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.

³²‘Then the master called the servant in. “You wicked servant,” he said, “I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. ³³Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” ³⁴In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

³⁵‘This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.’

Jesus on the move toward his stated destination of the cross and certain death. He has said this. But right here, before the church has even begun, we are left with absolutely no illusions about the church that will one day come to be.

No matter how committed or how nice people try to be, people are still people, and stormy weather is always possible. Painful breaks can and do occur. Sharp hurtful words can and will be spoken.

“If your brother or sister sins (against you or someone else) …” (v15).

Not “if” but “when”. We are “being forewarned to be forearmed” for what this Christian life together will be like.

Jesus forewarns that it will not always be all peaceful easy feelings in his church. But he also forearms us with the way through.

The way through is the practice of forgiveness, this pursuit for peace, this reaching for reconciliation so the mission and the life together can continue.

Question is, have we the heart for this. Will we use this way through or just settle for grudges, misunderstanding, needing to win, dismissing other people’s hurt?

We are called to enter this holy pursuit. We are called to pay a debt to each other. Paul calls it the debt of love, we owe each other. Here is how you do it when things get rough between you and someone else in this Body.

Step 1: Speak directly to the person, not five others about what the person did or said that hurt. Say something rather then settling for harboring a grudge for years. Speak directly to the person – even before the sun goes down if you can (Ephesians 4:26)

Step 2: If the person receives your honest words, then forgiveness can be given and reconciliation complete. Wonderful moment of character-building growth.

Step 3: If the person does not receive your honest words, then take an advocate or two to vouch for how this conflict has hurt you and bear witness to what has actually occurred. Be specific and open as you can.

Step 4: If the person receives that witness and apologizes “from the heart”, then you can too, and forgiveness can be shared. Wonderful moment of grace.

Step 5: If the person still will not receive your words, then tell those in authority in your community (church, school, work place …). If that creates a listening heart, then reconciliation can be done.

Step 6: But, what if in as much as it has been up to you to work for peace, peace has not been able to come? If there is just no way, no matter who says what or comes with you, or what process is employed by who, that there is any acknowledgement of fault, ownership of responsibility and etc, then you need to let them go. But not for nothing.

Even then, for the possibility of some unknown future peace. You let them go in the hope that the Lord will keep working on them through others and one day bring the person to an honesty and humility before God and about what has happened between you.

All this is for true peace, true self-giving love, true finding that golden gift of reconciliation after conflict and hurt. It takes heart.

To help you check where your heart is at, Jesus tells a ripper of a parable …

A King wants to settle all his accounts with his workers. One of his workers has a huge amount of debt owing. Ten thousand talents is a huge sum. A single talent was worth about fifteen years wage for a worker/slave.

Speaking of kings … I brushed with a kind of King recently. Actually, a Queen – not in royalty but in wealth – Australia’s wealthiest person. Recently I met a good friend who is head of chaplaincy in Gina Reinhart’s mining company. We met in the 5 star hotel looking foyer of the new Hancock Mining headquarters in Perth and had a coffee in the restaurant quality staff café, ably sustained by several chefs Gina has put on the roster!

This scenario for this worker paying this enormous dept would be like me trying to pay a $100M dept to Gina in that foyer!

For reasons we can understand, this King decides to cut his already substantial losses by selling the worker, all his goods and chattels, and whole family.

This heavily indebted slave falls to his knees and begs the King for a just as ridiculous decision. The worker begs for more time pay off unpayable debt! Crazy request!

For some less understood reason, the King gives an even more ridiculous response. He will simply wipe off ALL the debt.

The slave is now is now debt free, and now a free citizen to boot! He has won Lotto big time! This is extravagant, uncalled-for forgiveness – illogical, not worldly wise, flying in the face of all human expectations.

What a relief. What a joy! But this great hope is dashed…..

We hear that the person who has been forgiven everything in turn forgives nothing. Even after such open-handed gracious forgiveness and hope that has been his, this small man of heart and mind still wants what is his, still believes it is all about him, all about winning, all about getting.

Just when we are about to get stuck into this horrible behavior by this forgiven but unforgiving person, Jesus stops us in our tracks and says WE can be and will be at some stage that horrible person!

³⁵‘This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.’

How’s that heart for that person? Are we reduced to being a harsh critic, never satisfied, always critical, judgmental, happy to condemn anyone different, “them and us”, “good people and bad people”, lines in the sand, lots of moral rules for them but no rules for me – When they wrong me it is disgusting. When I wrong another, it is just my ‘self expression’ and personal choice …

Is this what Paul means when he says without effort to reconcile, without this forgiven heart attempting to forgive we end up being “a noisy gong” (1 Corinthians 13) without a scrap of love, small people with narrow vision and shallow love usually bent on getting what is ours …

Friends, how can we play in tune and make a great song together? How can we not run away, dismiss or attack differences and misunderstanding between us? How can we be what we have been forgiven for – to be his forgiveness in the world in real time with real people?

I think it is trusting this King of kings. Like the worker in the parable, our debt was huge, unpayable, impossible to deal with.

We were at the mercy of a holy and just God. And like the King, by sheer gift, and his decision alone, he wiped off the debt, not by pretending it did not exist or sweeping the damage under the carpet, but by exposing it, tallying it up and loading it up on his Loved Son on that cross. Your wrongs have been tallied and punishment exacted in full measure on him.

Thank Jesus! He speaks this parable before he accomplishes my forgiveness and freedom for me and you.

The person who lives on forgiveness will give forgiveness. The forgiven person will know the value of the gift and its effects and want it for others.

I am hearing today that we are not hear to merely win the fight but to win the person. We are not here to just ‘speak the truth’. We are here to speak the truth from a heart of self-giving love. We don’t just ‘give it to ‘em’. We give them to Him.

And so, we, the forgiven, might be being prompted by the Spirit to take the time to go through these steps with someone, sometimes in painstaking and even repetitive manner hoping that the last step of letting him or her go is avoided and true reconciliation peace wins before we have to let them go.

For our church, the primary focus is on the restoration of the person in the wrong more than the justification of the person in the right. We work at restoring those who have done wrong more than punishing them. Around here we who are made right by Jesus, willingly at times give up our rights to serve and work for forgiveness.

Why? Because this is our hope: even if it does not go the way we want, no one is written off completely. Even the letting go of a person by me or you, has the heart that one day restoration might still happen in God’s power and wisdom.

Friend, please also trust that you are not written off today. The King delights in the decision he has made to forgive you and free you again.

But in that love and acceptance you now enjoy, the King calls. He calls you to practice this gift in as much as it is up to you so that you can be a forgiven person who forgives from the heart and so lives in the never-ending debt of love we owe each other.

That is a church with a heart.