Sermon Title: The Power to Forgive [Sermon]
Sermon Text: Matthew 18:21-34
Sermon Summary: Forgiveness is not a power that lies in us but a gift God bestows through the gospel. He transforms our hearts so we can forgive from the heart, as Jesus commands, and receive the blessings that ripple out to others.
Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christopher D. Jackson
Liturgical Date: Pentecost 16 Proper 19 A
Calendar Date: 2026-09-13
Location: Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church, E5221 Church Road, Forestville, WI 54213. 920-856-6420.

The following transcript has been cleaned and lightly edited with the assistance of AI:

TRANSCRIPT

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Back when I was Sunday school aged, at the age of five years old, my dad, for whom the faith was a very important thing to him, asked me a question. He said, “Christopher, what did Jesus do for you?” And I answered him, “Jesus died to take away my sins.” And oh, my dad was so proud. You know, the buttons on his shirt burst and he was so happy that his son knew that essential fact of the gospel. And then I turned right around and said, “Jesus should give them back.” Little five-year-old Chris Jackson couldn’t comprehend forgiveness. Couldn’t understand it.

It didn’t make sense to him, right? So if someone wanted to take something from me, it was probably something that I wanted, right? If my little brother wanted to take my He-Man figurine from me, it’s because that He-Man figurine was super cool, and he wanted it. If my parents would take something from me, you know, maybe I had found my dad’s screwdriver and was playing with that, and my parents took that away from me, that was something good that I kinda wanted, but they didn’t want me to have, right?

It was totally incomprehensible to me, and actually it is incomprehensible that someone would want to take something that is worthless from you. And more than worthless, something that could actually hurt you and harm you. The point that I’m getting at is this: that the forgiveness of God, his grace and mercy, is something that the mind cannot comprehend.

Something Bigger Than Us

It goes beyond our understanding. And praise be to God for this, that because it is something that goes beyond our understanding, it is therefore something that we can trust in, something bigger than us, something that we can have faith in. And the grace and mercy of God is not something that we receive by means of the mind, but rather it’s something that we receive by means of the heart as we trust in him, right?

That has everything to do with what we are going to be talking about today. Because today we saw Jesus asking us to do something which seems incomprehensible. Something that there’s no way we can accomplish it, and that’s the point. That forgiveness is not a power that lies in us, but instead it is a power of God. And it is a power that He bestows upon the Christian as we receive His grace, as we receive His mercy, as we receive His forgiveness. God empowers us to do that which seems incomprehensible. That’s the third theme of our sermon today, the power to forgive.

The Power to Forgive

Because truth be told, what God asks us to do here seems beyond us. It certainly seemed beyond Peter, right? Peter came up and said to Jesus, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” And Peter thought that that in itself would be a fairly generous thing to do. But Jesus blows that out of the water, says, “No, I tell you, not seven times, but 70 times seven.”

And Jesus even goes beyond this. Because Jesus qualifies what this forgiveness ought to look like. And this is not just an external kind of maintaining appearances. It’s not just being polite to the individual that you feel has wronged you. It’s much deeper than that. Jesus, at the end of our reading today: “And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers,” the unforgiving servant, right? “Until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” Oh, Jesus. Why did you have to add those last three words there, from your heart? Because, you know, I can make a good effort at doing things externally, right? I can seem to keep the commands at least in an external way. I can keep up pretenses well enough.

From the heart, that’s a different matter.

God Demands Purity of the Heart

I mean, God demands purity of the heart. That’s why I find the ninth and 10th commandments to be the hardest commandments, right? Thou shalt not murder. And certainly, you know, I have not taken an innocent man’s blood with my hands, but according to the ninth commandment, you shall not covet, which have to do with our heart. Jesus says, “Look, even if you have hatred in your heart against your brother, you are a murderer.” And He does this with all the other commandments, by the way. The fact of the matter is that God sees our hearts and cares about our hearts, even in a sense, even more than the external actions. And those external actions themselves can be hard to control.

I mean, just yesterday, I obviously would like to shed a few pounds. But just yesterday I spent multiple hours cleaning up the toilet paper that showed up in my yard again, because I’ve got high schoolers, got a few more years to deal with that issue. Okay? So I’m out there cleaning up the toilet paper. We’re still not done, but we’re making headway against it here. I’m out there cleaning it up for hours in the morning and into the afternoon, and I even took a late lunch just to kinda keep on working. Finally, I come in, and it was kind of a hot, muggy day yesterday. And, you know, I fixed my lunch, and I take my dish over to the sink, and right next to the sink is the refrigerator with that freezer underneath. And in that freezer was some nice creamy vanilla ice cream. And I knew I shouldn’t, but after that hot morning and afternoon, I knew that would taste so good. And so, yeah, I scooped myself a little bit of ice cream there yesterday afternoon.

What am I getting at? We can do a halfway decent job at putting on the external show. But even there, it’s easy for us to crack, and it’s hard for us to control ourselves externally. And certainly when it comes to forgiveness, we might be able, as I said, keep up those pretenses, be polite, be at least neutral.

Lord, I have a hard enough time controlling my hands when it comes to the freezer. How can I control my heart?

And that’s the point, brothers and sisters: that when it comes to the demand of God to forgive the brother from the heart, something that goes beyond the way the secular gurus talk about forgiveness. I mean, you can hear secular people talking about forgiveness, but it’s all about, like, mentally moving on and, you know, getting freedom from that. But Christian forgiveness is different. Christian forgiveness isn’t just about the psyche, it’s about the heart. And it is not just about what you can gain from forgiveness, although there is much to gain from it, but it’s also about the love that the Lord desires for you to pour out for the neighbor. And that, my friends, is not something that you can accomplish for yourself. That is something that can only happen by the power of God.

Solemn Warnings

And the Lord has given us many blessings unto that end. First of all, the Lord has given us solemn warnings in the holy scriptures about the danger of unforgiveness, and those warnings can be hard to hear, and yet they are necessary for us to hear, and it is good for us to hear those warnings. We heard one of those warnings this morning. “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” We have another warning that is so important that the Lord incorporated it in the prayer that he taught us to pray. “And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

And those are some very hard words to pray and to read. They’re a good reminder to us about the danger that comes alongside a lack of forgiveness. You see, if we harden our hearts against our neighbor, then we may run the risk of hardening them to a place of total hardness against our neighbor’s creator, God himself. And if our hearts are hard against our neighbors so that we do not forgive, then they may become so hardened that we do not receive the forgiveness that the Lord desires to give us, a forgiveness that we can only receive by means of faith, hearts that look to God in trust. It’s a stern warning, but it’s a good warning that we must hear and heed.

The Lord also empowers us unto forgiveness by means of putting before our eyes the blessings that come along with forgiveness. Blessings for ourselves, blessings for others as well.

The Example of Joseph

We have a beautiful example of this in the example of Joseph. Right? Now, his brothers sought a measure of forgiveness from Joseph, but it was just a measure of it. They thought, “Look, because of what we did to Joseph, perhaps he will have us put to death. In fact, he probably will. So let’s do this instead. Let’s concoct this story about our father, and then in addition to that, we will offer ourselves up to him as slaves.” So the idea is Joseph could have us killed. Probably the best that we could ask for is to be his slaves instead. And so therefore, they come into his courtroom. They throw themselves down at his feet. They beg him to make them their slaves. But the forgiveness that Joseph had was such an incredible forgiveness that instead of letting them sit there groveling face to foot, he lifts them up so that they can look to him eye to eye. And he welcomes them into his palace, and he sets a feast before them, and he eats with them as brothers.

And what incredible blessings came by means of this forgiveness. Blessings for Joseph to be sure. Joseph gained back family and brothers through that forgiveness. Blessings to those brothers as well, so that they could be relieved of this shame, they could be relieved of this guilt. But not only this, but they could receive many blessings: land, a way of life, and a heritage. And by means of this mercy that Joseph showed, not only did Joseph benefit, not only did these brothers benefit, but we have benefited. Because the line of Abraham was preserved. And through this, the Messiah came forth. So that we would have the grace and mercy of God in Christ Jesus, and the forgiveness of our sins.

Praise God for these blessings that came about through this forgiveness that Joseph showed. A forgiveness that was incomprehensible to his brothers, but was made possible only by means of Joseph’s faith in God.

The Ultimate Power of Forgiveness

And here’s where we come to the ultimate power of forgiveness. Joseph understood how good the Lord had been to him. And because of this knowledge, that is what transformed his heart so that he could in fact forgive his brothers from the heart. And it is that power which transforms our hearts as well.

As we hear the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ, as we receive the fruits of what Christ so lavishly won for us in his life, his death, his resurrection for us, as we receive those gifts in holy baptism, as we receive them through the Lord’s supper, through holy absolution, through the proclamation of the word of God, God, by the power of the Holy Spirit who uses these means, transforms our hearts and gives us that peace which surpasses all understanding.

The peace with God that we have, we can’t grapple with it with our minds. Five-year-old Chris Jackson was in essence telling the truth from a worldly perspective. And yet by means of the heart transformed by the power of God, we can apprehend that mercy with faith. And it is that transformed heart, not something that we have done, rather that God does for us and in us by means of the holy gospel, that we in turn have the ability to forgive. And the ability to receive those blessings the Lord desires to pour out on us through forgiveness.

Above all the blessings to maintain community. To have households healed by means of forgiveness. Churches kept in community and common purpose by means of forgiveness. Relationship between parent and child, sibling to sibling, so that not only we might receive those blessings, but so also we might be founts of blessings to others as well. Means by which the Lord loves others.

And as we saw with Joseph, that ripples out. It’s a blessing we enjoy, it’s a blessing that those in our lives enjoy, and it’s a blessing that ripples out to bless others in our community and generation to generation. All praise and glory and honor be to God for the mercy He has shown us and empowers us to show mercy as well.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.