First Baptist Church Litchfield
August 16, 2026

      • Isaiah 54:10ESV

  • Your Love
  • You Are My King (Amazing Love)

      • Romans 5:8ESV

      • Romans 8:38–39ESV

  • Lead Me To The Cross
  • All I Have Is Christ
  • In Christ Alone

      • Matthew 18:21–23ESV

  • Chris Carrier

    On December 20, 1974, ten-year-old Chris Carrier stepped off his school bus in Coral Gables, Florida, expecting to begin Christmas break. As he walked home, a man approached him, introduced himself as “Chuck,” and claimed to be a friend of Chris’s father. He told Chris he was preparing a special surprise for his dad and asked for his help.
    Chris went with him.
    The man drove Chris to a remote location. There, without warning, he attacked the ten-year-old boy with an ice pick and burned him with a cigarette. And in the middle of that horrifying assault, Chris did something extraordinary. This churchgoing ten-year-old cried out:
    “Father, forgive him because he doesn’t know what he’s doing!”
    The attacker eventually drove Chris into the Florida Everglades, forced him from the vehicle, shot him in the head, and left him beneath some bushes to die.
    Meanwhile, Chris’s parents had no idea where their son was. A massive search began across southern Florida, and his desperate parents offered a $10,000 reward for information that would bring their boy home safely.
    Chris Carrier had been terribly sinned against. There was nothing imaginary or insignificant about the evil committed against him. And yet, even in the middle of suffering that evil, the language coming from his lips was the language of forgiveness.
    That is what makes his story so fitting for Matthew 18:21–35. The question is not whether the sins committed against us are real, painful, or costly. They often are. The question is:

    How can people who have been deeply sinned against become people who deeply forgive?

    What do you do when the debt someone owes you is so great that forgiveness seems impossible?

    Most of us will never face anything remotely resembling what Chris Carrier faced. But every one of us knows what it is to be sinned against. A spouse betrays your trust. A parent wounds you. A friend turns against you. Someone lies about you. Someone in the church hurts you. And suddenly forgiveness is no longer an abstract Christian doctrine. Forgiveness has a name you’ve likely spoken a hundred times. It has a face you’ve seen, maybe your entire life. It has a presence in your living room, in your Sunday School class, and in the frozen section at Walmart.
    That is where Peter is in Matthew 18. Jesus has just taught His disciples how to pursue a brother who sins against them. Peter apparently understands that reconciliation will require forgiveness. But Peter wants to know where forgiveness ends: “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?”
    Our sinful hearts tend to keep a careful record, a scorecard, of the sins committed against us while forgetting the immeasurable debt God has forgiven us.
    This morning Jesus is going to take us beyond the size of the debt someone owes us and confront us with the immeasurably greater debt God has forgiven us. In doing so he will show us,

    Because the King has forgiven our immeasurable debt, those who belong to His kingdom must freely forgive the debts of others.

    I am not naive. This is a very difficult command to obey, even impossible apart from the Holy Spirit’s power. So, how do we do this? How do we live a life of forgiveness in such a way as to honor and glorify of Jesus and at the same time experience genuine forgiveness and reconciliation?
    Out text teaches that the gospel shapes your heart by four truths of Kingdom Forgiveness. We will only cover the first one today. Next week will examine the other three. For today, we need to see the first truth that must shape your heart if you are going to practice kingdom forgiveness.
    The gospel shapes your heart to be able to forgives those whose sin seems impossible to forgive by freeing your heart to forgive without keeping score.

    I. Kingdom Forgiveness Forgives Without Keeping Score — Matthew 18:21–22

    Peter asks Jesus,
    “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?”
    Jesus responds,
    “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.” (Matthew 18:21–22)
    Peter's question makes sense in light of everything Jesus has just taught.
    Jesus has told the disciples what to do when a brother sins. Go to him. Pursue him. Seek repentance. Seek reconciliation. If necessary, bring others. If necessary, involve the entire church.
    So Peter wants to know: How long do I have to keep doing this? How many times do I have to forgive the same person?
    Surely there must be a limit.
    Jewish rabbinic tradition later reflected the idea that a repeated offender might be forgiven three times. Peter offers seven. Perhaps Peter thinks he is being extraordinarily gracious.
    “Lord, what about seven times?”
    Jesus essentially responds, “Peter, you're still counting. Your keeping score.” “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.”
    Jesus did not choose that number at random. His words take us all the way back to Genesis 4 and the violent boast of Lamech.
    After Cain murdered Abel, God placed Cain under judgment. Yet even in judgment, God showed Cain mercy. When Cain feared that someone would kill him, God declared that vengeance against Cain would be repaid sevenfold (Genesis 4:13–15).
    Several generations later, Cain's descendant Lamech takes God's words and twists them into a boast about his own vengeance: “If Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech's is seventy-sevenfold.” (Genesis 4:24)
    Lamech had killed a man for wounding him, and he bragged about it. There was no room for forgiveness with Lamech. In fact, when he was wounded, his arrogant heart said:
    “You will not dishonor me.”
    “You will pay for what you did to me.”
    “I will decide what justice looks like.”
    Lamech's unforgiving heart was ruled by pride, vengeance, and self-exaltation. And Jesus wants us to pay attention to the contrast.
    Lamech’s unforgiveness says: seventy-sevenfold vengeance.
    Jesus says: seventy-sevenfold forgiveness.
    Lamech’s unforgiveness multiplies revenge.
    Jesus multiplies mercy.
    Lamech’s unforgiveness keeps score so that he can retaliate.
    Jesus tells His disciples to throw away the scorecard.
    And brothers and sisters, Lamech's heart is not as foreign to us as we might like to think.

    Our Emotional Ledger

    Most of us don't literally write down the sins committed against us. But we keep an emotional ledger.
    I forgave him last time.
    She's done this before.
    I'm always the one who has to forgive.
    How many chances am I supposed to give this person?
    And eventually we decide: That's enough.
    Good Christian, you may never say it aloud, but somewhere in your heart you have numbered the offenses, you have calculated the debt, and you have decided that the offender has exhausted your mercy. Jesus destroys that accounting system.
    Some have tried to discuss if Jesus meant seventy-seven or seven times seven, as if it matters. He is not giving Peter seventy-seven opportunities to forgive and then permitting vengeance on offense seventy-eight. Nor is He giving Peter 490 acts of forgiveness and permitting retaliation on number 491.
    Jesus is telling Peter to stop counting. Kingdom forgiveness does not keep an emotional ledger. It refuses to nurture vengeance. It refuses to cherish bitterness. It refuses to calculate how many more offenses a person is allowed before mercy runs out.
    Instead, kingdom forgiveness entrusts justice to God. Paul exhorts us,
    “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God.” (Romans 12:19)
    That does not mean sin is insignificant. It does not mean consequences disappear. It does not mean wisdom never establishes boundaries. And it certainly does not mean repentance is unnecessary.
    Jesus Himself says,
    “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.” (Luke 17:3)
    So what do we do when the person who sinned against us refuses to repent?
    We must distinguish between cultivating a heart ready to forgive and the relational granting of forgiveness that restores fellowship.
    Before an offender ever repents, the Christian refuses vengeance. We pray for our enemies (Matthew 5:44). We bless rather than curse (Romans 12:14). We refuse to repay evil for evil (Romans 12:17). We guard our hearts against bitterness (Ephesians 4:31). And we stand ready, eager, to extend forgiveness when repentance comes. But relationally, we only grant forgiveness when repentance allows reconciliation to be achieved.
    Chris Brauns wrote a wonderful book called, “Unpacking Forgiveness: Biblical Answers For Complex Questions and Deep Wounds. In his book, he defines God's forgiveness as,
    “a commitment by the one true God to pardon graciously those who repent and believe so that they are reconciled to him, although not all consequences are eliminated.” Chris Brauns
    That distinction is important.
    God's forgiveness is freely offered in Christ, but it is received through repentance and faith. Repentance does not earn forgiveness. Christ purchased forgiveness. Repentance turns from sin, and faith receives the mercy Christ has purchased. The Bible is clear about the connection of repentance and forgiveness.
    At the begining of his ministry, Jesus said
    “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15)
    At the end of his ministry, Luke records Jesus saying to his disciples,
    “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” Luke 24:46–47
    After his sermon at Pentecost, Peter said to the crowd,
    “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Acts 2:38
    In his sermon a chapter later, Peter tells the crowd at the Solomons Portico,
    “19 Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out…”Acts 3:19
    Paul summarizes his preaching as
    “repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.” Acts 20:21
    God freely offers forgiveness to sinners through the finished work of Jesus Christ. We do not purchase forgiveness through repentance, nor do we earn it by faith. Christ purchased our forgiveness with His blood. Repentance turns from sin, faith receives Christ, and God graciously forgives. Only those who have repented are forgiven. And that same gospel pattern shapes the way forgiven people forgive others.
    Jesus explicitly connects interpersonal forgiveness with repentance:
    “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.” — Luke 17:3
    And Jesus does not place a limit on that forgiveness. If your brother repeatedly sins against you and repeatedly returns saying, “I repent,” Jesus says, “you must forgive him” (Luke 17:4). The repentant sinner is not met with a scoreboard but with grace.
    Paul grounds this same command in the gospel:
    “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” — Ephesians 4:32
    And again:
    “As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” — Colossians 3:13
    Do you see the pattern? In Matthew 18:21–23, Jesus assumes the offender is repentant. If the offender refuses to repent, then we return to Matthew 18:15–20 and follow Jesus’ process for kingdom reconciliation. But we are always cultivating a heart that is ready and eager to forgive, so that when the offender repents relational forgiveness is extended.
    Do not allow that distinction to distract you from the condition of your own heart. The question is not merely, “Has this person repented?” We must also ask, “Am I ready to forgive if they do?”
    A heart of kingdom forgiveness must be cultivated daily by remembering the gospel. We forgive because we have been forgiven. We extend grace because we have received grace. We release the debts of others because Christ has canceled our infinitely greater debt.
    So Christian, do not wait until someone repents to begin preparing your heart to forgive. Kill bitterness now. Surrender vengeance now. Pray for your offender now. Entrust justice to God now. Then, when repentance comes, you are ready to extend the mercy you have already received in Christ.
    I will tell you that you will struggle with this tension of keeping score and being ready to forgive. We may say we are ready to forgive while quietly keeping a record of everything that person has done to us. We say, “I’ll forgive if they repent,” but meanwhile we rehearse the offense, nurse the wound, and keep adding numbers to the debt. That is precisely the heart Jesus is confronting in Peter. Peter is willing to forgive, but he is still keeping score.
    And as long as you are counting, you are still holding the scorecard.

    Tear Up the Scorecard

    Imagine a husband and wife who have been married for twenty-five years, and every time they get into an argument, one of them reaches into a drawer and pulls out a physical notebook.
    “Do you remember what you said to me three years ago?”
    “Do you remember what you did on our vacation?”
    “Do you remember when you embarrassed me in front of your family?”
    Every offense has been recorded. All the dates, details, circumstances written and remembered. Nothing has been forgotten. Nothing has been released. The marriage may still exist on paper, but, in my experience, their intimacy is dying because somebody is keeping score.
    That is what Peter is doing when he asks Jesus, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” (Matthew 18:21).
    Peter has a scorecard in his hand.
    Once—I forgave you.
    Twice—I forgave you.
    Three times.
    Four. Five. Six.
    Seven! That's it. You have exhausted my mercy.
    But Jesus essentially says, “Peter, tear up the scorecard.”
    Why? Because kingdom forgiveness is not rooted in how deserving the offender is. It is rooted in how much mercy the forgiven person has already received. You cannot stand at the foot of a cross where the Son of God shed His blood to cancel your enormous debt and then turn around with a little notebook keeping meticulous records of everybody else's debts against you.
    Therefore, kingdom forgiveness stands ready to forgive the repentant graciously and repeatedly. It does not demand vengeance. It does not nurture bitterness. It does not rejoice when the offender suffers. And it does not keep a running tally of offenses.
    Kingdom forgiveness does not keep score because forgiven people know how much of their own score Christ has erased.
    That being said, lets address the consequences of sin. Biblical forgiveness does not pretend that sin never happened. Repentance matters. Reconciliation matters. Truth matters. Justice matters. And sometimes consequences remain even after forgiveness has been granted.
    Forgiveness does not require discernment forgetfulness.
    Some sins carry consequences. Some broken relationships require time to rebuild trust. Some situations require wise boundaries. Forgiveness and trust are related, but they are not identical.

    The Broken Window

    Suppose your son is playing baseball in the backyard after you specifically told him not to hit toward the house. He ignores you, swings the bat, and sends the ball straight through the living-room window.
    He comes inside brokenhearted and says, “Dad, I disobeyed you. I knew what you said, I did it anyway, and I was wrong. Will you forgive me?”
    You say, “Yes, son. I forgive you.”
    Now, what does forgiveness mean?
    It means you are not going to make him spend the next ten years paying emotionally for that window. You are not going to bring it up every Christmas: “Remember 2026? The year you ruined my living-room window?” You are not going to use his failure as ammunition the next time he disappoints you. The debt has been released.
    But forgiveness does not magically put the glass back into the window.
    The window is still broken. Somebody still has to clean up the glass. Somebody still has to pay for a new window. And because your son demonstrated that he was irresponsible with the baseball, you might tell him, “For a while, you're not playing ball, especially next to the house.”
    You are not being unforgiving. You are bing wise.
    Forgiveness removes the debt from the relationship; it does not necessarily remove every consequence of the sin. And that distinction matters when we hear Jesus tell Peter to forgive seventy-seven times. Jesus is not telling Peter that sin does not matter. He is teaching Peter that mercy does not have an expiration date.
    Some of you need to hear that because you have confused forgiveness with pretending nothing happened.
    Someone sinned against you deeply. Maybe they lied to you. Maybe they betrayed your confidence. Maybe they were unfaithful. Maybe they repeatedly demonstrated that they cannot presently be trusted.
    Christian forgiveness does not require you to call evil good. It does not require discernment forgetfulness. Repentance matters. Reconciliation matters. Truth matters. Justice matters. And consequences may remain. Trust that was destroyed in five minutes may take five years to rebuild.
    As I say that, knowing my own heart, I cannot help but to warn you to be careful here, Christian. Do not rename vengeance “wisdom.”
    There is a difference between saying, “Because of what happened, rebuilding trust will take time,” and saying, “I am going to make you pay for what you did to me.”
    There is a difference between a wise boundary and a bitter wall.
    Ask yourself:
    If this person genuinely repents, do I want restoration, or do I want revenge?
    Am I leaving room for grace, or am I secretly keeping the debt alive because I enjoy having something against them?

    Tear Up the Scorecard

    Brothers and sisters, Peter came to Jesus with a spiritual calculator.
    “How often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?”
    Peter wanted a number. He wanted to know when his obligation to show mercy had finally been exhausted.
    And Jesus essentially says, “Peter, you're asking the wrong question.” Kingdom forgiveness does not keep score.

    Some of you have been keeping score for a long time.

    You remember what your spouse said. You remember what your parents did. You remember how that friend betrayed you. You remember what that church member said about you. You remember the apology that never came.
    And perhaps you have carried that ledger so long that the pages have become part of your identity.
    Now, Jesus is not asking you to pretend those sins did not happen. He is not asking you to call evil good. He is not saying that repentance does not matter, that consequences disappear, or that shattered trust must immediately be restored.
    But He is commanding you to surrender your right to vengeance.
    Stop calculating.
    Stop rehearsing the offense so that you can keep your anger alive.
    Stop waiting for the person who hurt you to suffer so that you can finally feel satisfied.
    Tear up the scorecard.
    And if that seems impossible, remember where we began.
    Ten-year-old Chris Carrier lay beneath the bushes of the Florida Everglades with a bullet wound in his head after suffering unimaginable cruelty. Yet even during the attack, the language coming from his lips was, “Father, forgive him.” And you will see next week how Chris worked that forgiveness out with his attacker.
    How can someone forgive like that?

    How can you forgive when the wound is deep?

    How can you forgive the person whose name immediately tightens something inside your chest?

    The answer is not found by minimizing their debt. The answer is found by seeing your debt more clearly.
    And that is exactly where Jesus takes Peter next.
    Jesus says in verse 23,

    “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants.”

    Peter wants to settle accounts with his brother. Jesus is about to settle Peter's account with the King.
    And next week, Jesus is going to show us something astonishing: before you ask, “How much does this person owe me?” you need to understand how much you owed God, and what your King did with your debt.
    Because the power to forgive does not ultimately come from staring harder at the person who wounded you.

    The power to forgive comes from looking to the King who forgave you.

    So until we return to this parable next week, take the name and face of the person whose debt you have been calculating, bring that debt to the foot of the cross, surrender vengeance to God, and ask Him:
    “Father, show me the magnitude of the mercy You have shown me in Christ, so that Your mercy toward me might shape my mercy toward them.”
    Because kingdom forgiveness does not keep score.
    And next week we will discover why: forgiven people can release enormous debts because they know the King has forgiven an infinitely greater one.

      • Matthew 18:21–35ESV

      • Matthew 18:21–22ESV

      • Acts 3:19ESV

  • Jesus Thank You
First Baptist Church Litchfield
pastorjason.fbcl@gmail.com
217-324-4232
http://www.firstbaptistlitchfield.org/
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