When people think of Christmas, they usually think of family. No matter how far away or how long it’s been since you last saw them, something about this season always seems to bring us back home, back together, back to what’s important.
But what if there is unforgiveness in your life keeping you from those you need to celebrate with?
The Calculator We Need to Throw Away
Peter asked Jesus a question in Matthew 18 that must have sounded incredibly generous coming from him. Religious leaders in his day taught that forgiving someone three times made you righteous—you had done your spiritual homework, so to speak. So Peter, feeling perhaps very magnanimous at the time, inquires of Jesus: “Should I forgive someone seven times?”
Jesus’ answer must have blown him away: “Not seven times, but seventy times seven.”
He was not giving Peter license to whip out a calculator and start keeping track. Jesus was talking about throwing away the very calculator itself! He was saying that forgiveness is not a mathematical equation with a finite answer. It’s a lifestyle.
I love my smartphone. I have the calculator, the notes app, reminders, spreadsheets, everything. But I do not need to track forgiveness, because forgiveness is not about mathematical equations.
The Unpayable Debt
Jesus follows up with a parable that drives this point home. The servant owed his king an unfathomable amount of money—10,000 talents. To give you an idea of how much money this is, think of every penny you could ever possibly earn in this life and multiply it by several lifetimes. This is not $1,000 or $50,000 or even $300,000. This is an incomprehensible, unpayable debt.
The servant falls at the king’s feet and begs for patience. He promises to pay back everything, both of them knowing this to be an impossibility. Yet the king has compassion, sets the servant free, and forgives the entire loan.
This is the picture of our salvation. We owed God a debt that could never be paid. Our sins created a gaping chasm between ourselves and God that no amount of good works, no amount of effort, no amount of time could ever have bridged. And yet, God forgave it all.
The Tragic Irony
But here’s where it gets really tragic. This same servant, newly forgiven of millions, goes out and finds a fellow servant who owes him an insignificant amount—100 denarii. Pocket change in comparison. He grabs this man by the throat, demanding payment. When the fellow servant begs for patience, using the exact same words he had just used before the king, the forgiven servant does not relent. He has the man thrown into prison until he can pay what he owes.
I am amazed by the irony. How does someone in prison earn money to pay a debt? Logically, it is impossible. But this is what we do when we refuse to forgive. We lock people into relational prisons, cut them off from all communication with us, and then somehow expect them to fix what was broken. We make restoration impossible and then demand it.
The Chains We Choose to Wear
Consider this image: A prisoner chained to a wall—chains on his feet, his arms, across his chest, around his throat. A new guard walks by one day and asks the prisoner why he’s still standing there. He responds that he’s chained to the wall. The guard looks at him, shocked, and replies: “We unlocked those chains years ago.”
When God saves us, he sets us free. The chains of sin, guilt, and condemnation are broken. Yet many of us remain in the same spot, not because we’re chained to the wall, but because we’re still wrapped up in the bitterness and unforgiveness we are not willing to let go of. We have been set free but are still standing against that wall, convinced that we’re trapped.
The Cost of Unforgiveness
The parable ends with a sobering warning. When the king hears of what the forgiven servant has done to the other, he has him brought before him, only to have him sent to the jailers to be tortured until he can pay everything he owes. Jesus drives the point home: “So also my heavenly Father will do to you unless every one of you forgives his brother or sister from your heart.”
This is not saying that unforgiveness can change your eternal destination if you’re truly saved. But it does mean that you’re living a lesser life than you could. Unforgiveness gives the enemy legal ground to torment you. It shows up in patterns you can’t break, behaviors you can’t make sense of, and bondage you can’t explain.
When we refuse to forgive, we grieve the Holy Spirit. We are like a garden hose with a kink in it—connected to the water source, but with no flow, no power, no life-giving water reaching its destination.
A Christmas Challenge
Before you get together with family this Christmas, before you open gifts, before you cook that meal or go to that party, ask the Holy Spirit a simple question: “Who do I need to forgive?”
Maybe it’s been five years since you last spoke to them. Maybe twenty. Maybe they’re a family member who will be at the Christmas table. Maybe they’re someone who hurt you so deeply, you can’t imagine ever releasing it.
Forgiveness isn’t about whether they deserve it. You didn’t deserve it either. None of us did. “God proved his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
The Gift That Keeps Giving
Christmas is the celebration of the ultimate gift—God leaving heaven, coming to earth as a baby in a manger, to live a perfect life, die a criminal’s death, all to save humanity that did not deserve it. Before He even created the world, He knew what we would do and still chose to create us anyway. He chose to love us anyway. He chose to save us anyway.
Grace was never meant to be kept. It was meant to be given away.
Forgiveness is not situational. It’s a lifestyle. It’s a conscious decision we make every day. We choose to love. We choose to extend mercy. We choose to give grace. Not because people have earned it, but because it was freely given to us.
Forgive from your heart this Christmas. Make the call. Send the text. Open the door. Life is too short, and eternity is too long to live in the prison of unforgiveness.
The calculator can be thrown away. The lifestyle of forgiveness awaits.
Thoughts from Pastor Toney 