Have you ever had someone call you a mean name? Or steal your toys? Or break a promise? Or tell a lie about you?

Those are sins. They break God’s commandments. They can also break our hearts. Or at least hurt our feelings. It’s no fun to be sinned against. It really stinks (even more than broccoli stinks!).

One time, Peter came up to Jesus and asked him a question. “What if someone sins against me and keeps sinning against me; how many times do I need to forgive him? If he sins against me seven times, do I still need to forgive him?”

Jesus said, “No, not seven times, but seventy-seven times!”

Whoa! That’s a lot of forgiving. How can Jesus expect us to forgive people who treat us so poorly? That’s not fair, is it?

Jesus told a story to explain himself.

Suppose there was a king with many servants, and one of the servants
owed the king ten billion dollars. When the servant couldn’t pay up, the king ordered the man and his wife and children to be sold into slavery to pay off his debt. But the servant begged the king to be patient with him as he tried to get the money. The king decided he would do more than be patient. He would be gracious. He released the man from all his debts. The man owed the king nothing. Imagine, a ten-billion-dollar debt gone, just like that!

Later, that same servant found another servant who owed him fifteen thousand dollars. That’s a lot less than ten billion! You would think the man wouldn’t fuss over several thousand dollars after he’d been forgiven for so much more. But he grabbed the other servant by the neck and demanded that he pay up. When the other servant begged his friend to be patient, the first servant threw him in prison.

Soon, the king heard about what his servant had done. “You wicked servant!” the king said. “I forgave you more than you could ever pay. Why didn’t you have mercy on your friend, like I had mercy on you?” So the king threw the wicked servant into prison.

“That’s what God will do to you,” Jesus said, “if you don’t forgive others from your heart.”

Sin is serious business. God doesn’t like it when we are sinned against. But he doesn’t like it when we sin against him. And yet, he cancels all our debts when we believe in Jesus. If God has mercy on us and our millions and billions of sins, shouldn’t we forgive those who have much smaller sins against us? Once we know God’s mercy, we will want to be merciful too.