COUNTER CULTURE | Week 2 | Sermon · Rewind

Pastor Daniel Goulding · Sep 17, 2024 · 44 min watch · 3 min read

COUNTER CULTURE | Week 2 | Sermon

Big Idea

Quoting the message: Forgiveness isn't easy, but it is freeing, end quote..

Drawing from Matthew 18:21-35, Pastor Daniel Goulding argues that genuine followers of Jesus are called to forgive others not because it is easy or fair, but because they have first been forgiven an incalculable debt by God. Using Jesus' parable of the unforgiving servant, he shows that unforgiveness functions as a self-imposed prison, while choosing to forgive — even repeatedly and even when it doesn't feel natural — is the path to true freedom. Forgiveness is not forgetting, not a feeling, and not fair; it is a faith-driven decision rooted in gratitude for what Christ has already done.

Key points

1
1Peter's question about the limit of forgiveness reveals our tendency to want a logical endpoint, but Jesus reframes the question: it's not how much we must forgive, but how much freedom we want to experience.
2
2Forgiveness is not the same as forgetting — followers of Jesus can forgive while still setting new relational boundaries and allowing real consequences to stand.
3
3Forgiveness is not fair, but because God has not dealt with us according to what we deserve, we are called to extend that same unearned grace to others.
4
4Forgiveness is not a feeling but a decision; our feelings will eventually catch up to our actions when we choose to forgive by faith.
5
5The parable of the unforgiving servant reveals that every person carries a crushing spiritual debt before God — one that only Jesus, through His death on the cross, has the power to cancel.
6
6Colossians 2 confirms that God canceled the record of charges against us by nailing it to the cross, and grasping this grace should produce a natural overflow of forgiveness toward others.
7
7Holding onto unforgiveness is a self-chosen prison of torment; releasing it is not for the offender's benefit but for our own freedom.

Application

Pastor Daniel's call to action is personal and urgent: identify the person, situation, or wound you have been carrying — perhaps for years — and make a faith-driven decision today to release it. That release is not a declaration that what happened was acceptable, and it does not require reconciliation with the offender. It is an act of trust, saying to Jesus, 'This is too heavy for me to carry, and I believe Your Word that vengeance belongs to You.' He invites every person to plant a stake in the ground — not because the feelings are there yet, but because freedom is on the other side. For some, the forgiveness most needed may be extended to themselves. The invitation is to let the crushing reality of your own forgiven debt before God fuel a generosity of spirit toward those who have hurt you.

Take it into your week

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Scripture in this message

From the transcript
“Matthew chapter 18, the story begins in verse 21. It says, then Peter came to him, being Jesus, and asked, Lord, how often should I forgive somebody who sins against me”
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From the transcript
“Look at this exact same story told in the gospel of Luke because we get a little bit of the disciples response that we don't see in Matthew. It says in Luke 17, same story, it says, one day Jesus said to his disciples”
From the transcript
“Go back with me to Matthew chapter 18, reading in verse 23, Jesus again answering the question to Peter, how much do we have to forgive”
From the transcript
“Go back with me to Matthew chapter 18, reading in verse 23, Jesus again answering the question to Peter, how much do we have to forgive? He says, therefore, the kingdom of heaven can be compared to a king”
From the transcript
“the Bible is clear. Revelation 20 says that God is actually keeping a ledger of all of our sins. He actually has a list of every time we've made a mistake”
From the transcript
“Look at the very next line of this story. Okay, this guy has a $6,000,000,000 debt, verse 26, he makes the fatal flaw that we will all make, but the man fell down before his master and begged him”
From the transcript
“See, this is what Colossians says that Jesus did for you and I. Colossians chapter two says that you and I were dead because of our sin, and because our sinful nature was not yet cut away, but then God made you alive with Christ”
From the transcript
“He says in verse 28, but when that man, that man who was forgiven $7,000,000,000, he left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars and he grabbed him by the throat”
From the transcript
“and that Ezekiel 36 moment happens, where we truly are born again, the heart of stone that we used to have has been removed and we've had a heart transplant with a heart of flesh”
From the transcript
“Look at how Jesus closes this whole parable down. He says in verse 34, then the angry king sent this man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt”

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7-day devotional

A personal reading plan from this message — scripture, reflection, and prayer for each day.

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Peter's question sounds reasonable on the surface: 'How many times should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?' He probably expected a gold star. Seven was already generous by the standards of his day. But Jesus answers with a number so large it stops being a number — seventy times seven. He isn't giving Peter a new quota to track. He is dismantling the idea that forgiveness has a logical endpoint at all. Pastor Daniel pointed out that the real question underneath Peter's question is this: how much freedom do you actually want? When we put a ceiling on forgiveness, we are really putting a ceiling on our own peace. We become the accountant of every wrong done to us, and that ledger is exhausting to maintain. Jesus isn't asking us to pretend the hurt didn't happen. He's inviting us to stop letting the hurt set the terms of our lives. That reframe is worth sitting with today — not as a guilt trip, but as a genuine question: What would it feel like to not be keeping score? The invitation isn't to be a doormat; it's to be free. And freedom, Jesus suggests, is available in far greater supply than we tend to imagine.

For reflection

Where in your life have you quietly set a limit on how much you're willing to forgive — and what has maintaining that limit cost you?

Pray

Pray for honest awareness of any hidden scorecards you may be keeping, and for the courage to bring them to Jesus.

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Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

Think of a time you watched someone let go of a grudge — maybe in a movie, a story, or real life. This message is about what Jesus says is actually happening in that moment, and why it matters more than we might expect.

Discussion questions

1
In Matthew 18:21-22, Peter asks Jesus how many times he has to forgive — up to seven times — and Jesus answers with 'seventy times seven.' What do you think Jesus is getting at with that answer? What does it tell us about how He frames the whole question of forgiveness?
2
In the parable, the king forgives a servant an enormous, unpayable debt — and then that same servant refuses to forgive a much smaller one. What does Jesus seem to want us to feel or understand as we hear that contrast in Matthew 18:23-27?
3
Pastor Daniel made a distinction between forgiving someone and pretending what happened was okay — he said forgiveness doesn't erase consequences or require reconciliation. How might that distinction change the way people think about what forgiveness is actually asking of them?
4
Colossians 2:13-14 describes God canceling 'the record of the charges against us' and nailing it to the cross. How does that image connect to what Pastor Daniel said about our own debt before God being the fuel for extending grace to others?
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Pastor Daniel said that unforgiveness functions as a self-imposed prison — and that releasing someone is less about benefiting the offender and more about our own freedom. What do you think makes that hard for people to believe or act on?
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Pastor Daniel described forgiveness as a faith-driven decision, not a feeling — and said our feelings tend to follow our actions over time. How might that reframe the way we as a group talk about or support one another through the process of forgiving someone who has caused real harm?

Pray together

Gratitude for the debt that has already been canceled — and courage to extend that same grace to others

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COUNTER CULTURE

Week 2 · 4 messages

Where these passages are preached

Matthew 18 Luke 17 Revelation 20 Colossians 2

Explore related topics

Forgiveness Freedom From Unforgiveness God's Grace Radical Forgiveness The Unforgiving Servant

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