The Repair of Friendship

What has most shaped your understanding of forgiveness? How have you experienced or practiced forgiveness in friendship?

Read Matthew 18:21-35. What do you observe about God’s kingdom from this passage? What does this passage teach us about who God is, what he cares about, and how he cares for his people? Anything that surprises you or sparks questions? Who do you identify with in Jesus’s story?

In verse 24, a man owes 10,000 bags of gold, equal to 200,000 years of wages. A debt too great to pay back. In verse 27 we learn the king took pity on this man and canceled the debt and let the man go – free, without debt. How does this encourage you to think about your forgiveness in Jesus? What has helped you grow in your understanding of how much we’ve been forgiven in Christ’s death and resurrection?

How would we expect the man forgiven 10,000 bags of gold to respond to the debts of another? What does his response reveal about him?

Three nuances would discussed in the sermon: 1) Forgiveness does not always means we are innocent. 2) Forgiveness does not always mean the restoration of a relationship. 3) Forgiveness is a decision, not a feeling. How have you wrestled with these aspects of forgiveness in your relationships? How does Jesus’s parable encourage and challenge you to practice forgiveness in light of these nuances?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together wrote, “The sooner we give up the illusion that a church must be perfect in order to love it, the sooner we quit pretending and start admitting we’re all imperfect and need grace. This is the beginning of real community.” Contrast the images of a museum and a hospital. How does seeing the church and Christian friendships as a place of healing not perfection impact the expectations you have of practicing forgiveness in your friendships?