What does First B Jackson teach about forgiving others?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the teaching on forgiving others starts where Jesus starts: with the size of the debt that has already been forgiven. The parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18 tells the story of every Christian. A servant owed his master a sum he could never repay, and the master wiped it clean. That is the shape of what God has done for each person who trusts Christ, a debt cancelled not because it was earned away but because of what Jesus did. Romans 5:8 was brought in to make the point plain: God sent Christ to die for us while we were still sinners, not after we had become deserving. From that starting place, withholding forgiveness from someone else becomes very difficult to justify.
The parable does not stop at the forgiven servant's relief. It follows him as he immediately finds a fellow servant who owes him a comparatively small amount and has him thrown in prison. The preacher who taught that passage described recognizing the same pattern in himself, spotting a childhood bully at a restaurant years later and feeling his face go red and his appetite disappear while the other man had no idea. Unforgiveness, the sermon argued, is its own kind of prison, poisoning the one who holds it while the offender walks free. A story about a mother named Renee who chose to forgive the drunk driver who killed her daughter put flesh on that point. Even with Eric behind bars, Renee described herself as the one being held prisoner, until God pressed on her that He had forgiven her and now she needed to extend that to Eric.
Pastor Jonathan and Pastor Graham both worked through Matthew 18 to show that Jesus sets the standard not at seven times but at seventy times seven, and that the point is the end of keeping count altogether. The goal in every stage of that process, as Pastor Jonathan put it, is to gain your brother back, not to confirm that you were right about him. The unforgiving servant parable closes the chapter because it closes the argument: the compassion the master showed, a deep, physical compassion in the Greek, is the measure of what is now owed to others.
Taught from Matthew 18:21-35 · Ephesians 4:32 · Romans 5:8 · Colossians 3:13 · Matthew 6:15
The passage taught · Deuteronomy 19
1 When Yahweh your God cuts off the nations whose land Yahweh your God gives you, and you succeed them and dwell in their cities and in their houses;
2 you shall set apart three cities for yourselves in the middle of your land, which Yahweh your God gives you to possess it.
3 You shall prepare the way, and divide the borders of your land which Yahweh your God causes you to inherit into three parts, that every man slayer may flee there.
4 This is the case of the man slayer who shall flee there and live. Whoever kills his neighbor unawares, and didn’t hate him in time past;
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- October 23, 2022 Responsibility to Others Jesus calls His followers to care for the vulnerable, pursue restoration over judgment, and forgive as they have been forgiven, in Matthew 18.
- October 23, 2022 Responsibility to Others A Wyoming pastor walks through Matthew 18, showing how Jesus calls his followers to serve, forgive, and care for one another as their core responsibility.
- February 15, 2015 God Has Forgiven Us, So We Should Forgive Others A mother's forgiveness of a drunk driver who killed her daughter opens a meditation on why forgiving others is inseparable from receiving God's forgiveness.
Mentioned along the way
- September 22, 2024 Direct Amends Wherever Possible A Wyoming pastor walks through Step 9 of the 12 steps, showing from Matthew 5 how making amends and seeking reconciliation is rooted in the teaching of Jesus.
- September 17, 2023 Suffer the Children to Come Pastor Ray walks through Matthew 19, Mark 10, and Luke 18 to show why Jesus welcomed children and what it means to receive God's kingdom like a child.
- March 5, 2023 Sunday, March 5, 2023 - 11am Traditional Service - God Gives Good Things To Those Who Love Him Pastor Ray teaches on Luke 11, showing how Jesus follows the Lord's Prayer with a call to shameless, persistent asking of a Father who gives generously.
- March 5, 2023 Shameless Persistence A friend asking a friend, a child asking a father: Pastor Billy walks through Luke 11:5-13 to show why persistent, shameless prayer is exactly what God invites.
- October 5, 2022 Women's Bible Study - Oct 5th, 2022 Deborah teaches on prayer using the Lord's Prayer as a model, exploring how prayer changes reality, what hinders answered prayer, and why God bends down to listen.
- April 17, 2016 But Now: Everything Changes Romans 3:21-26 unpacks three rich words, justified, redeemed, propitiated, to show how God removed guilt, enslavement, and wrath through the blood of Christ.