Is Forgiveness Unconditional?

This past weekend I challenged my church with a very simple, yet (what I thought) profound question - Is God's forgiveness unconditional? I think scripture is very clear that His love is unconditional, but is his forgiveness unconditional? Or to put it in another way is there something we can do that would cause God not to forgive us? These are all pretty loaded thoughts and really hard questions. I do not claim to be an incredible theologian but I will try to answer this question the best way I can.
Lets first look at the scripture in question - MT 6:14 "For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." The first place my eye goes to is to the word "For". For means that this statement is building upon something else and that something else is the rest of the verses in chapter six.

Chapter six is part of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. At this point Jesus is talking about 'acts of righteousness'. He talks about giving to the needy and praying and how we need to do this in a way that glorifies God and not ourselves. He then discusses the Lord's prayer. Verse 14 is stated upon the shoulders of the rest of the chapter. It also rests on the shoulders of other scriptures as well. Especially the ones that deal with 'acts of righteousness'.

In Matthew 18, Peter has a discussion with Jesus about forgiveness. It is pretty familiar to us all. Peter asks how many times should he forgive someone and he answers his own question by saying 7 times. Jesus then changes everything and says seventy-seven times. Was Jesus saying that we should keep score on how many times we forgive someone. Not at all. He is actually confronting another 'act of righteousness'. The Pharisees and the law basically said that they were obligated up to three times to forgive someone for an offence and the fourth time they did it they no longer were required to forgive. Peter was actually trying to show Jesus (can someone say "kiss up") his generosity by suggesting seven when the Jewish law only stated three. Then Jesus turned the table and basically said - "You forgive however many times they need to be forgiven!"

As Christians, we need to get away from the legality of the law. I remember talking to teenagers when I was youth pastor and they would always ask the question when we talked about sex and dating "How far is too far?" Listen friends. If your desire is to please the Lord you won't be asking questions like that. You won't be asking questions like "how many times we should forgive someone" or "Is a tithe on the net or the gross?" Those are legalities and we sound like little children seeing how close to the fire we can get before we actually burn ourselves.

I am preaching through the Beatitudes right now and I am amazed of how much Jesus asks of us. He is not asking us to toe the line or fulfill some law. He is asking us to go so far as to follow him no matter the cost. He wants us to give our hearts to him so that we can see, feel, and hear the world the way he does. Forgiveness has to do with Jesus and his desire for us to live a life of meekness. Forgiveness is about meekness. Meekness implies freedom. Freedom from malice, selfish anger, and vengeance. Meekness causes us to have a true view of ourselves and how poor and broken we truly are without Jesus. Once we can embrace that then the question of forgiveness is easily answered. We forgive others because Jesus forgave us! Period!

Is God's forgiveness unconditional? If you ask God to break you, to make you desperate for him, to make your heart break for the things that break His heart, to live in utter humility before him and to hunger and thirst for things that are right and true then you will know the answer.

I know this is not the answer many of you wanted - you wanted a yes or a no. Well, I guess when it comes to the act of forgiveness it probably coincides with acts of righteousness. It is the attitude we must be more worried about. Do we have the attitude of forgiveness? Did Jesus have the attitude of forgiveness? Philippians 2:5 says "Our attitudes should be the same as Christ Jesus! 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross!

9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."