As soon you hear the word generosity, you say, “Oh, a series on  money.” No, not necessarily. It is possible to be technically generous  with your money and not at all generous in your spirit or in your heart.  There are plenty of people who are actually quite generous with their  money, generous with their time. They volunteer their time. They help.  They’re charitable, yet they’re not relationally generous at all.

There’s a specific form of relational generosity we want to talk  about because it’s something that must characterize all Christian  believers. And that is forgiveness. Forgiveness? Yes, because there are  people out there who relationally owe you. They owe you because of how  they’ve treated you. They owe you.

Matthew 18 and Luke 17 are parallel passages in many ways, and they  are masterful passages that talk a lot about what it means to forgive.  Let’s notice what it teaches us here about the enormity of forgiveness  and then the practice of it (exactly how you do it), and then the key to  forgiveness (the only way you will actually ever do it). There’s the  enormity of it, the practice of it, and the key to it.

This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer  Presbyterian Church on October 7, 2012. Series "Generosity: Studies from  the Gospel of Luke". Scripture: Luke 17:3-10.