Forgiveness
Before we get into today’s message, I want to remind you that City Serve is happening this Saturday, March 7th, from 9-12 PM. City Serve is a time when we come together as a church to serve our city and mobilize our faith from the seats to the streets. This year we’re serving at two places: Choices Women’s Clinic in Oviedo, and Residing Hope Children’s Home, about 20 minutes north of here. Choices is a nonprofit women’s clinic that helps women make informed pregnancy decisions. We need people to help host a baby shower, and another group of people to do some landscaping on their property. Residing Hope is a place caring for children in Florida who’ve been exposed to trauma like physical abuse, abandonment, or family breakdown. We need people to help cook breakfast, play games, and do fun activities with the kids. It’s all happening this Saturday, March 7th, from 9-12 PM, and we’ll give details on how to sign up later. Every Sunday we end our gatherings saying, “City Awakening you are sent,” and this is a great opportunity for you to live a sent life. It’s a great opportunity for you to mobilize your faith from the seats to the streets. So sign up for one of these City Serve opportunities today.
Now as for today we’re continuing our 5 week teaching series on The Lord’s Prayer. We’re studying a time when Jesus taught his disciples how to pray, so we can learn how to pray like Jesus taught them to pray. This isn’t the only way to pray, but it is the greatest example, the greatest model we have for prayer. So each week we’re studying a different part of The Lord’s Prayer, and this week we’re studying the part where Jesus teaches us to pray for forgiveness...He teaches us to pray for forgiveness, and to extend forgiveness...The truth is both skeptics and believers need to receive and extend forgiveness, because we’ve all sinned and have been sinned against. So let’s see what Jesus says about this. Let’s see what he says about receiving and extending forgiveness. Let’s turn to Matthew Ch. 6 and get into it. If you open your Bible to the middle and keep turning right, you’ll find Matthew. We’ll be in Matthew 6:9-15, and the title of the message is Forgiveness. The big idea of the message is Jesus teaches us to pray for forgiveness, and to extend forgiveness... Jesus teaches us to pray for forgiveness from the Father, and to extend forgiveness to others...
Here’s your context. The Lord’s Prayer is recorded in two places in the Bible, the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke. We’re studying Matthew’s record because it’s a little more detailed than Luke’s. But what’s interesting is Luke’s record says Jesus is teaching this prayer because one of his disciples asked him how to pray. So the implication is that prayer is something we need to learn. If we need to be taught to pray, then it means prayer is something we need to learn. It’s something we need to grow in. The reality is we all struggle with prayer, we all have room to grow in prayer, and Jesus is about to teach us to pray for forgiveness. So let’s check it out.
Matthew 6:9-15 states, “You should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread.” Something I mentioned last week is that Jesus starts The Lord’s Prayer with giving adoration to the Father, before giving any attention to our requests from the Father. The first half of the Lord’s prayer focuses on the Father: Your name, your kingdom, your will. But the second half starts shifting to focusing on our requests from the Father: Give us our daily bread, forgive us our debts, lead us not into temptation. So in the first half Jesus is teaching us to focus on the Father, but in the second half he’s teaching us we can go to the Father with our requests. In fact he’s about to teach us that one of the things we can go to the Father for – is forgiveness.
Vs. 12, “And forgive us our debts...” Jesus is teaching us we need to pray for forgiveness. We need to pray, “Father, forgive us our debts.” Some translations say forgive us our trespasses. But most scholars agree the word debt is better, because our sin isn’t just a trespass against the Father; it puts us in debt with the Father. We’ve wronged the Father and his creation, so we now owe the Father for those wrongs. We’ve become in debt to the Father, and we can’t ever pay back that debt. We’ve sinned way too many times in our lifetime, and we can’t ever pay back our infinite God for the infinite sin debt we’ve accrued. The only thing we can do is pray, “Father, forgive us our debts.” Most of us know what it’s like to be in debt, to owe money for our cars, homes, student loans, and every month we get a statement telling us what we owe. What if the Father did that to us?..,What if every month he sent a bill saying, “Here’s all the sins you’ve committed this month. Here’s all the sinful thoughts, words, and actions you’ve done against me and my creation.” It’d be a massive statement of sin debt! It’d be an even bigger statement if it included every sin throughout our entire lifetime! I know some people are like, “Well I don’t think I’m that bad. I mean I’m a pretty good person. I do good things.” You just accrued more debt...You just added more debt for being arrogant and self-righteous...Everyone has a massive sin debt we can’t ever pay back. So Jesus tells us to pray, “Father forgive us our debts,” and the good news is he’s willing to do it! The Father’s willing to forgive the entire sin debt of anyone who asks for forgiveness and believes Jesus died on the cross for their sins. Colossians 2:14, “God canceled the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross!”
City Awakening this is the incredible news of the Gospel! If you put your faith in Jesus your monthly statement, your entire sin debt is literally nailed to the cross, and it reads Paid In Full! I know some of you keep beating yourself up with guilt over your sins, but you don’t have to keep beating yourself up over a sin debt that Jesus already paid in full. I know some of you feel like your sins are too shameful or too many to be forgiven, but Jesus is saying the Father’s willing to forgive not some of your debts, but all your debts. He tells us to pray forgive us our debts, not our debt. It’s plural, not singular. It’s because he wants us to know the Father’s willing to forgive us of all our debts. The Father’s way more forgiving than your credit card company, mortgage company, or the IRS, and Jesus is saying all you need to do is ask. He’s saying all you need to do is pray, “Father forgive us our debts,” and he’ll do it. But that’s only for people who’ve already received salvation and an eternal relationship with the Father, through faith in Jesus dying for their sins on the cross. So this part of The Lord’s Prayer isn’t saying believers need to pray for eternal salvation, because when Jesus saves you, he keeps you. When you have a relationship with the Father, that relationship is eternal. But your sins do hinder your growth in that relationship. I often tell my children their sin doesn’t change my love for them, but it does hinder our relationship. Sin always hinders your relationships, but repentance and forgiveness brings restoration back into your relationships. So even a believer should repent and ask for the Father’s forgiveness, not for salvation, but for daily restoration and growth. It’s so sin doesn’t keep hindering our relationships.
Again vs. 12, “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors...” Okay so this is probably the hardest part of The Lord’s Prayer, because it’s the part we’re most likely to struggle with. I mean we’re okay with receiving forgiveness from the Father, but we aren’t always okay with extending forgiveness to others. So we sometimes struggle with this part of The Lord’s Prayer. But our forgiveness from the Father should motivate us to want to forgive others. It’s the old saying, “He who’s been forgiven much, will forgive much.” If we aren’t willing to forgive others, it’s a sign we’ve forgotten or don’t realize how much we’ve been forgiven. When we remember and realize how much we’ve been forgiven, it should motivate us to forgive much.
So just to be clear, forgiving others isn’t a condition for receiving the Father’s forgiveness. But receiving the Father’s forgiveness should strongly motivate us to extend forgiveness to others. Forgiving our debtors should be treated as an aspiration, but not as a condition. R.C. Sproul states, “In my opinion, this is one of the most frightening lines in the Lord’s Prayer. If this condition is to be taken literally, we’re finished. If God forgave me in the exact proportion that I distribute forgiveness to others, I’d perish. I just can’t be as forgiving as God; none of us can. But thank God this is an aspiration, rather than a condition.” So when Jesus talks about us forgiving our debtors, it’s an aspiration, not a condition. We should aspire or strive to walk in the Father’s footsteps. We should strive to reflect the Father’s forgiveness in our marriages, families, friendships, relationships, and city. We need to pray, “Father, forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Imagine how much greater our lives, relationships, and city would be if we lived this out. It’d be a glimpse of the Father’s kingdom and will, being done on earth as it is in heaven.
Again vs. 12, “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” We’ll talk more about this lead us not into temptation part next week, so we can focus more on what Jesus says next in vs. 14-15.
Vs. 14-15 states, “For if you forgive others their offenses, your heavenly Father will forgive you as well. 15 But if you don’t forgive others, your Father will not forgive your offenses.” Okay so these verses are confusing to a lot of people, and they aren’t a part of The Lord’s Prayer. The Lord’s Prayer ends in vs. 13, but in vs. 14-15 Jesus is circling back to the topic of forgiveness. In fact it’s the only part of The Lord’s Prayer that he repeats. So we need to spend some time on it, and the 1st thing I want to address is why vs. 14-15 are so confusing. It’s because when Jesus says if you don’t forgive others, then the Father won’t forgive you, many people think that’s a condition. But like I said before, Jesus is talking about how unforgiveness has temporary effects, not eternal effects on our relationship with the Father. If we aren’t willing to forgive others, it has temporary effects, including temporary unforgiveness from the Father, which hinders our prayers, fellowship, and growth in our relationship with the Father. But it doesn’t change our eternal salvation or our eternal relationship with the Father. So forgiving others isn’t a condition for salvation; but it should be the fruit of salvation. We don’t forgive to be forgiven; we forgive because we’ve been forgiven.
The 2nd thing I want to address is that forgiving others is much easier said than done. Perhaps the reason this is the only part of The Lord’s Prayer that Jesus repeated, is because he knew we’d struggle with it the most, especially when the wounds are deep. The deeper the wounds, the deeper we struggle with forgiveness, and some of you’ve been wounded deeply or even recently. So let me give you 4 quick things that forgiveness doesn’t mean. People have a lot of misconceptions about forgiveness, so let me give you 4 quick things that forgiveness doesn’t mean.
#1 Forgiveness doesn’t mean tolerating sin. – Forgiveness doesn’t mean tolerating sin, and it doesn’t mean letting people continually sin against you. You can forgive them, but you don’t have to tolerate them continually sinning against you. Jesus forgives us of our sins, but he doesn’t tolerate our sins or encourage us to keep on sinning. So you can forgive sin, but don’t tolerate sin.
#2 Forgiveness doesn’t mean waiting for an apology. – Forgiveness doesn’t mean waiting for an apology, because you may never get an apology. Some people are too prideful to admit their sins, and they never apologize. So don’t wait for an apology to forgive, because you may never get it. Jesus went to the cross to forgive us, not to wait for an apology. If Jesus waited for an apology, we would all be dead in our sins. Romans 5:8 says, “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” He died for us while we were still unrepentant, unapologetic sinners. So you can forgive, without waiting for an apology.
#3 Forgiveness doesn’t mean reconciliation. – Forgiveness doesn’t mean reconciliation, because sometimes reconciliation doesn’t happen. It takes 1 person to repent, 1 to forgive, but 2 to reconcile. Jesus makes forgiveness available to everyone, but if they don’t repent and receive his forgiveness, they can’t be reconciled. It takes 1 person to repent, 1 to forgive, but 2 to reconcile.
#4 Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting. – Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting, because some wounds are too painful to forget. Some wounds leave memorials called scars, and when you see that scar, it’s a reminder of what happened. Jesus doesn’t look at his nail-pierced scars and forget where they came from. He doesn’t forget dying for our sins, but he also doesn’t recount them or keep throwing them in our faces like we might do to others. So we can forgive, but that doesn’t mean we’ll forget where our scars came from. That doesn’t mean we won’t ever have times when we’ll see our scars, have some old emotions resurfacing, and have to forgive the person again. It’s because some scars are too painful to forget. They can be forgiven, but not forgotten
Listen I know forgiving others isn’t always easy. But when I’m bitter and unwilling to forgive, it isn’t because I can’t forgive. It’s because I’m choosing not to forgive. It’s because I’m choosing to look more at their depravity than my own. But the more you look at your depravity, the more forgiving you’ll be towards other people’s depravity. The more you look at how much the Father’s forgiven you and how often he’s forgiven you, the more forgiving you’ll be towards other people’s depravity. Forgiveness is a choice, and if you choose to live with a hit-them-back mentality, your life will become a constant cage fight—always defensive and swinging like it’s a cage fight. If you choose to live with a push-it-down mentality, your life will become a trash compactor—stuffing your pain down until the trash starts overflowing into other relationships. But if you choose to live with a cross-centered mentality, your life will become forgiven and free. You’ll become forgiven of your depravity, and free to forgive others as the Father’s forgiven you. I know it’s hard, especially if the wounds are deep. But if you take an honest look at how much and how often the Father’s forgiven you, it’ll grow you into being more forgiving like the Father.
The big idea of the message is that Jesus teaches us to pray for forgiveness, and to extend forgiveness...Jesus teaches us to pray for forgiveness from the Father, and to extend forgiveness to others...Spend some time this week praying through vs. 12. Spend some time praying for the Father to forgive you of specific sins, not general sins. Then ask the Father to help you forgive others like he’s forgiven you. We need to pray for this because our sin is like mold; it keeps growing in the dark, but not in the light. So we need to expose our sin to the light of our forgiving Father to kill our sin, instead of letting our sin kill us. We need to expose our sin to the light of our forgiving Father, so our sin won’t keep hindering our relationship with the Father and others. Ask the Father to forgive your sins, believe Jesus died on the cross for your sins, and strive to live a life that reflects his forgiveness in marriage, family, friendships, and other relationships.Remind yourself that if you’ve been forgiven much, then you should forgive much. In the words of Tim Keller, “The gospel is this: We’re more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the same time we’re more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.”