Forgive Us -- Matthew 6:5-15 • Elliott Grudem

Hey, hi, my name is Elliot Grudem. I'm the assistant pastor for church planting here at CTK. And before we get to the sermon, let me make a quick plug. As you may know, we—that's us CTK—are helping pastor Russell McCutcheon start a new church in Southeast Raleigh, Knightdale area. A bunch of people from CTK are leaving us to help pastor Russell plant Reconciliation Church, and we'd love for more of you to check them out.

They start their Sunday worship services outside on September 13 in Knightdale. And as your pastor, I'm encouraging you not to come here, not to watch us, but instead go to Knightdale and go to Reconciliation on September 13 in the nine weeks that follow. Go for ten weeks. That's the number of services they're holding outside as part of their initial offering. It's a limited commitment. Check them out on September 13. Stick for ten. And as you do, ask God if he would want you to stick with them for longer.

And if for some reason you can't go, celebrate with us what is happening in the midst of a global pandemic. God is planting a church. God is through the planting of Reconciliation Church showing himself as great and kind and loving and generous. And let's at least celebrate together what God is doing.

The Lord's Prayer

Okay, now to the sermon. We're continuing our series on what's often called the Lord's Prayer. It's a model prayer that Jesus gave his disciples when they asked him how to pray.

Around twenty years ago, I was at a pretty low point. I was studying to be a pastor and so knew it was important to pray, but couldn't come up with the words to pray. And though Jesus says this is how we should pray—not what specifically we should pray—there's nothing wrong with praying these very words or the words in this prayer. And so that's what I did. I committed to get through this short prayer once a day. That was it. It was Bible reading and prayer in one simple thirty-second package. But that was all I could do. I didn't know what to read, I couldn't find words to pray, I didn't have words to say. But I did have these words that I could read to God.

And as I did, I found the reason that Jesus said this was how to pray more than what to pray. For each petition after a couple of days turned into a longer prayer.

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Lord, I don't see your will being done in this specific area.

Give us this day our daily bread.

Oh Father, I really need this thing today.

And then there's the petition we're looking at today.

Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.

God, I need you to forgive me for this specific sin, or I need your help to forgive this specific person. And that's about where I left this prayer.

I've come back to it time and again. I've prayed it at a variety of church services, but I haven't really thought about it much since then until recently. And the very first sermon in this series, our pastor Jeff Bradford gave us a simple way to think about this prayer. He held up his hand saying that the six petitions are like a hand with the first—Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name—as the palm and the following petitions each finger.

I've never thought about the Lord's Prayer like this, but it's so helpful. Just as fingers don't work without the palm, the other petitions don't work without God as our Father. I miss the relational aspect of this prayer. God is our Father. He's our perfect Father who never tires of us asking him for things. He's our perfect Father who loves to give perfect gifts to his children. And he's our Father, meaning that we're meant to pray these things together.

I miss that this prayer is very relational. And if we miss this, we miss the key meaning of this prayer, especially the petition we're looking at today: and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.

So I'm gonna read the whole passage, pray, and then we'll look at what Jesus encourages us to pray or ask for in this specific petition. This is God's word, Matthew 6 starting in verse 5:

And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. They love to stand and pray in the synagogue and at the street corner that they may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do. For they think they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray like this then: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. — Matthew 6:5-13

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses.

Let me pray. Jesus, we pray now that you would be present with us by your spirit as we look at these wonderful things in your word and that your spirit would do the work in our hearts that you desire. We would through this time of looking at your word find that we have fallen deeper in love with you and deeper in love with one another. It's in your name Jesus that we ask these things, amen.

If you're a believer in Jesus, your sins are forgiven. All your sins, past, present, and future. Jesus bore the penalty from God you deserve for your sins when he died on the cross. So if that's true, why does Jesus tell us to ask God to forgive our sins in this prayer? And why does he tell us to do it frequently?

Well, maybe I can explain it this way. I don't just tell my daughter that I love her, I also tell her why I love her. I love you because you're my daughter. You will always be my daughter. You didn't do anything to become that and there's nothing you can do to stop me and my daughter, so I will always love you. I tell her that and I mean it and I tell her that frequently and I mean it every time I say it. And yet, there are times where she does things that well, let's say they hinder our relationship. She's still my daughter, I still love her, and sometimes she does stuff that leaves me displeased. When she comes to me and says, dad I was wrong, please forgive me. Well that restores our relationship.

One of the great benefits of our salvation is that we're adopted as children of God. We can call him as Jesus encourages us to, our father. As his adopted son, my status will never change. I'll always be his son now and forever. And yet, when I disobey his law, when I sin by what I do and what I don't do, it hinders my relationship with him. I'm still his son, but I can receive his fatherly displeasure. When I ask for his forgiveness, which he freely and joyfully gives, it restores the relationship. The status never changes, but the relationship can.

So because I sin every day, I need to pray, forgive me my debts every day. I need to restore our relationship and that's the good news. Because of Jesus, God freely forgives his children's sins. He freely forgives his children's sin. I love what we read in First John:

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. — 1 John 1:9

The surety of my forgiveness and the reality of my forgiveness, well, it encourages and frees me then to forgive those who sin against me.

The petition that we read, that we're focused on, and the verses that follow the prayer seem to make our forgiveness from God contingent on our forgiving others. Let me read it again:

And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.

Or even more in Matthew 6:14:

If you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses.

What's going on there? In Ephesians 2:8-9 we read:

For by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not of your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast.

What's Paul saying there? Well he's saying that my salvation, your salvation, it's not my work or your work, it's God's work from start to finish. He saved me and he saved you. It's a gift of his grace to you and to me. It's not of your own doing, it is the gift of God, Paul writes, not a result of works that no one may boast.

If that's the case, then what does Jesus mean when he says, if you forgive others, your heavenly father will forgive you? Well, actually I find the first part of Ephesians 2:8 helpful here:

For by grace you have been saved.

I am saved, you are saved by God's grace alone. You and I are not saved by our belief or faith in Jesus, but as Ephesians 2:8 makes clear, our faith is always present:

For by grace you have been saved through faith.

Our faith didn't force God's hand and make him save us. We are saved by his grace alone. And yet our faith in Jesus is always there.

Back to the prayer. Jesus is not saying we are forgiven by our forgiveness of others or because we forgave others, but he is saying our forgiveness of or readiness to forgive others needs to be there. God doesn't believe for us, he gives us the power to believe in Jesus as our savior, but he doesn't believe for us. God doesn't forgive others for us, he gives us the power to do it, but we do it. In fact, by forgiving us, he gives us the power and motivation to forgive others. God's gifts come free.

We don't do anything to earn them nor does God tell us we need to pay him back for them, but as recipients of them, we're obligated in a sense out of love for God and others to share them with others. For when we do so, we serve as visible reminders to one another that this is what God is like.

So Jesus explained this when one of his disciples asked Jesus how many times we need to forgive someone who keeps sinning against us. He said, "Seventy times seven." And then he told a story to further explain that's found in Matthew 18. Let me read it.

Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold with his wife and children and all that he had and payment be made. So the servant fell on his knees imploring him, "Have patience with me and I will pay you everything." And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.

But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a 100 denarii and seizing him began to choke him saying, "Pay what you owe." So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, "Have patience with me and I will pay you." He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt.

When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, "You wicked servant. I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me and should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you?" And in anger, the master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt.

So also, Jesus says, my heavenly father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. — Matthew 18:23-35

The king forgave the servant 10,000 talents. Jesus used an amount there so large it's actually hard to quantify. A conservative conversion to US dollars is around 4,000,000,000—that's billion with a B as in bravo. The forgiven servant then was owed by another servant around $7,500. Not a small amount, but it's nowhere near 4,000,000,000. You get the contrast. You've been forgiven $4,000,000,000 and you refuse to show mercy to the one who owes you $7,500.

What is Jesus saying? He's saying that those who experience God's forgiveness don't think, "I've been forgiven, look at me, I'm amazing, everyone owes me everything." No, you're forgiven and your response is, "Who am I? Who am I to be loved like this by you?" And you respond to that forgiveness with thanksgiving and humility. Thanksgiving and humility towards God and thanksgiving and humility towards others. You see the size of the debt that God has forgiven you and in response, you can forgive the much smaller debt that others owe you.

In fact, it's interesting throughout the scriptures, the primary way you show that Jesus has saved you is in the way that you treat others. For example, look at all the letters that Saint Paul wrote to the different churches that make up the bulk of the New Testament. The basic pattern is the same: explanation of the gospel followed by application of the gospel. And the most common application of the gospel that Paul makes is relational. You show you have experienced and understand the gospel of Jesus Christ if you show love toward others. And Paul is simply claiming what Jesus is saying here in Matthew 6. The primary mark of Jesus followers is this: they are a loving, forgiving community. Again, it's not a condition, but instead a natural response of those who are forgiven.

An unforgiving heart is an unforgiving heart. A forgiven heart is a forgiving heart. It's why the petition in the Lord's Prayer reads like it does: "Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors." We ask for God's forgiveness as we grant others our forgiveness.

The Gift of Forgiveness to Ourselves

Forgiving others not only recognizes and responds to the forgiveness we've received from God, it's also something that's good for us. An unwillingness to forgive quickly moves to a bitterness that quickly overtakes our hearts. And that bitterness works its way out in all kinds of ways—anger, impatience, rage, and internal churning about everything we can't seem to stop. We might think we can limit its focus to those who have wronged us, but bitterness isn't like a laser. It's like a floodlight that permeates and covers everything in its path.

You might think an unwillingness to forgive is a way we can punish those who did wrong to us, but it actually punishes us. It's what I love how author Anne Lamott explains it.

She says, not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.

So what does it mean to forgive others? It means we won't hold what they did against them anymore so that there's an opportunity for repentance and reconciliation of the broken relationship. Sin breaks the relationship. Forgiveness is required to restore, reconcile the broken relationship.

Now, that's easy to work through if it's a minor wrong. Hey, I said I would be home earlier, but I lost track of time—I'm an hour late. That was wrong, so please forgive me. That's easy. It's a lot harder when you're the recipient of evil.

What Forgiveness Does Not Have to Include

Before we nuance this forgiveness a little bit further, let me say what forgiveness does not have to include or what it doesn't mean. Much of what follows is based on something I read in a book called Bold Love by Tremper Longman and Dan Allender.

First, forgiving someone doesn't have to be a one-time event. Sometimes it is. You're an hour late, I can forgive you. Sometimes it's an ongoing process, especially as you consider further the implications of what's been done to you by another.

Second, forgiveness does not mean you have to forget about what's been done to you. You can forgive someone and still feel hurt or anger when you're reminded of what they've done to you.

Third, forgiveness does not mean you have to trust the one who sinned against you. Let's say I borrowed your car and wrecked it because I was texting while driving. I tell you what happened. I repent of not caring for your car. I tell you it was wrong to text while I was driving the car. I offer to pay for the damage and ask for your forgiveness.

Now, having listened to this sermon, you respond, "Jesus has forgiven all my sins, so I forgive you this sin."

Now, how are you going to respond a couple weeks later if I call you and say, "Hey, I'm glad to got your car back from the shop, happy to pay the bill—can I borrow it again?" If you don't let me borrow your car, your unwillingness to trust me says nothing about how willing you were to forgive me. It simply means that I violated your trust. I have done nothing to prove myself a trustworthy person, especially as it relates to your car.

Your willingness to forgive me and unwillingness to trust me is, at that moment, actually probably the best step forward in restoring our relationship. When you forgive someone, that forgiveness can absolutely include parameters to the way you will relate to them in the future, as well as in agreeing about what needs to happen now and in the future if any further reconciliation can occur.

In fact, if someone does evil to you, forgiveness does not mean that the relationship has to return to the state it was before they sinned against you. If they repent, you forgive them, but you don't have to trust them. You can put parameters around the relationship and spell out consequences should they violate those boundaries. And in some cases, you can just say, "I'm never going to see you again or I'm never going to interact with you again."

Again: forgiveness doesn't have to be a one-time event, it doesn't mean you have to forget what's been done, and it doesn't mean you have to trust them. If they repent, you forgive them. But it doesn't mean you have to trust them.

When They Don't Repent

But what do you do with situations where they don't repent? What if someone sins against you and they don't repent?

Well, you have two basic options. Let's say at the grocery store—and miracle of miracles—you see there's one package of Clorox disinfecting wipes left. You reach for it, only to have some guy show up out of nowhere, shove you out of the way, grab the last pack, and run to the checkout to pay for it. You'll probably never see him again. He will probably never repent for shoving you or taking the Clorox wipes. So how are you supposed to forgive him?

Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses. — Proverbs 10:12

You could stay mad at him. You could run out of the store and chase him down and lay into him, and that would probably be stirring up strife and would be wrong. Or you could, in love, cover his sin. It was wrong for him to treat me like that, but I don't want to stay angry at him, so I forgive him in my heart and I'll pray that God lets him see the wrong of his ways and repents to God of his sin. For some sins and some situations, covering over the sin is the right option.

But other times, you're sinned against and the person who sinned against you hasn't, or refuses to, repent. Well, it's better that you deal with forgiveness in two ways. You forgive them internally—as Jesus talked about in the story—before God. God, they've sinned against me. I want to forgive them in my heart. I don't want to stay bitter and angry against them. So I give them to you.

You be the judge. You execute justice. You do what you know is best. But if they won't or don't repent, you do not need to forgive them relationally. You can't forgive them relationally for something they won't or don't repent of. Call it sin, say it was wrong. Tell them they sinned against you and it was wrong. Invite repentance, but if they don't repent, you don't forgive them.

If your brother sins, rebuke him and if he repents, forgive him. — Luke 17:3

Pastor John Stott wrote the following about this verse. He wrote, "If we are to rebuke a brother if he sins against us and we are to forgive him if he repents and only if he repents, we must be aware of cheapening forgiveness. If a brother who has sinned against us refuses to repent, we should not forgive him. Does this startle you? It is what Jesus taught. If we can restore to full and intimate fellowship with ourselves as sinning and unrepentant brother, we reveal not the depth of our love, but its shallowness."

So you don't repent. You don't forgive. What do you do? Well, you fight like crazy in your own heart against bitterness by talking to God about the sin and the one who sinned against you. You bring your anger, you bring your hurt, you bring your trauma to God and let him hear the unfiltered version of what you are feeling and experiencing. He's not surprised by what's there and he can take it.

And then you ask him to execute justice for the way you've been sinned against, but you leave that justice to him knowing that God's full wrath against that sin will either come against the one who sinned against you or that it fell upon Jesus when he died on the cross. And then, and this is a process, not a one time event and often requires ongoing conversation and wisdom from trusted friends. You continue to pray for the one who sinned against you, praying for their repentance, in prayer revoking revenge. And if you interact with them, you treat them appropriately but also better than they deserve.

Look, I may not know your specific situation but I do know that in my own life that forgiving others when they repent of the way they've sinned against me is incredibly hard. And fighting bitterness and anger to find a way to love unrepentant enemies that sin against me, that's even harder. And at times it seems impossible. That's why I think it's good to remember the context of the verse that we're looking at. It's all in a prayer. It's how Jesus taught us to pray. In other words, He wants us to talk to God about these things. He wants us to tell God how impossibly hard it is. He wants us to tell God how complicated it all is. He wants us to come to God like a child would his good father. Fully expecting that his father wants to hear everything and then act and respond rightly to the request.

The Father's Role in Prayer

This is the kind of access that Jesus gives us to his father. Remember the prayer is relational. Our father is the palm that holds all these requests together. And we can call God our father because of Jesus. Jesus willingly and fully and freely shares with us all that is his. So he tells us, here's how you address God, who's my father. You call him your father. It's the beautiful way that prayer starts, our father in heaven. And we can start all our prayers that way because Jesus made it possible for God to forgive our sins.

God can answer our prayer of forgiveness or our prayer for forgiveness because Jesus made it possible. Just like our forgiveness of others doesn't mean we overlook their sin. God's forgiveness of us doesn't mean he overlooks our sin. No, no, God forgives our sins because Jesus hung on the cross and died to bear the penalty for our sins. God treated Jesus like we deserved, so he could treat us like Jesus deserved. That's the beauty of all of this.

If your faith is in Jesus, if you agree that you are a sinner that deserves God's wrath and agree that Jesus is not only the savior of sinners, but the savior of you a sinner. If your faith is in Jesus as your savior, when you ask God to forgive your sins, he will. Because Jesus took God's punishment for your sins so that you could receive God's forgiveness for your sins.

And the response to that kind of amazing love is one of love and it finds expression and a desire to obey God including his command that we forgive those who sin against us. And that kind of love expressed in the forgiveness of others honors God. It allows us to do what God made us to do.

Just before his death, Saint Francis of Assisi wrote a now famous hymn that we sing here from time to time. It starts out, "All creatures of our God and king, lift up your voice and with us sing, hallelujah, hallelujah." The hymn is a call for all of God's creation to praise Him. If you've heard us sang the hymn, you know that the hymn recognizes the praise the sun gives to God as it shines and recognizes the praise that the moon gives to God as it gleams.

Or in another verse, thou rushing wind that art so strong, ye clouds that hail and that sail in heaven along. Oh praise him, hallelujah. Thou rushing morn and praise rejoice. Ye lights of evening find a voice. Oh praise him, oh praise him, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.

And then Saint Francis gets to us. This is the way that he suggests we offer prayer to God.

All you men of tender heart, forgiving others, take your part.

For if that forgiveness flows from a heart God has made tender, it is a reflection that comes from the freedom that God gives us. And such forgiveness is more than just an act of obedience. It's an act of loving praise to the one who has forgiven you. It's a reflection of the way that God has forgiven you.

And if that's the case, then forgiveness in whatever form is appropriate—it's less about what you've done or what has been done to you, and more about what Jesus has done for you.

So let's take our part and join with creation in praising God, seeking his forgiveness for our sins as we also have forgiven those who sin against us.

Prayer

Jesus, these are not easy things to think about, and they're even harder things to do. So would you, by your spirit, help us grasp the forgiveness that we have through you for our sins? Cry out to you for the ways that we have sinned against you. And would you also help us, by your spirit, to forgive those who have sinned against us? It's in your name, Jesus, that we pray these things. Amen.