Sermon Transcript November 6, Lord, Teach us to Pray. Forgive us Our Debts Matthew 6:12, 14-15

Transcription

1 Sermon Transcript November 6, 2011 Lord, Teach us to Pray Forgive us Our Debts Matthew 6:12, This message from the Bible was addressed originally to the people of Wethersfield Evangelical Free Church on November 6, 2011, at 511 Maple Street, Wethersfield, CT, by Dr. Scott W. Solberg. This is a transcription that bears the strength and weaknesses of oral delivery. It is not meant to be a polished essay. An audio copy of the sermon on CD is available by request at (860) An audio/download version of this sermon may also be found on the church website at 1

2 SCRIPTURE TEXT Matthew 6:12, and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors 14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses 2

3 INTRODUCTION This morning we continue our discussion on the Lord s Prayer. The last time we met, we began looking at the second half of this prayer where Jesus is teaching us how to pray. It is the part of the prayer that encourages us to pray for our needs. I think it was rather timely and providential for us to look at the request, Give us this day our daily bread, the week before many of us would be without many of our modern day conveniences due to the unexpected October snow storm and the prolonged power outages many of us endured this past week. This past week served as a test. How did you do? Were you content with the daily provision of your daily needs? Remember, the request is literally asking God, Father, give me this day, that daily portion that I need, just for this day. Were you content with a roof over your head? Albeit, for many a cold roof; but it sure beats the bridge some sleep under day in and day out. Your roof probably beats what most people in the world sleep under every night. Were you content with the food you ate? It was enough to sustain you. Were you grateful for God s provision and for the people God used to tend to your need? Were you conscious of your neighbor? The inconveniences of this past week brought us to the substance of this request. As you evaluate how you did this past week, there are probably ways in which we all came up short. It sure doesn t take much to make Americans complain. We have become so accustomed to having so many luxuries that we don t comprehend how to distinguish true needs from wants or from luxuries; so we grow impatient. We complain. We grumble and become irritable. We point fingers and blame others for our misery. We think of ourselves above others and can t figure out why the CL&P truck isn t at our house first. We begin to worry about how we are going to address our damages. So, for those of us who struggled with contentment, succumbed to worry or expressed our anxiety through being irritable, I have a prayer request for you today: And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And so we come this morning to the second request of the second half of the Lord s Prayer. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. It is a twofold request. If we are honest with ourselves, we tend to pay more attention to the first half of the request than we do the second half. The first half of the request reminds us to continually and daily confess our sins, but the second half of the prayer places us on the other side of forgiveness. The reason we need to pray for this is because it is not always easy to forgive. But Jesus teaches us that extending forgiveness to others is an essential virtue of living the Christian life. We are to forgive as we have been forgiven. This request reminds us of our duty towards each other. 3

4 So let me begin by giving you a little warning. This request is not for the faint of heart. It is a request the requires you to own up to your own shortcomings and sin. That is not easy to do. It is not easy to be painfully transparent. It is an act of humility, and it requires strength from God. Therefore, we confess our sin. But then we are called to take the next step which requires even more humility, grace and strength. We are to forgive as we have been forgiven. How many times? Jesus said, seventy and seven times which means, times without number. Just as there is no limit with God in His forgiveness towards those who repent, so there must be no limit in our forgiveness of those who have wronged us. Now that is hard! It takes supernatural strength to do so. Hence, it becomes our daily prayer. There are three questions I would like to answer as we look at this important request, and as we prepare to come the Lord s Table. I will simply state the questions now and then we will attempt to answer them through the sermon. DEBTS OR TRESPASSES? Question #1: Is it forgive us our debts or forgive us our trespasses and does it even matter? Question #2: Why do I even need to confess my sin if I have already been forgiven of all sins: past, present and future? Question #3: What is the meaning of the warning that comes in verse if I fail to forgive the sins of others? Will God not forgive me? So which is it? Is it forgive us our debts or forgive us our trespasses? And furthermore, does it even matter? This is the awkward part of the prayer when it is prayed in a corporate setting. Depending upon your tradition, when you come to this request some say debts and some say trespasses. Here at WEFC, when we come to this request, we say and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. I used to think it didn t matter which word you used. I thought both versions were just saying the same thing with different words for sin. But now, I am inclined to say that there is a right way to pray this prayer and that ultimately it does matter. There are two reasons why it matters. The first reason is found simply in what is written. In Matthew s account of the Lord s Prayer he uses the Greek word that is translated debt. It is the word literally used in the text. Well how did the word trespass sneak into the reciting of this prayer? It comes from Matthew 6: Here we are told to forgive the trespasses committed against us and if we don t, then we are warned that God will not forgive us our trespasses. Most likely the word trespasses made its way into the reciting of the Lord s Prayer from verses The 4

5 word trespass does sound a little more elegant. But it is not completely accurate according to the original text. In Matthew 6:12 the word used is the word debt. This leads us to the second reason why I think it matters what word we use when we recite this prayer. It is because words matter. We believe that the Scriptures are inspired by the Holy Spirit, down to the very words recorded for us in the original manuscripts. Words matter because of what words mean and because of what words imply. When we ask God to forgive us our debts, we are asking God to forgive us far more than simply a trespass that has been committed. We are not simply trespassers who have broken a few laws or rules here and there. Our confession must run far deeper than that. We are debtors to God and we are spiritually bankrupt due to our sin. We owe God; and what we are confessing is our failure to give God what we owe Him. There are about 15 of us going through an evangelism training course on how to present the gospel. (By the way, two people in our group have had a chance to share the gospel and lead someone to faith in Christ. Exciting!) We learned in this study that sin is not merely breaking a law or committing a trespass. If that were the case, we might feel good about ourselves because there are times we trespass and times we don t. If that is all sin is, it can create a self-righteous spirit within us. Our sin problem runs far deeper than a trespass here and a trespass there. Our problem is that we have rebelled against God s rightful rule in our lives as our Creator and we have not given God what we owe Him. Therefore we are in debt to God. We live in a culture and a society that knows what it means to be in debt. Our national debt is a focus of much concern today; and there are those who say we are getting close to the point where there is no return. We see, this week, how countries like Greece are close to defaulting on their loans and the ripple effects for Europe and the rest of the world are staggering. Many of us know personal debt and, for many, this debt has gotten to the point that it seems insurmountable. Some even claim personal bankruptcy. They can not pay what they owe. It is similar to the bumper sticker that says, I owe, I owe, so off to work I go. Did you ever consider your sin to be a debt that is owed to God? In fact, our debt is so great that we need to wave the white flag because there is no way we can pay it back. When you are called to confess your sin, God is calling you to file for spiritual bankruptcy. It is a call to confess your sinful nature. It is a call to confess what the hymn says about you, you are prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. It is the confession that acknowledges there is something fundamentally flawed about me. It is the confession that admits that I do what I don t want to do and I don t do what I want to do. It is a confession of spiritual bankruptcy that reaches down to the desires of my heart. 5

6 What do you owe God? Jesus tells us in Matthew 22. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind... and... Love your neighbor as yourself. We owe God our complete obedience and allegiance. We demonstrate that allegiance through our selfless love for all those around us. It is a twenty-four hour a day and seven day a week obligation to our Creator. He is the rightful ruler of our lives. To sin is to fail to give to God what we owe Him as His creatures. Therefore, we incur incredible debt. None of us fully love God the way we should. None of us treats our neighbors as we should. And with each sin that we tick off moment by moment, we are reminded of how deeply in debt we really are. There is the debt that comes from the actions that we do that are wrong. There is the debt that comes from the thoughts that we think and the motives of our heart that are impure. There is the debt that is incurred from the sins of omission. These are the sins of the failure to do as we ought to do. In every way and every day, the cash register keeps ringing and ringing out of control, and, with each ring, we plunge deeper and deeper into debt. Actually, to tell you the truth. we are not born with a silver spoon in our mouths. We are born on the other side of the tracks. We are born into spiritual poverty. From the very beginning we are behind the eight ball; and, as each day passes, we are more and more in debt, with no way of paying off what we owe God. Have you ever met a person in financial debt who still spends as if he or she has a lot of money? They are in denial; and so is much of our world. They continue to sin as if they are OK; when, in reality, they are deep in debt. I am afraid that our problem is that we really don t realize how bankrupt we really are. I think of the parable Jesus told, in Luke 18, of two men who went to the temple to pray. One was a religious man who began thanking God that he wasn t like other men because he didn t commit some of the trespasses others have committed. In fact, he actually prayed, God, I thank you that I am not like other men. But the other man, a tax collector, could not even bring himself to look up to heaven. Instead, he beat his chest and confessed be merciful to me, a sinner. Did you catch what he was confessing? He was confessing what he was. His confession ran deeper than transgressions committed. It addressed his debt. This is the man, Jesus said, who went home justified. We are in debt up to our eyeballs. Our only hope is found if someone comes and pays our debt. The Bible identifies that someone as Jesus. The price we owe, because of our sin, is death. Jesus paid that debt on the cross. He died that we might be forgiven and brought into a relationship with God. In order to receive that gift from God, I need to come with a broken spirit and confess my sin and place my trust in what Jesus has done for me on the cross. So when I come and say, Father, forgive me of the debt I owe You because of my sin and, thank you for Jesus who has paid it all on the cross, we then have the assurance of knowing that we are free from this debt. 6

7 DAILY CONFESSION When we come to faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior, we are told that we are declared to be righteous. In other words, our sins are forgiven. We are children of God and heirs of the kingdom of God. The Scriptures say, For by grace you have been saved. We come to this table as people of faith knowing that we have already been accepted by God through faith in Jesus Christ. We have a righteousness that is not our own, but is the righteousness of Jesus given to us by faith. When God looks at us, He sees us as blameless and He accepts us with great joy. So if that is the case, if we are saved and forgiven and righteous and clean before God.... why do we need to still confess our sins? There are several reasons we should daily humble ourselves and confess our sins. It is what Jesus tells us to do: One simple reason we should daily confess our sins is because Jesus tells us to. In teaching us how to pray and what to say when we pray, Jesus is telling us we ought to daily confess our sins. When I was a kid, one of the things I lived for during the week was the Saturday morning cartoons. During that time, they aired some commercials that were educational. These commercials would teach you about math or English or even teach you about government. For example, one of the commercials taught us how a bill becomes a law. The most memorable commercial for me had a jingle that went like this. Conjunction junction, what s your function. This commercial was teaching us English grammar and the role of conjunctions. So what is the function of this conjunction and in our request this morning? Do you see it at the beginning of our request this morning? Give us this day our daily bread, AND forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. The word and is a conjunction that links one thought to the next. It links the request for daily bread to the request for forgiveness. As I look at this conjunction, I can t help but think that it is doing more than just adding another request to the list. It is demonstrating that there is connection between the two requests. What is that connection? Here are some thoughts for you on this matter. As I daily go to God and express my dependence upon God to meet my daily need, I am reminded, through this conjunction and, that my greatest need in life is to be right with God. After all, What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul? There is something else that this conjunction and points out to me. As I am crying out to God to meet my needs, if you remember, I am recognizing God to be the good giver of all that I have. All that I have comes from God. While God is supplying all that I need, down to the breath I breathe, I am sinning and rebelling against His good rule in my life. I don t 7

8 always trust God. I don t always love God. I don t always serve God and all the while God is taking care of me. I read once, If you want to sin against God, try to do it without breathing it would be a shame to draw breath from God and use the energy of that breath to grieve His heart. 3 And yet, through these two requests, we learn about the incredible goodness of God that while we stand in need of pardon, God continues to supply the very breath we need for life. We still sin: A second reason to daily pray this prayer is because we continue to sin. It is as simple as that. John says in 1 John 1 that if anyone claims to be without sin that he is a liar. We will wrestle with sin until the day we die. That is the whole point of the request we will look at next week, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. We are still tempted to sin. We still sin. So it stands to reason that we should confess that sin. Now, we do not confess our sin to be saved all over again. Rather, we confess our sin because it grieves our hearts that we do not love God and love others as we should. As the light of God s truth begins to shine into our hearts as followers of Christ, we become aware of so many dark corners in our hearts that we never saw before. I think, the longer we are Christians, the more we come to realize how deep our sin truly runs. We begin to see the sin of our hearts, our motives, our attitudes, our thoughts.... and it is not a pretty picture. Here is the beautiful thing about God s grace. As Christians, when we come to confess our sin before God, we know that we are approaching our Heavenly Father who loves us and has already brought us into the family of God. It is like your relationship with your children. When they do something wrong, it doesn t mean that you disown them. Rather, you discipline them and you teach them to say, I am sorry. When we sin against each other, it hurts our relationship and so we humble ourselves and say to one another, I am sorry. So it is with God. When I come to this table as a Christian, I am not questioning whether God will accept me or not. I have already come to faith in Jesus Christ. But I am coming humbly, confessing my sin and renewing my fellowship with a loving God who smiles upon me because of Jesus. Keeps me humble: Finally I would add this. We are about ready to address the other side of forgiveness, where you are going to be asked to give to someone else what you want God to freely give to you: forgiveness. It is not easy to forgive. Some of you have heavy wounds in your life, sins that have been done against you. These things are not easy to forgive. One of the reasons we should confess our sins on a daily basis is that it keeps us humble and it enables us to grant forgiveness to those who have wronged us Why? Because I am nothing more than a fellow sinner. 8

9 There is an intriguing statement about the nature of man found in Titus 3:3 that I think sums it up well. Describing the nature of man, Paul writes that, in general man, is hated by others and hating one another. Do you know what Paul is saying there? We are all victims of being sinned against and, at the same time, we are all guilty of sinning against. Did you catch that? I have been hurt by people and I have hurt people. Therefore, my daily confession humbles me and places me in a position where I can truly grant forgiveness for the wrongs committed against me. After all, I am nothing but a fellow sinner saved by grace. I would encourage you to heed the words of Jesus this week and daily confess your sins. This confession ought to include specific ways you have sinned against God and others. But it ought to also include a confession that acknowledges what you are. You are a sinner. You are a sinner saved by grace; but you are a sinner. Confess it! FORGIVING ONE ANOTHER We now come to the second part of this prayer request. Not only are we to confess our sins, but now we are told that we are to forgive those who have sinned against us. Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. In fact, this request comes with a sober warning that catches your attention and raises all kinds of questions. Jesus says, in Matthew 6:14-14, 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. It is not like this is the only place this warning is laid out before us. We read in Matthew 5:7 that the merciful are the ones who will be shown mercy. Luke 6:37 says that if you forgive you will be forgiven. In Mark 11:25 Jesus warns, When you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins. This can seem confusing to us, because it almost seems that our forgiveness is conditional upon our willingness to forgive. It seems as though you might even think this verse is teaching us that we earn our forgiveness through forgiving others. That is not what this passage is teaching. The order of this request is important. First we are asking for God to forgive us our sins, which comes only by God s grace. That is the clear teaching of Scripture. Colossians 3:13 says it this way, Forgive as the Lord forgives you. Here is how Paul says it in Ephesians 4:32, Forgive each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. So this verse is not teaching us that we earn God s forgiveness by forgiving others. What then are these verses teaching us? They are teaching us that God expects us to forgive as we have been forgiven. These verses are teaching us that offering forgiveness 9

10 to others is not optional. We do not have a right to withhold forgiveness. At best, the failure to forgive reveals the process or the difficulty we have in living out this command; and, consequently, bitterness takes root and our spiritual lives are impacted by an unforgiving spirit. God will work on that. But at worst, an unforgiving spirit, an unwillingness to even consider offering forgiveness may indicate that you have never really tasted the forgiveness of God. Kent Hughes says it this way, If I refuse to forgive, there can only be one reason, and that is that I have never understood the grace of Christ. I am outside grace and I am unforgiven. 1 That being said, we all know how hard it is to forgive. I understand that there are hurts some of you have endured for a long time, and these hurts run deep. I do not discount the fact that offering forgiveness can be a process that takes time in many cases. But here is what I know. The children of God are called to forgive as God has forgiven us. This is the clear expectation laid out before us. Whenever I have conversation about this or even think about this, the questions are asked: What about this situation... Or, what does forgiveness look like? And those are good and fine questions to ask. But here is what these questions reveal. They reveal how unnatural this request truly is. It is not natural for us to forgive. And yet, the call is to forgive. Philip Ryken asks the question: If we must forgive, how shall we do it? What does it mean to forgive our debtors? 2 I like the practical advice he gives and I would like to share it with you. But remember, this is not a request for the faint of heart. This is hard! Here is what he says: 1. It means forgive everyone for everything. It sounds good in principle, but in reality it is tough. From the neighbor who ran over your flowers, to the spouse who fails to meet your needs, to the co-worker who stabbed you in the back, to the church goer who betrayed your confidence, to the uncle who molested you and to the drunk driver who killed your son; the order is the same. Forgive! 2. Forgiving our debtors means forgiving our debtors even is they do not ask for forgiveness. It takes two people to reconcile, but often the other person is not willing or interested. You can t cancel their sin, only God can do that. But what you can do is release your bitterness and anger and free yourself up to actually have compassion and love for the person. 3. Forgiving our debtors means forgetting the sin. Humanly, it does not mean we no longer have recollection of what has been done against us. But what it does mean is that we lay down our right to remain angry and give up our claim to future repayment for the wrong that was suffered. 10

11 4. Forgiveness means learning how to say I forgive you. We are not saying that is okay or don t worry about it. Rather, by saying I forgive you, you are acknowledging that a wrong was committed and that you freely choose to forgive it. 5. Forgiving our debtors means that we forgive over and over again, just as God forgives us Truly this business of forgiving one another is not easy. That is why we pray this prayer. It requires the strength and the grace of God. But I know people who have worked through real difficult hurts committed against them and have gotten to the point of being able to forgive and, through this supernatural act of forgiveness, they have received real joy and true liberty. The call of the Christian is the call to forgive. CONCLUSION Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. This is a great request to meditate on as you hold the elements in your hand this morning. Take the next few moments to pray this prayer. Confess your sin and acknowledge that you are a debtor. You are a sinner by nature. Confess the sins of omission and commission. Confess the sins everyone sees and the sins no one sees but you and God. Confess the sins that have been spoken and confess the sins that are silent to everyone around you, but expressed in your mind and heart. Then, thank God for Jesus who says, Come to me and I will give you rest. Ask God to give you the daily discipline of confession. Learn how to confess your sins, one to another. Walk humbly before your God. Where are you withholding forgiveness. Spend time asking God to give you grace and strength to forgive as God has forgiven you. Release your anger and your right to repay what has been done against you. Forgive! 1 Kent Hughes Abba Father: The Lord s Pattern for Prayer (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1986) 80 2 Philip Ryken When You Pray (Philippsburg, NJ: P & R 2000) by Dr. Scott W. Solberg - All rights reserved 11