This week I read about two churches who had decided to hold a joint worship service. As part of that service they were going to recite the “Lord’s Prayer”. But when it came to the fourth petition in the prayer, they couldn’t agree whether to say “forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors” or “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Since they couldn’t reach agreement they went their separate ways – one still remaining in their debts and the other remaining in their trespasses.
That story illustrates a much larger problem. What has come to be known by most as the “Lord’s Prayer” has probably been the most misused passage in the entire Bible. As we’ll see clearly this morning, the rote reciting of the words of that prayer, which is so common, actually violates the heart of what Jesus is teaching about prayer in this section of the Sermon on the Mount. And even when we don’t recite the words of Jesus’ model prayer here, we often take that prayer and merely turn it into a formula for our praying. While there is some value in that approach, there is also the danger that we will get so locked in to the formula that we’ll miss the heart of Jesus.
Go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Matthew 6 and follow along as I begin reading in verse 5. And as I do that, I want to encourage you to listen for the heart of Jesus and not just His words.
5 “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 6 But 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.
7 “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 Pray then 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 this day our daily bread,
12 and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
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.
Matthew 6:5-15 (ESV)
You’ll notice that I’ve skipped the first four verses in this chapter. I’m going to come back to them in a couple of weeks as we spend a few weeks examining all of Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount that deal with our stewardship and also bring in some other related passages to help us all develop a Biblical view of how we are to handle the material possessions that God has blessed us with.
This morning, as we focus on Jesus’ teaching about prayer here, I’m not going to go into much detail at all on the words of the model prayer that we find in this passage. I’m sure most of you have probably heard a number of sermons or been exposed to other Biblical teaching that does that. But as we’ve seen consistently in the Sermon on the Mount, this entire sermon is more about discerning the heart of Jesus than following specific commands. And we can only pursue Jesus’ heart by taking a much broader view of His teaching here. So with that in mind, let’s explore…
The Heart of Jesus Regarding Prayer
1. Jesus expects that His followers will pray
You’ll notice that Jesus uses the phrase “When you pray…” three times in this passage. He doesn’t say “If you decide to pray…” or “in the event you pray…” There is an expectation on His part that His followers will pray.
That really shouldn’t surprise us since Jesus’ life was characterized by prayer. We consistently find that before or during the significant events in His life here on earth, Jesus spent time with his Heavenly Father in prayer:
• He prayed at His baptism
• He prayed all night before choosing the apostles
• He prayed at the transfiguration
• He prayed in the Garden just prior to being arrested and crucified
In fact, prayer was such an integral part of Jesus’ life that in a similar passage in Luke, the disciples come to Jesus as ask Him to teach them to pray:
Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”
Luke 11:1 (ESV)
The vital of prayer is also seen the early church as the apostles and other church leaders also prayed frequently, especially prior to important decisions. And the urgency of prayer also is seen in Paul’s ministry, which is why he could share this command with Christ’s followers:
pray without ceasing
1 Thessalonians 5:17 (ESV)
I think that Martin Luther King, Jr. accurately summed up the heart of Jesus concerning prayer with these words:
To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.
2. The purpose of prayer is to acknowledge God
Although we’re not going to go into any detail on the specific words of Jesus’ model prayer, there is certainly an overall theme that we can discern here. The prayer begins with a focus on God: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” Then it moves to a focus on God’s purposes, plans and ways: Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” And even when the prayer becomes more personal - Give us this day our daily bread – the focus is still on God as our provider.
The petition to God to forgive is personal as well, but it is also an acknowledgment that only God is able to do that. And the closing words that ask God to protect us from temptation and evil follow that same pattern – although they are personal, they acknowledge God’s sovereignty in our lives.
I know a lot of people who read verse 8 where Jesus proclaims that our Father knows what we need before we ask Him and wonder why we should pray then. If God already knows what I need what good does it do for me to ask Him for those things in prayer? But that question misses the main purpose of prayer altogether. God doesn’t want us to pray so that He can know our needs. But He desires that we pray because by praying we are acknowledging Him and His sovereignty. And that is both good for us and it brings glory to Him.
When we pray in the manner that Jesus provides in this model prayer, it takes all the attention off our own wants and desires and causes us to focus on God and His desires for us. I really like how William McGill captures the essence of this principle:
The value of consistent prayer is not that He will hear us, but that we will hear Him.
Oswald Chambers also confirms this idea with these words:
Our ordinary views of prayer are not found in the New Testament. We look upon prayer as a means for getting something for ourselves; the Bible idea of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself.
When we approach prayer as merely the means to get something for ourselves, we miss the entire purpose of prayer. But when we view prayer as a means of acknowledging God, we find that we get what we really need – a deeper and more intimate relationship with Him.
3. The biggest barrier to a vibrant prayer life is self-righteousness
In this passage, Jesus describes three forms of self-righteousness that hinder our prayer life:
• Spiritual exhibitionism
Jesus condemns those who are engaging in spiritual exhibitionism when they pray for the purpose of impressing others. Before we go any further, it is clear here that Jesus is not in any way prohibiting the practice of public prayer. There are numerous examples in the New Testament of both Jesus and His followers praying publicly.
What Jesus is condemning is not so much the act itself, but the attitude behind the act. Those who were praying so that they would be noticed by others had clearly missed the whole idea that the purpose of prayer is to acknowledge God. And because of that, the full extent of the benefit they would ever receive from their prayers is whatever praise they received from men.
I know that we looked at the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18 just a few weeks ago, but it is so instructive to us here that it won’t hurt to read it again this morning:
9 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: 10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’
Luke 18:9-12 (ESV)
The Pharisee in that parable was engaging in spiritual exhibitionism. By his prayer, he was attempting to demonstrate his so called “righteousness” to other men. But Jesus made it clear that God wasn’t real impressed with that kind of self-righteousness.
• Verbosity
Jesus second warning was directed to those who tried to wear God down with their words. Those of us who have children can really relate to this one can’t we? As parents, we have a better understanding of what is good for our children than they do. But often when they desire something they will try to wear us down with their words. They think that if they just ask for what they want enough, they can wear us down and we’ll give in. Unfortunately, at times, this actually works.
The Greek philosophers of Jesus’ day had a saying: “Fatigue the gods.” So the people had developed these long lists of divine names, hoping that by endless repetition they would somehow invoke the name of the true god and thus receive what they were asking for.
We have a Biblical example of this practice in 1 Kings 18 where the pagan adversaries of Elijah prayed on and on, crying out loudly and even cutting themselves, thinking that would increase the chance of God answering their prayers.
There is nothing inherently wrong with praying the words of the model prayer that we find here in Matthew 6. In fact, we know that God loves to have His Word prayed back to Him. But unfortunately, even in the church, the public recitation of the so called “Lord’s Prayer” has become nothing more than the repetition of empty phrases that Jesus warns against right before He gives His followers the model for their prayers.
Again, it is not the act itself but the attitude behind the act that Jesus is addressing here. When we try to wear God down with our words, we are essentially saying to God that we know better than He does what we need.
• Lack of forgiveness
This is where we’ll spend most of our time this morning, because that is what Jesus does. This is the only part of the model prayer where Jesus provides a further commentary. After He concludes the model prayer, He comments further on the prayer for God to forgive our debts as we forgive 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.
This is one of those passages in Scripture where it would be really easy to draw some wrong conclusions about what Jesus meant if we don’t take the time to look at the surrounding context and the rest of Scripture. So because this is so important and so prone to misunderstanding we’re going to work through this rather methodically.
Two words for “sin”
There are actually five different Greek words used in the New Testament to describe sin, but we’ll just focus on the two that Jesus uses here in this passage:
“debt” = that which is justly or legally due
The noun form of this word is only used one other place in the New Testament. But there are 35 uses of the associated verb. While several of those uses refer to a monetary debt, the majority of the times it is used it refers to a moral obligation.
When man sins, he incurs a debt with God. When we violate God’s holiness we owe God a consequence for that sin. And God keeps a record of that debt. As we saw in the Book of Revelation, after the return of Jesus those books are going to be opened and those who have not already had that debt taken care of through faith in Jesus will have to pay up and incur the eternal consequences of that debt.
“trespass” = “fall” or “slip”; to wander from a standard”
The idea of a trespass is that we are swept away in the moment, perhaps due to our passions, desires or a loss of self-control. It is the kind of sin that a Christ follower will experience in his or her life as Paul points out in his letter to the Galatians:
Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.
Galatians 6:1 (ESV)
The word translated “transgression” is the same Greek word that is rendered “trespass” in Matthew 6. Hopefully as believers we won’t intentionally sin, but because we still have our sin nature, we will slip and wander away from God’s standards from time to time.
Just as there are two words for sin that Jesus uses here, there are also the related…
Two kinds of forgiveness
Let’s begin here by defining the word “forgive”:
“forgive” = “wipe the slate clean”
The Greek word actually comes from commerce – not religion. It originally meant to erase the number in a business ledger. So when we pray and ask God to forgive our debts, we are asking Him to erase from the ledger every single instance where we have fallen short of His standards and thus incurred a debt.
Judicial forgiveness
This is the forgiveness that God renders to us as Judge. Because we have violated God’s standards we are guilty and deserve to be punished. But for those who have placed their trust in Jesus Christ alone, God looks down from heaven and declares that we have been forgiven based on what Jesus has done for us. By His sinless life, death and resurrection, Jesus has paid the penalty for our sin.
By that act of judicial forgiveness all of our sins – past, present and future – are completely forgiven once and for all and our debt has been paid in full by Jesus.
Here’s how Paul summed up this concept of judicial forgiveness:
And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
Colossians 2:13, 14 (ESV)
Relational forgiveness
This aspect of forgiveness is most clearly demonstrated in 1 John 1. Remember that John is writing to believers here:
5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1:5-9 (ESV)
This section is all about fellowship with God. And when we sin and walk in darkness, that fellowship is broken. But God provides us with a means by which we can deal with that sin and restore our fellowship with God. When we confess our sin, God forgives that sin and wipes the slate clean and restores our intimate fellowship with Him.
Judicial forgiveness is a permanent, one time event that occurs when we submit our lives to Jesus and place our trust in Him alone. But relational forgiveness must be sought continuously. As you might guess the verbs in 1 John 1:9 are present tense which means we must continually confess our sins to God in order to be cleansed and have our fellowship restored.
Marriage is a great illustration of how this works. On our wedding day Mary and I made commitments to each other to love each other regardless of circumstances. So whenever there is any kind of conflict in our marriage, the marriage itself is not broken. But our intimacy in the marriage certainly suffers. But as we work through those issues and forgiveness is given and received that intimacy is restored.
This principle really helps us to understand much better what occurs in the upper room as Jesus washes the disciples’ feet:
6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” 7 Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” 8 Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” 9 Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 10 Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean.
John 13:6-10 (ESV)
Because of his faith in Jesus as the Messiah, Peter was “completely clean” in the sense that he had received judicial forgiveness. But unless he was willing to let Jesus wash his feet as a picture of relational forgiveness right then, he was going to miss out on the intimate fellowship of sharing the Passover meal with Jesus.
Given all this important background, we are now ready to deal with Jesus’ commentary in verses 14 and 15:
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.
There is little doubt that Jesus is dealing with relational and not judicial forgiveness here. He is not saying that if we fail to forgive others our salvation is in danger. The issue of judicial forgiveness is sealed once and for all the very moment we commit our lives to Jesus.
But what He is saying is this:
Our refusal to forgive others breaks our fellowship with God.
Perhaps this is the most dangerous form of self-righteousness of the three that Jesus addresses in this passage. Not only does our lack of forgiveness fail to acknowledge the forgiveness we have received from God, it also is an indication that we are elevating our own righteousness above that of other people. And as we have consistently seen throughout the Sermon on the Mount, that is a dangerous place to be.
This whole subject of forgiveness cannot possibly be overemphasized. In fact, I want to invite you to stay and join us for our “Connections” Bible study where we’ll have time to explore it some more.
But let me just close with this thought. All of us want our corporate worship to provide a meaningful experience that allows us to connect with God and with our fellow believers. And those involved in the worship service each week work hard to allow that to occur. But I’m convinced that the greatest impediment to a meaningful corporate worship experience is the lack of forgiveness within the body of Christ. Because we choose not to genuinely forgive others, we not only damage our relationship with that other person, we also negatively impact our relationship with God. And it is just not possible for us to worship God in the way that would be pleasing to Him when that occurs.
So I want to encourage all of us to respond to God appropriately this morning.
First, to those of you who have never committed your life to Jesus and trusted in Him alone to pay the debt you have accumulated by sinning against God, then this morning we invite you to make that commitment. It is our heart’s greatest desire that you receive that judicial forgiveness that can only come through faith in Jesus.
And for the rest of us that have already made that commitment, I want to ask you to do two things. First, I want to encourage you to stay for the “Connections” Bible study this morning. Because I can promise you that what we’ll do during that time will help you in some very practical ways to make sure you extend forgiveness to others. And second, I want you to pray to God and ask Him to reveal to you if you are holding something against someone else that you haven’t truly forgiven – especially anything against anyone else in this body.
We’re going to do things a bit differently during our response time this morning. We won’t have any music or singing. We’re just going to give you some time to pray. During this time our elders will be up here in the front row and if you would like someone to pray with you about any of these things or to discuss how to commit your life to Jesus, they will be available if you just walk up here.
[Prayer]
