A woman bought a parrot for a pet. All the parrot did was treat her bad. It insulted her and every time she tried to pick it up, it would peck at her arm.
One day she got fed up with the parrot and as it was insulting her she picked it up, it continued with the insults.."you're ugly! I can't stand you!" and it pecked at her arm as she carried it. She opened the freezer door and threw him in and closed the door. From inside, the parrot was still going on for about 5 seconds and then it was suddenly quiet.
She thought, "Oh no, I killed it!" She open the door and the parrot just looked at her. She picked it up. Then the parrot said:
"I'm very sorry. I apologize for my bad behavior and promise you there will be no more of that. From now on, I will be a respectful, obedient parrot."
"Well OK" she said. "apology accepted".
The parrot said "Thank you".
Then he said, "Can I ask you something?" She said, "Yes, What?"
And the parrot looked at the freezer and asked, "What did the Chicken do?"
Matthew 6:9-13, “This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’”
We’ve been working our way through the Lord’s Prayer as a model for how we should pray. When Jesus said, “This then is how you should pray” it wasn’t that He meant these exact words but these attitudes. When we pray these are the area’s that we should cover and the attitudes that we should have. Jesus gave us this prayer as a model.
The Jewish people at that time compared you spiritual life to your physical life. It is a good comparison because when your spiritual life suffers so does your physical life. They said that your prayer life was like the circulatory system. Areas of your spiritual life are like arteries, when they are clear and in good condition the love, joy, peace, and all of those things that we are promised by God and get from God are ours. Our life is better. But as life happens, they can become clogged. Sometimes they are clogged not because of life, but from simple neglect. We just put our focus on other things and neglect God. But when we pray, if we follow Jesus model we work through these area’s to unclogged them, or keep them clear so that our spiritual life is good and then our life is good.
The prayer begins with the artery of relationship. We realize that God is our Father. But He’s not an imperfect or flawed father like all of us had or are. He is the perfect Father. He wants to see us grow and and He loves us even when we fail. That is the type of relationship that we are privileged to have with him. But there is the caveat that even though we have a relationship with Him. We are not like Him. He is high and lifted up and we are fallen. We honor Him, and love Him because He paid the price to be with us. That is the lesson of “Hallowed be Thy name.” That is the artery of worship. When we realize and express that we have a relationship with God, but He is greater then we are so we live to bring honor to His name.
From there He moved to the artery of priority. In God’s kingdom He comes first and everything else second. The beautiful thing is that when we put His kingdom first, God said He would give us everything else. We can make Him our first priority because He made us a priority. Intellectually we can know this. When you are in the service of a king, it follows that you put the king first. We can read the introductions to Paul’s letters where He refers to himself as a bond servant, one who is in the service of another in exchange for the payment of a debt. That is definitely who we are and servants definitely must serve their masters first. But we can forget that. We forget for a lot of reasons but the biggest is that the artery of provision gets clogged. We get worried about the things of this world. We get worried about our stuff and having enough stuff or having the right stuff. But the stuff of this world doesn’t last and even if it does, we don’t. It all belongs to God and He said, if we would trust Him then He will take care of it. When we grasp that fact. When we keep the artery of provision clear, then we get peace and joy, and a sense of purpose.
With all of those things taken care of, then we come to those words, “And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” This section deals with the spiritual artery of forgiveness. We need forgiveness to flow through us. But listen, to truly be both happy and healthy, we need forgiveness to flow from us. It must be an open conduit.
1. Our View of Forgiveness:
As we look at this huge topic of forgiveness, let’s look at our view of forgiveness to make sure that we understand some of the principles about this topic so that we can go deeper into it. We’re going to start by getting personal. When we pray a prayer like this, are we serious? When we pray do we sincerely understand that we need forgiveness? I’m talking about deep down in our heart, in our inner mind and attitude. This can be a problem for Christians, we become so used to the gift of God’s grace that we lose our awe of it, our sense of wonder at it. It’s not that we necessarily take it fore granted, but that’s pretty close. We have become so assured in our place in Christ that we just don’t have the awe of it anymore and what happens is we start to take our eyes off of our own faults and put them on to other people. We forget that we were once broken, lost and blind, and that we just last week, and we begin to judge other people who currently are, as if we never were.
We know that we have God’s grace and so our mind begins to focus on all the good things that we do, and we not on the bad. That’s good, but no matter how good you are, you’re never perfect. Every sin is worthy of our deaths. Every sin should cut us off from God. May we never get to the point that when we are praying, we lose sight of the miracle and gift that God’s forgiveness is for anything that we do. Or get to the point that we’re praying but what we are really thinking is, “Yeah, I’ve sinned but at least I’m not like...” I’m really pretty good. God forgive me, but we both know this one is easy to forgive right God, ‘cause I’m not that bad.”
We are that bad! But His grace is that good! God loves us, to get this artery clear we have to recognize our need for it. We need to understand our debt to God. Sin is rebellion, it is doing what we want to do instead of what we wants. We can even do something that seems good to the outside world, but if it is in rebellion to God, it isn’t.
Remember Jonah. God wanted him to go to Nineveh and instead he headed the other direction. He was gonna do some good things, he was going to preach and teach people about God. But He wasn’t doing what God said it was a sin. All sin, is wrong. It is all worthy of death. Right, that’s Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” By the way if you’re sharing the gospel and don’t know what to say, you can just use that one verse right there, it’s got everything that you need. But for all of us we need to realize the debt of just one sin. The consequence is death. One sin, a white lie, is enough to separate us from the pure and holy God forever. That is the consequence of sin. Our debt is so great that we can not pay it. Isn’t it good to know that He did?
We say, “yes.” But that just leads to a different question. Do we understand the price of God’s forgiveness? Do we understand the price that He paid so that we could be forgiven and have a relationship with Him? Yes we remember His death on the cross. We think about the beating and humiliation that He took. We think about the separation between God the Father and Jesus, a separation that had never happened before in all eternity. All of those things were horrible. All of those things were an incredible price for anyone to pay for anyone else. Then when you realize that the holy and blameless God did that for us. It was in incredible price.
But then we read this verse, 2 Corinthians 5:21, “God mad him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Think about that Jesus, who never sinned. He came down He was tempted just like we are tempted and He never sinned. But on that cross He took on all the sins of the world. The pure and spotless one took on all of our corruption, not just your sin and my sin, but all sin for all time. He took that on Himself. The taint of it so great that God the Father had to turn away. Do we understand the price that He paid? But He did it for you and for me. So that when we turn to Him, so that when we confess our sins and ask for His forgiveness, the just and holy God could say, “yes.” That was the price that He paid for you and for me. May we never forget it and may we never take it for granted.
2. Understanding God’s Forgiveness:
To really understand God’s forgiveness there are a few principles that we need to consider. The first is that God’s forgiveness is complete. That’s the end of the verse, “That we might become the righteousness of God.” God is pure and holy. In Him there is no sin. Jesus paid the price for our sin so that we could be like that. Before God we are blameless. Jesus didn’t pay the price for part of your sin. He paid the price for all of your sin.
You’ve gotta understand what that means. It means that when we sin, He is the source of our forgiveness. All of it. There is nothing we can say or do to make things right with God, but Jesus paid the price for our sin, all of it. By the way, that makes sense because what can you possibly do that is more than what He did? I mean there’s nothing. One sin and we’re worthy of death. What can we do in this life that is more then that? Now let’s be honest, none of us has sinned just once.
When we think about the completeness of God’s forgiveness, we need to understand that He paid it all. There is nothing that we can do to deserve it. But the next part of completeness that we need to understand is that He paid for ALL of our sins. Sometimes we have a hard time living in that truth. We’ve done something in the past. We’ve confessed it. We’ve turned from it. We’ve asked God to forgive it. He has, but we live as if He hasn’t. Like we still have to do something more.
That’s the next point, God’s forgiveness is free. There is nothing you have to do to earn it, because there is nothing we can do to earn it. Jesus paid for everything, we can’t do more then that. So all we have to do is ask for it. By the way that was His plan. It’s in that verse we quoted, it is the free gift of God. You can’t earn it, you don’t deserve it, but the good news is that all you have to do is ask for it. When you ask, you get it. So live like it.
It sounds like such a simple thing, but so many people can’t do it. They live as if they are still the person they used to be. They are still trapped in the sins and failures of the past. The reality is that our feelings of guilt and shame hinder us from living as if we are forgiven. When we dwell on our past we can’t move forward into the future. You know who likes to remind us about the past? Satan. He loves to remind us of all the times that we’ve failed. He loves to remind us of all the things we’ve done wrong. You know why? Because He knows that God has plans for you. God want’s to use you and to bless you so that you can bless others. So Satan comes and he reminds you of the past. He says, “You can’t serve God, don’t you remember what you’ve done. You’re not worthy of God. You can’t serve God, He doesn’t love you, no body loves you. Don’t you remember the people who hurt you, who rejected you? If you weren’t good enough for them why do you think that you’re good enough for God.” These are the lies that he tells and sometimes we believe them. Don’t because God loves you. God forgives us, God wants to be with us.That is the promise of Psalms 34:18, “The Lord is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” When your past is haunting you. When you’re reminded of the things that you did in the past. The regrets that you have. The things that you would change. When those things pile up. God is with you, He wants to be close to you. To tell you the truth that He loves you and He forgives you, and He wants to take even those bad things and make them work together for good. God is the one who can take the things that would break us, the things that Satan would use to destroy us, and make them the very things that will build us and grow us.
How can He do that? Because He is God. What does He do that because He loves us. That’s why we clear that artery of relationship first. The whole thing is based on our relationship with God and we have that not because of who we are but because of whose we are. You are forgiven. Because God loves you and paid the price for your forgiveness. It doesn’t matter what Satan says, we already know his future. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says, it matters what God says, and He said, “I love you this much.”
Passing it On:
Isn’t it great to be forgiven? But as we think of how great it is that we can pray, “And forgive us our debts.” And wouldn’t it be great if the prayer just ended there? But it doesn’t Jesus goes on to pray, “As we forgive our debtors.” Oops now hold on Jesus. Now you’re getting personal. You want me to forgive everyone else? Yep. See one of the concepts that because we have been forgiven we need to forgive others. That’s the way that it works. We talked last week about how God’s economy is different from what most people think. When it comes to money people think that the more that you get, the more you can get. God says, “The more you give the more I will give to you.”
When it comes to forgiveness once again we see that God has a little different spin on it then what people think. God is willing to forgive us. He wants to forgive us. He has paid an unimaginable price to forgive us. But He doesn’t just want to forgive us He wants us to learn to forgive others. This is a huge thing for us to get. According to this prayer, we forgive as we are forgiven. If we don’t forgive others then we aren’t forgiven. The standard that we use is used back on us. If we forgive then we are forgiven. But if not well that’s a problem. But you understand the imagery of an artery? Things are supposed to flow through it. God says, “If you want may forgiveness and my mercy to flow to you, then you have to let it flow through you and to other people, even the people who have wronged you.”
Maybe you’re thinking wait a second, that’s too much. God you don’t know what that person did, you don’t know what they said. God their not even sorry. God they don’t even acknowledge that they did anything wrong God I can’t forgive them. That’s where so many of us run into trouble. We put conditions on what people have to do in order to be forgiven. They need to say their sorry, they need to fix what they’ve done. They need to. Now understand me, yes they should, but that’s not a condition that God puts out there. He says, “I’ve forgiven you and you so you forgive everyone else.”
Why, why does God do that, when He knows that it’s hard for us to do. When He knows that people have hurt us. God is our creator, He is the one who gave us, feelings and emotions and memory. Why does He then tell us to forgive? Because when we forgive we are often the biggest beneficiaries. This is one of the hardest and yet best truths that we can ever get in life. When we forgive others, when we choose to stop thinking about what they have done to us, we benefit the most. Not them, us. Because they may or may not even know about what they did. It may or may not bother them. But if we need to forgive them, then there is definitely and issue for us. We know what they did. It definitely bothers us. Every time that we think about it, when we dwell on it, it hurts us. We relive the moment, we relive that pain, and it makes the wound fresh as if it had just happened. You know who that hurts? Us. So God says, “I forgave you, so you forgive them.”
But what if we don’t what if we choose to hold on to our hurt and our anger. What if we decide to hold on to it and just take our chances with God and see what difference it makes. Well the difference is really clear. When we don’t forgive it affects our relationship with God. It’s not just here that Jesus linked our forgiveness for others to our forgiveness from God. In Matthew 6:15, Jesus said that “If you do not forgive men their sins, your father will not forgive your sins.” That’s one we should remember. But also consider if you will 1 Peter 3:7 when Peter talks about how husbands and wives are supposed to treat each other he closes with these words, “So your prayers will not be hindered.” This should grab our attention. Because the indication of scripture is that how we treat others impacts our relationship with God. We need to be forgiven by God, and we need to forgive others in the name of God.
This to me is one of the most important things that we need to get. If we are the people of God then we will forgive others. It will mark us. We won’t be a church that constantly looks at the negative, where people constantly want to make sure the everyone knows what some one did to us. We will forgive and move on. Our mission it to reach people in the community with the love of Christ. That is what is we should focus on. Sharing with others the good news that the forgiveness that we need is available. But even more then that that God doesn’t just want to forgive us, but to grow us and bless us.
If you’re here and you’ve never asked God to be a part of your life, do it today. Maybe you think you’re not good enough, none of us were good enough, but God is. If God can forgive me, He can and will for give you. The Bible says that anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. When you call on Him, He will forgive you and give you peace in your life. He will give you the peace to turn off the voices in the night that remind you of your past, and He gives you promise of a future in Heaven with Him. Then He gives you the grace to also forgive those who have wrongs you. Because of His grace you can have true peace, if you will just accept Him today.
Message Notes – Sunday January 29th, 2012
“Forgive Us Our Debts”
Matthew 6:9-13
“The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Psalms 34:18
This section deals with the spiritual artery of forgiveness.
Questions About Our View of Forgiveness:
When we pray do we sincerely understand that we need forgiveness?
We need to understand our debt to God?
Do we understand the price of God’s forgiveness?
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”2 Corinthians 5:21
Understanding God’s Forgiveness:
God’s forgiveness is complete.
God’s forgiveness is free.
Our feelings of guilt and shame hinder us from living as if we are forgiven.
Passing it On:
Because we have been forgiven we need to forgive others.
When we forgive we are often the biggest beneficiaries.
When we don’t forgive it affects our relationship with God.
