Intro
We are continuing in our series entitled: Soul Matters: Shaping life around the Lord’s Prayer.
As we’ve gone line by line through this prayer… we begin to grasp that Jesus reveals the power of
prayer is not about getting God to serve our will….but about how we connect our lives into the
proper orbit around the love and will of God.
The created world and all life was created to exist in relationship to the source and center….just as
life on earth is dependent upon the Sun which is the center around which earth orbits.
Prayer is what maintains that orbit. As we’ve reflected on the first phrases so far…
Matthew 6:9-13
"'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.
Each phrase in this prayer reflects something vital in aligning our souls.
Last week we were confronted with the call to pray: “Forgive us our debts…”
Today we come to the words that are connected…
Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
It is a call to forgive others…but it is more than that.
It is a call to come as sinners who seek to be forgiven… and therefore AS THOSE WHO
FORGIVE OTHERS. Forgive us AS we have been forgiving.
Seeking God’s forgiveness… depends upon our forgiving others in the same way. [1]
Could he really mean that? Does receiving God’s forgiveness really require that we also
forgive?
Well…Jesus seems to hear that question. So right after he finishes giving this model of prayer…
in verses 14-15 he makes this one point explicit. The only part that he singles out for additional
commentary is this petition.
Matthew 6:14-15 (TNIV)
For if you forgive others when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Some of you may not feel the intensity of that statement….. you may not feel a lot of hurt from
others… or you may have a generally gracious demeanor. For some of us …. We may reel back
a bit. We may feel Jesus is drawing a line that doesn’t seem right.
After all… our anger often has seemed appropriate. It might help us to understand what forgiveness does not imply. Forgiveness is about cancelling
a debt that lies between us. We’ll talk more about that, but let me note now what forgiveness is
not. [2]
Forgiveness is not…
• Approving – we fear that if we forgive someone we are expressing some form of accepting
what they did…and we need to have them “get it.” But forgiving is very clear about what it
forgives.
• Ignoring the offense – You don’t have to pretend nothing happened when you forgive. The
reality is an offense was made. Acting like it never occurred only builds resentment and anger.
• Forgetting – When you forgive someone, your memory isn’t suddenly wiped clean of the
offense.
• Regaining automatic trust - You don’t immediately trust the person who injured you when
you forgive them. That wouldn’t even be logical. Trust is earned, and they must earn trust
again.
• Instant emotional healing – Emotions heal with time. Some pain runs deep and takes longer
to heal.
• A leverage of power – Granting forgiveness does not give a person power over the person
being forgiven. That would violate the entire principle and purpose of forgiveness.
But now we must hear Jesus… really hear him….
Forgiveness is also NOT OPTIONAL for those who receive God’s forgiveness.
That may seem a little extreme. After all…we’re only human. We might presume that God
would understand how hard it is.
Naturally we may wonder…how much does God really expect?
Well…one of Jesus’ first followers …Peter…the one who usually spoke out ahead of
thinking….asked that very question.
Matthew 18:21-22 (NIV)
Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins
against me? Up to seven times?" 22 Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven
times.
We don’t really know if Peter actually meant his brother who, by the way, was named Andrew.
But the truth is about ninety percent of all resentment starts in the family. Most anger, most
resentment, happens to the people closest to you because you’re in daily contact with them. As
the old saying goes:
“To dwell above with those we love, that will be a glory…
but to dwell below with those we know – that’s another story.”
It is the people around us that we’re closest to that often hurt us the most. It’s much easier to
forgive a one time offense. But what if my brother keeps on hurting me over and over in the
daily contact?
Peter was probably impressed with himself. We might have been too. After all…forgiving
someone seven times can initially sound quite forgiving.Jewish law required that you had to forgive a person three times. After three times, tough luck,
buddy! I don’t have to forgive you any more. So Peter… chooses seven… because in ancient
Hebrew culture….seven was considered the number of completion.
Jesus response confronts Peter hard. It confronts us hard. You may be trying to do the
calculations. Seventy times seven equals 490. If you’re married, you might think your partner has
reached their limit… but of course that’s not Jesus’ point. He was simply using the number that
represents completion and multiplying it my it’s exponential self…to express something
unlimited.
Just as we may be trying to reel back from our calibrated grace, Jesus tells us why it’s time to stop
calculating. He tells a story to explain what is really at hand. (Matthew 18:23-35)
Matthew 18:23-25 (NIV)
"Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with
his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents
was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and
his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
Let me help you grasp the immensity of the size of debt in this story. As Max Lucado explains, in
Roman forms of money…the denarii was a silver coin weighing about 4grams…and it was the
common wage for a laborer or even a soldier.
A talent was the mega form of money. One talent weighed about 75 pounds and equaled 6,000
denarii…6,000 days of work… what would require 16 years to earn. Ten thousand talents would
represent 60 million days or 240,000 years of labor. A person earning $100 a day would owe $6
billion. [3]
Whoa! What an astronomical sum. Is Jesus exaggerating to make a point? Well…the sobering
news is that he’s not…and the one in debt…is us. He’s describing the position we are in with
God. He’s referring to the debt we owe to God.
Let's calculate our indebtedness to him. How often do you sin, hmm, in an hour? To sin is to
"fall short" (Rom. 3:23 NIV).
So sin reflected in every thought or action that does not reflect being centered and satisfied
in God. All my self-centered desires fall short of love. Worry is falling short on faith.
Impatience is falling short graciousness. Every critical thought falls short on kindness. How
often do you come up short with God? For the sake of discussion, let's say 10 times an hour and
tally the results. Ten sins an hour, times 16 waking hours (assuming we don't sin in our sleep),
times 365 days a year, times the average male life span of 74 years. I'm rounding the total off at
4,300,000 sins per person.
My heart is hopelessly in debt before God.
Such debt was settled in a straight-forward way back then. There was no long bankruptcy
process… you just got sold into slavery. You, your wife, your kids and all you possessions and
you lived in the debtors’ house or you lived as a servant or slave the rest of your life. There would
simply be no life ahead of him…his life and all those he loved would be over. What des the king in this story do? What does Jesus tells us about what God is willing to do?
Matthew 18:26-27 (NIV)
"The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will
pay back everything.' 27 The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and
let him go.
The Master-King sees the hopeless debt….and accepts taking it upon himself.
God is willing to incur the debt… the millions of unfulfilled obligations. He cancels the debt…
sets the relationship free of what was owed. He literally took it upon himself… in Christ he bore
the cost…he faced the death and suffering we were due. [4]
But the story is not over….
Matthew 18:28-35 (NIV)
28 "But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a
hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he
demanded. 29 "His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and
I will pay you back.' 30 "But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into
prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they
were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. 32
"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that
debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow
servant just as I had on you?' 34 In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be
tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. 35 "This is how my heavenly Father will
treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."
The King asks the pivotal question: “Shouldn’t you have had mercy on him just like I had
mercy on you?” The answer, of course, is yes. The shocking thing was that he was so unforgiving
after having received such great mercy himself.
We do the unthinkable. The forgiven refuse to forgive. Incomprehensible behavior. Multimillion-dollar forgiveness should produce a multimillion-dollar forgiver…but He refuses to forgive.
Whose forgiveness came first? Answer: The king’s forgiveness came first. It’s in light of his
great forgiveness that this servant’s unforgiving spirit is such a terrible thing. The king in the story
is God, and we are like that unforgiving servant. The King offers forgiveness…..but if a man’s
actions should reveal that his heart does not really embrace mercy… the basis for the offer is
gone…and the man must face his consequences.
The simple truth is that if we really grasp grace we will produce it…apple trees bear apples,
wheat stalks produce wheat and forgiven people forgive people. Grace is the natural outgrowth
of grace.
What this unmerciful servant faces are the consequences of life outside the realm of mercy. Being
cast out…and facing torturous consequences sounds really harsh.
> It’s because life without mercy is really harsh. He has rejected the orbit of God’s grace… centered in forgiveness and mercy…and he is
therefore set outside of God’s goodness. Without mercy we as humans are destined for
destruction.
Jesus wants us to grasp the consequences of life without forgiveness.
It is not just about his care for others we may not forgive…but for us…and what happens to us
when we don’t forgive. When Peter asked about forgiving others, who did Jesus focus on
most…the servant who was never forgiven by his fellow servant….or the servant who refused to
forgive the fellow servant? It was the latter. Jesus focuses on the tragedy of the one who refuses
to forgive.
> For our greatest danger lies not in being unforgiven by others...but in refusing to forgive.
In Luke 17:3 Jesus said…
“Watch yourselves. If a brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent,
forgive them.” - Luke 17:3 (TNIV)
Why does he warn us to watch ourselves?
When someone offends or sins against you, your focus can shift almost exclusively onto them and
their offence.
But, it's just at that point that we must look at ourselves and our response and not be overly
focused on the person who offended us. Why?
> Because our anger can become it’s own gravitational pull…and pull us out of orbit with
God.
Jesus sees the danger of what lies within our anger.
We all experience the feeling of anger… but we all manage it in different ways.
We all have problems with anger. As Rick Warren describes it:
What we typically do is we go to one extreme or the other. Just because you don’t turn into
Mount Vesuvius doesn’t mean you don’t have an anger problem.
But typically the two extremes are some people clam up when they get angry and other people
blow up when they get angry.
There’s the difference between the mute, keep it quiet, and the maniac, let it all out.
Everybody in life tends to be either a turtle or a skunk. When you get into conflict, if you’re a
turtle, you pull your neck back in and you hide in your shell. On the other hand if you’re a skunk
you just stink up the place. You spew all over and you let everybody know it.
The truth is skunks always marry turtles and turtles always marry skunks. Some have
suggested that it’s just God’s sense of humor that he puts opposites together. He says watch this,
we’re going to put them together. In your marriage one of you is likely to be the skunk and the
other is likely to be the turtle. Why it happens may remain a mystery…. But it always, always
happens.
Which one has a problem with anger? Both…because both will have to deal with the limits
of anger itself.James 1:19-20 (NIV)
“My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and
slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God
desires.”
You’ll notice that James speaks of ‘man’s anger’ as having the limits that can never produce the
righteous life of God.
As humans we are vulnerable… and anger is a part of defending ourselves.
It is what we do with it. In essence he is saying when you feel anger you need to take
responsibility for what you say and do.
Anger itself is not a choice. That is why we are not told not to be angry. We are told to be slow to
become angry… guard our disposition… and we are told to be responsible with what we do with
our anger. The feeling of anger is not our choice… but what we do with it is. Most people
express their anger in ways that actually lead them further away from their goal rather than closer
to it.
When we feel that someone has violated us… anger is a very natural defense. Anger provides a
sense of regaining POWER and CONTROL .. the very thing that we feel a loss of. When we feel
angry.. it gives us a sense of strength… power… control. It is defending us from the weakness
we feel. That is why it becomes so tempting to stay in the mode of anger. Anger is defending
our weakness… our vulnerability.
This is why anger may be natural… can become deceptive….and destructive.
Our anger is seductive because it provides a feeling of control and power …while actually
becoming a source of a loss of control and power.
It becomes a consuming force.
Hebrews 12:15 (ESV)
See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up
and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled.
Look at the image. That unforgiven offense can become a root of bitterness… something that
grows and consumes us. It says it can defile us or corrupt us.
Our English word “wrath” comes from an old Anglo Saxon word wreath. And the word wreath
means to be bent and twisted like the twigs of a Christmas wreath. Human wrath means to be
bent and twisted out of your normal shape. It twists you and distorts you.
It can tie you up in knots and make your blood pressure rise or inflame your stomach ulcers.
There's another word connected to our word wrath: wraith. A wraith is a ghost or a spirit that
can't rest. Wraiths re-live the past. They stay in the place where something was done to them.
They can't get over it. They can't stop thinking about it or stop living what was done to them.
Their future is totally controlled by the past. In his trilogy, The Lord of The Rings, Tolkein writes
about the nine Ringwraiths: ghosts who are stuck in the past. [5] He says if you’re going to be grabbing everybody else and choking them by the throat after I’ve
forgiven you all that, twelve million bucks, your demand for fairness will lead you to be tortured.
The demand for fairness will be a prison that’s going to torment you.
It can torment your mind and it torture your body.
Anger stirs our defensive reaction. And our minds race to overcome the threat to our well
being. We get the judge – played by ourselves of course. We get the jury – also played by
ourselves. And we get the lawyer – starring your’s truly. And so the endless looping trial begins.
It consumes our body. People who carry resentment are twice as likely to have a stroke… three
times more likely to have a heart attack…and four times more likely to have unhealthy levels of
cholesterol.
> That’s why our souls must learn to live in the prayer of release which Jesus taught:
“Forgive us our debts as we forgive everybody who is indebted to us.” Everybody who’s hurt us.
If you don't intentionally and deliberately deal with past offenses your wrath will twist you like a
wreath…defile and corrupt you into a wraith. Slowly, but surely it will turn you into a restless
spirit, into someone who is controlled by the past, or someone who is haunted.
It often happens in stages: self-pity, cynicism (about people and life), and contempt for others
….as we become self-righteous. And self righteousness alienates us.
What is the antidote to our anger? I think Jesus is very clear.
The antidote to our anger is HUMILITY.
Humility releases us from the gravitational force of anger.
Humility is not a matter of self-loathing… not thinking less well of ourselves.
Humility is what sets us back in the proper orbit…in which we revolve around the mercy of
God.
When we get angry… we have a tendency to lose a sense of how far we are from God’s
nature. We lose a sense of how much we have been forgiven….of the mercy that holds us to
God. We become self-righteous. [6]
Not easy. Becoming those who are merciful and forgiving is essential. But it can also be difficult.
Some of us may not feel a deep conflict….perhaps we don’t sense many deep hurts by
others….perhaps we have found some ways to move along without carrying too much.
But most of us will face some deep wounds from others. It may be…
It may be the pain of a parent who was never there…or was there in some very wrong ways.
It may be the pain of someone who took away someone we loved.
It may be the pain of someone who violated our trust…and never taking responsibility.
This is hard…because anger is generally a secondary emotion…generally protecting us from the
vulnerability of hurt. Anger rises in defense of hurt. It is a defense that claims we won’t allow hurt. Anger can give us a
sense of being strong again…of being in control. So naturally we don’t want to stop being angry.
Because beneath the anger is our vulnerability… our hurt.
But that hurt is controlling us… and the anger is just trying to cover that truth.
How can we become more merciful and forgiving?
1. Stay in humble recognition of our own indebtedness.
The great Christian writer George Herbert said,
"He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass if he
would ever reach heaven; for every one has need to be forgiven."
2. Let go of the deceptive strength of anger…and seek the true strength that only comes from
God.
Anger and insecurity always go together.
That’s why whenever you see like these radical militia groups, the neo-nazis or skinheads or
Ku Klux Klan, these little groups like militias taking on America, if you go and meet those
people you can know one thing: they are filled with extremely insecure people. They don’t like
themselves. They feel put down. They feel unvalued. They feel outcast. They feel ostracized.
So they take on the world with some outward show of force.
Every time you look to somebody in your life to meet a need that only God can meet you are
setting yourself up for anger. Nobody can play God in your life. So when you look to
somebody to meet all your needs you’re going to be an angry person all of your life. You’re going
to be disappointed and you’re going to be angry.
We need to seek God who secures us.
3. Leave resolving ultimate “fairness” to God.
Let go of presuming that we can control ultimate “fairness.”
Trying to settle all unfairness done to others and ourselves…is simply beyond us on every level.
The Bible says this in Romans 12:19
Don't insist on getting even; that's not for you to do. "I'll do the judging," says God. "I'll take care
of it." - Romans 12:19 (MSG)
There is a point that our inner demand for fairness will consume us. If we try to work out our
conflict…our hurt…with the primary question being that of settling fairness….we will often find
it an impossible pursuit to fulfill.
Fairness is often beyond us to resolve. May things deserved we simply cannot get. And what is
fair will not always be felt to be the same. At some point we must entrust fairness to God…and
ask God, “What is the right thing?” When you do that, you will often find the answer becomes
very clear. Closing:
Is there someone whose debt I have been refusing to release?
• Perhaps there is someone you tend to blame for your stress, problems, unhappiness, or pain?
• Perhaps there is someone you tend to keep score on? (Someone you think: “did it again!”)
• Who do you have a hard time wishing well? (When we forgive…we not only surrender our
right to revenge against someone; we desire good things to happen to them.)
Resources: N.T. Wright, Dwight Davis, Max Lucado (from message “Forgiveness for Bitter
Days”), Jim Lincoln message “Forgiveness” in which he acknowledges ideas from Tim Keller,
Rick Warren – message on Lord’s Prayer and “LOVE IS NOT EASILY ANGERED” (40 Days of
Love - Part 5), Will Willimon, Ray Pritchard, Ed Stetzer - Forgiveness: Seven Things It's NOT
Notes:
1. Regarding whether this is to be read as a absolute law, John Piper states:
“If Jesus said that we should pray that our debts be forgiven, and if one of those debts is a failure
to forgive, then the phrase “as we forgive our debtors” cannot be absolutized to imply that only a
perfectly forgiving spirit can receive forgiveness from God.
When Jesus told his disciples to pray for forgiveness as they forgive others did he not, then, mean
that I should pray something like this: “Father, forgive me for my failure today to forgive Tom. I
was irritable and wrapped up in myself and when he said what he said I flew off the handle at him
and held a grudge all day, savoring in my mind how I might show him up, and keeping count of
all the times he wronged me. My conscience smote me this afternoon when you reminded me of
your constant mercy toward me. So I went to him and apologized (Mark 11:25). I do not desire to
hold the grudge any longer. You have rid me of my selfish indignation and so I pray you will
forgive my failure to forgive Tom today and let me not fall into that temptation again.”
In other words, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” does not mean that we are lost if
the old unforgiving spirit raises its head just once. It means: No one who cherishes a grudge
against someone dare approach God in search of mercy.”
“Forgive Us Our Debts as We Forgive Our Debtors” - A Meditation on Matthew 6:12, January 1,
1978.
It means we cannot stand in a state of refusal… because it become self-righteous…and self
righteousness… is itself a rejection of God.”
Also…Ray Pritchard (in message “Unless You Forgive” 10/09/2009), notes:
Augustine called this text “a terrible petition.” He pointed out that if you pray these words while
harboring an unforgiving spirit, you are actually asking God not to forgive you. Ponder that for a
moment. If you pray “Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors” while refusing to
forgive those who have wronged you, this prayer which is meant to be a blessing becomes a selfinflicted curse. In that case you are really saying, “O God, since I have not forgiven my brother,
please do not forgive me.” That is why Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great English preacher, said
that if you pray the Lord’s Prayer with an unforgiving spirit, you have virtually signed your own
“Death-warrant." During one period of his life, John Wesley was a missionary in the American colonies-primarily in
the area that would become the state of Georgia. There was a general by the name of Oglethorpe
with whom Wesley had some dealings. General Oglethorpe was a great military leader, but he had
a reputation as a harsh and brutal man. One day he said to John Wesley, “I never forgive.” To
which Wesley replied, “Then, sir, I hope you never sin.”
2. List of what forgiveness is not is adapted from Ed Stetzer - Forgiveness: Seven Things It's NOT
3. Some comments on Matthew 18 adapted from Max Lucado message “Forgiveness for Bitter
Days”
4. Romans 3:23-24 (NIV)
“…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through
the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
5. Regarding the meaning of wrath with that of wreath and waith, there is an interesting
exploration of Evil in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings by Tom Shippey . He notes:
To begin with the etymology of `wraith’, an obvious suggestion which the OED compilers should
have thought of is that it is a form derived from the Old English verb wrðan, `writhe’. It is
characteristic of verbs like `ride’ or `write’ to form other words by vowel-change, like `road’ from
`ride’ or `writ’ from `write’. `Writhe’ has given rise to several: `wreath’ (something that is
twisted), but less obviously and more suggestively, `wroth’ (the old adjective meaning `angry’),
and `wrath’ (the corresponding noun which still survives). What has anger got to do with writhing,
with being twisted? Clearly — and there are other parallels to this — the word is an old dead
metaphor which suggests that wrath is a state of being twisted up inside (an Inkling thesis
expressed by Owen Barfield and mentioned by Tolkien, see Letters p. 22. The word wraithas,
`bent’, was also of special importance to Tolkien’s personal myth of `the Lost Road’, see pp. 287-
8.)
6. Our pride is the enemy which recognition of our being sinners now forgiven must overcome:
Proverbs 16:18 (NIV)
Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.
Ephesians 4:31-32 (NLT)
Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger…Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one
another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.
