There are things that happen in everyday life that remind me of heavenly truth. Sometimes, even things that are what some call “hot button issues” that often divide folks along political lines, can remind us of heavenly truth. For example, there is a lot of talk these days about "debt forgiveness" and other sorts of help for people struggling to survive. Some people are for these things and others against them. I'm not up here to talk about that earthly aspect but rather to show, how things many often see as secular issues, in fact, mirror spiritual realities. Regardless of what you think regarding the political side, the fact is debt-forgiveness is a spiritual reality that determines our eternity.
At Snow Prairie, being “protestant” if you want to use that term, we are non-denominational, so I don't really get into labels, I tell folks, we just try to follow Jesus. Still, if you want to get absolutely technical, we would be considered protestant. As such, we have differences in theology from Catholicism. Yet, I think Catholicism can teach us something that many protestants don't seem to get. I'm referring to the Catholic church's emphasis on looking out for the needy, placing strong emphasis as loving your neighbor as yourself. I was reading a Catholic article recently and came across this wonderful quote by Father Matt Tebbe from Indianapolis. He writes, "As Christians, we owe our very existence to debt forgiveness. Christ loved us by forgiving us the debt of our sins (1 John 4:10), and he commanded us to love each other in the same way (John 13:34). To love as Jesus loves us is to participate in the debt-canceling reciprocity of God’s kingdom economy. Jesus instructs us to pray that our debts be forgiven as we forgive those indebted to us (Luke 11:4; Matt. 6:12, 14), referring to what we owe each other economically and socially. Our modern, secular vision often (separates) the spiritual from the material. But in God’s kingdom, the social and economic dimensions are spiritual.”
He's spot on, in God's kingdom, everything is spiritual. He's also correct that as followers of Christ, our eternity rests entirely on debt forgiveness, a debt paid FOR US by Christ on the cross. The gospel, in a nutshell, can be summed up as debt-forgiveness. As I said last week, the concept of debt-forgiveness goes back to Deuteronomy where God said,
"You may require payment from a foreigner, but you must CANCEL ANY DEBT your fellow Israelite owes you. However, there need be no poor people among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, if only you fully obey the Lord your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today....If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them." In the NT God says, "If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth." I John 3:17-18
If we see someone struggling to survive, trying their best but still in want, and we are able to help them, we're supposed to. In fact, God gives a rhetorical question that implies if we do not, then His love is not in us. Why is this important in reference to the gospel? Well, the passage from Deuteronomy is what theologians call a type. Typology in is concept in theology of relating OT and NT. Events, persons or statements are seen as types or pictures of NT realities. For example, Jonah may be seen as the type of Christ in that he emerged from the fish's belly and thus appeared to rise from death, Jesus referenced Jonah, as he was three days and nights in the great fish, that Jesus would be 3 days and nights in the grave. David, contrary to numerous books and sermons is NOT a picture of us and Goliath is NOT our problems. David is a type or a picture of Christ whereas Goliath is a type of of sin and Satan. David delivered Israel, just as Christ delivered us. The debt-cancellation in Deuteronomy is a type, a picture of our redemption, God canceling our sin-debt because of the cross!
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whoever would believe in Him would not perish but have eternal life. He died to pay a debt that He did not owe, because we owed a debt to God we could not pay. So, God, in His love and mercy canceled our debt, by paying for it Himself by sending Jesus who,
“being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!” Philippians 2:6-8
He became obedient to death on a cross, why? To wipe out are sins, to obtain forgiveness for us. He satisfied the justice of a holy God, by paying our debt on our behalf. We received debt-forgivenss because of the love and mercy of God. How strange it is, some Christians will bask in the reality of eternal life and their debt-forgiveness, then get angry at someone for receiving temporal forgiveness. When we see it in the natural, or political realm, an occurrence that may reflect a spiritual reality, we can use that for the gospel's sake! We can say to such people, hey, you know that debt-forgiveness thing in the news, it kind of reminds me of how God wiped out our debt! Have you ever heard of God's debt forgiveness program?! What an inroad we can have for the gospel using the days' news headlines to point to Christ!
Colossians 2:13-15 is God's debt forgiveness 101. It declares that WE are “buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. 13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, 14 having wiped out the [i]handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 15 Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.”
The allusion is probably to a written contract, in which we bind ourselves to do any work, or to make a payment, and which remains in effect unless/until the agreement is fulfilled/cancelled. That could be done either by blotting out the names or had been practiced in the ancient east, by driving a nail through it symbolizing the nullifying of the contract. Pretty cool, a nail spelled the end of the contract. How was Christ crucified? With nails. The cross, with it's nails spelled the end of our debt, the cancellation of the contract that condemned us. We now live under grace, not the law which could only condemn us (see Galatians 3:17-25).
As Believers, we all have pasts, we all have things we wish we had not done. Like the song we sang earlier, “sin and shame that you brought with you You can leave it at the door Let mercy draw you near.” When much is forgiven, it increases the love in those who've been forgiven. When Jesus was at a man's house, a woman of bad reputation came in and anointed his feet with oil. The man was repulsed that Jesus being a good man and teacher of God's word would let her touch him. In the NT world, a person would become tainted by touching someone “unclean.” But Jesus responded to the man, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” So he said, “Teacher, say it.” 41 “There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell Me, therefore, which of them will love him more?” 43 Simon answered and said, “I suppose the one whom he forgave more.” And He said to him, “You have rightly judged.” Luke 7:40-43
When much is forgiven, it is appreciated much. In Matthew 18 Jesus taught,
“Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. 25 But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made. 26 The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, ‘Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’ 27 Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.”
Jesus shared this parable in order to reinforce God’s standard of forgiveness. He spoke of a king who began to settle accounts with his servants. This king represents God. There was also a servant and his master. The servant owed a non-repayable debt to the king, which represents how all human beings owe a debt to the Lord for their sin; one which cannot be paid on one’s own. The master represents Jesus Christ who will execute judgment in the final day on those whose debt has remained unpaid, or has not been forgiven. Verse 24 shows how a servant who owed ten thousand talents was brought to the king. A. T. Robertson stated back in the 1930’s that one talent was worth 6,000 denarii or about 1000 U. S. dollars, and that ten thousand times this amount is equal to 10 million U. S. dollars. That forgiven servant went out and found a man who owed him far less than he'd been forgiven and he had no compassion on him. If we're not careful, we can be like that man, forgiven by God yet we don't forgive others. That's the definition of hypocrisy, when one is willing to receive something, but not share that same with others. We must be willing to forgive others. If we have been saved and forgiven through faith in Christ, we must forgive others, be willing to cancel a debt they have to us.
Whatever someone may owe us, it's nothing compared to the sin-debt we owed God and He canceled our debt. IF we have been granted forgiveness we should be willing to grant forgiveness. If we can't, then maybe, just maybe we were never saved in the first place. If we claim salvation and forgiveness but don't forgive others, we in effect say, “I get to have higher standards than God!” If we see someone elses debt wiped out and we become indignant, thinking they don't deserve it, then we're hypocrites of the highest order. We should rejoice when anyone has their debt forgiven, when they find grace and mercy, because we've received it. That's what Godly love does. 1 John 4:7-8 says,
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”
When a person chooses to sin against God, which every person has done, he or she owes a huge debt (Romans 3:23, 6:23). God chose to do something about that awful debt! He elected to pay the Himself. He sent His Son to cancel sin’s debt and forgive it with His blood (John 3:16) Apostle Paul put it this way in II Cor. 5:21
“He [the Father] made Him who knew no sin [Jesus] to be sin [a sin offering or payment] for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him”
It's easy to watch the news today and say, “It's not fair! Those people get their debts wiped out and I paid mine!” Was it fair for Jesus to pay our debt? Of course not, and yet He did. God's not fair, and that's good for us. If God was fair, He'd have cut us all loose. But, He decided to cancel our debt, if we're willing to believe in Jesus Christ, we have complete debt-forgiveness! Debt forgiveness is something for which every Christian should thank God every single day.
In America and politics, debt forgiveness is a hot-button issue and as people have different opinions on it. I believe, as Christians, as people who have experienced debt forgiveness in a much more profound, eternal way, when we see it being done in a temporal way, we can use it for a tool, a picture of what God did for us. The Bible encourages Christians to “rejoice with those who rejoice” (see Romans 12:15), and it’s hard to imagine debt forgiveness of any kind, having any other effect on the indebted than to produce rejoicing. Even if you don't agree with the temporal debt-canceling, if you know someone who's had it and they are happy, you can rejoice with them. When you may feel tempted to begrudge someone for having an Earthly debt forgive, remind yourself, you've had a far greater, more serious ETERNAL debt forgiven. We like to say “For God so loved the world that He gave...” without considering, that's God's plan of debt-forgiveness.
That's what the gospel is, and praise God, our debts are forgiven! As we come to the Lord's Supper this morning, let us consider anew, what the bread and the cup represent- the price it cost for our debt to be wiped out!
(I do not claim 100% originality, as many of my sermons contain bits and pieces I've learned over the years and frankly cannot remember all the sources. Many thanks to men and women of God whose teachings have fed my spirit and mind and may possibly be represented in some small capacity in this sermon.
