DOES THIS SCARE ME? Do I want God to forgive me as I forgive others?
- Matthew 6:12b, 14-15.
- I said last week as we unpacked the first half of v. 12 that we often don’t put a lot of thought into what that actually means. In that case it had to do with making confession of our sins a regular part of our prayer life with our Father and all the good that can do for our spiritual growth.
- The second half of that verse brings up a different but related subject. And the same thing is at play here: we often don’t think about what it’s really saying.
- So this morning I want to start with what it’s really saying, then talk about the biggest reason why we don’t live that out, then close by painting a picture of four ways that incorporating this into our spiritual walk will change us and others.
- I want to say up front that this verse (and vv. 14-15 that continue the thought) are really challenging verses. They are definitely ones where we are tempted to pretend like we didn’t hear any of that.
- Verse 12b calls us to forgive our debtors. What does that mean?
- A good place to start is to return to a point we made last week about the first half of v. 12. “Forgive us our debts” is asking God to forgive us of the sins we’ve lately committed. It’s an acknowledgement that we have sinned against God and need to ask for His forgiveness so that we can continue in the sanctification process of becoming like Christ.
- The second half is also about forgiving sin. It, though, is about us forgiving those who have sinned against us.
- Let’s start with the fact that this is not a suggestion for followers of Christ. This is what we have been called to. We will get the “why” in a moment, but we need to squarely face this difficult truth. Forgiving is a command.
- Second, the word “as” is important in v. 12.
- It ties together the first and second halves. What is the tie between the two?
- It is that we are only asking God to forgive us in light of the fact that we have been forgiven. Wow - that's a tough truth. You can go even further - we are asking God to forgive to the extent we have forgiven others. Wow - that's a tougher truth.
- In case we might doubt that, Jesus emphasizes it in the verses immediately after the Lord’s Prayer. Look at vv. 14-15.
- Jesus is explicit here. God will only forgive us to the extent that we are willing to forgive others. This might be the scariest verse in the New Testament. I know it’s one that many Christians refuse to face dead-on because of its challenging implications.
- Given that difficult but clear teaching, you’d think that Christians would be great at forgiving, but often we aren’t. Why aren’t we? There are multiple reasons but the biggest reason is what I want to talk about next.
A BIG PART OF OUR WEAK FORGIVING: Many of us don’t know who we really are.
- Show the “Woody meets the Roundup Gang” scene from Toy Story 2.
- The line I’m interested in from that scene is where the Prospector says, “You don’t know who you are, do you?” Woody doesn’t have a good grasp of who he actually is.
- That line is useful for us this morning as well. Many Christians don’t know who they really are. What do I mean by that?
- Simply put, many people come to be Christians without a clear understanding of how bad a sinner they are.
- Part of the reason is that many gospel presentations don’t really talk much about sin but instead focus entirely on stating that you should believe in Jesus (which is, of course, also important but not the whole story).
- Part of the reason is that many people just like Jesus and focus on saying that they believe in Him.
- Part of the reason is that we all naturally tend to justify or undersell the bad things we’ve done.
- Part of the reason is that we have moral standards that are significantly lower than God’s.
- Paul, though, in Romans 1-8 shares the best presentation of the gospel ever written. It begins with a couple chapters on how bad of sinners we are. Rather than glossing over our sinfulness, Paul rightly makes it the starting point.
- Why is that important? Because we need to grasp who we really are in order to be able to understand who Jesus really is. We are not good people who need to join a church. We are not mostly moral folks who just need a small boost to be better. According to the Bible, we are dead spiritually. We are reprobate sinners in desperate need of help. We are a mess.
- One of the problems is that many of us are good at hiding our sin and then we come to believe that our public persona is an accurate reflection of our real heart.
- We teach all the time that Jesus had to die on the cross for us to be forgiven, but I odn’t think we always grasp the full implications of that. Why did Jesus need to die on the cross for my sin? Because in my natural condition I am a hopelessly lost sinner with no path to make things right with God. Because when I look at the standards that God has put forward as His perfect moral standards, I grasp them and realize, “Oh man, I am up a creek.”
- That may be difficult for some of you to buy, so let me take a second to make my case at length.
- I want to borrow from an approach that I’ve seen evangelist Ray Comfort use. It’s a technique he’s applied to try to help people see their need for what Jesus offers in salvation.
- Let’s start with the Ten Commandments. Have you ever lied? Yes? That makes you a liar. Write that word down. Have you ever had an impure thought about someone sexually? Yes? According to the Sermon on the Mount (flip over there), that makes you an adulterer. Have you ever harbored unjust anger in your heart toward someone? Yes? According to the Sermon on the Mount, that makes you a murderer.
- Let me pause to note that this points us directly to the higher moral and spiritual standards of “goodness” that the Sermon on the Mount clues us into. The standards that Jesus shares are impossibly high and yet they are God’s standards. It’s in reading those, taking those into consideration, and seeing where we are in comparison that we find ourselves much further down the road toward an awareness of our sin.
- Back to the Ten Commandments, so let’s write those words on the board: liar, adulterer, murderer.
- Now let’s add the things we’ve actually done that no one knows about.
- Now let’s add all the dark, vile, and hateful thoughts we’ve had. The things no one knows have gone through our minds.
- Question: if someone was really doing this for your life and it wasn’t hypothetical, how long would it take you to either run up here to wipe off the board or flee from the room?
- None of us would want to have these things made public.
- That gives us a more accurate (but not fully complete because we aren’t fully self-aware) picture of who we are morally and spiritually.
- Let’s go back to our phrase: “you don’t know who you are, do you?”
- When we begin to understand who we really are morally and spiritually in light of our sin, it causes us to be desperate for what Jesus is offering. You can forgive me of this? Please! You can wipe out my sin debt? Please!
- A person who accurately understands their sinfulness sees what Jesus did on the cross in a different way than the person who thinks they’re a good person just choosing to believe in Jesus.
- Now all this leads us back to vv. 12, 14-15 and our motivation to forgive others.
- We are people who have been forgiven. It’s not a secondary characteristic of being a Christian: it’s actually the starting point. No one can become a Christian without admitting they need the forgiveness of sin that comes from the sacrifice of Christ.
- Further, we know that God has not forgiven us of a few minor faults. No, we have been forgiven of a huge sin debt.
- This is, properly understood, an incredible motivator for our ability and willingness to forgive those around us. Did they do us wrong? Yes. Do they deserve forgiveness? No. But we were in that same spot with God, only far more so.
- They have done, perhaps, one thing against us. We did thousands upon thousands of sins that made us guilty before God. They don’t deserve forgiveness for that one thing they did. We didn’t deserve forgiveness for the thousands upon thousands of sins that we committed.
- There should be no pride or sense of spiritual superiority. There should be no pride or arrogance. We are a forgiven people.
- This empowers and motivates us to be able to forgive those around us. As we have received, so we give.
- This is why, I think, Jesus makes such strong statements in vv. 14-15. It’s the epitome of hypocrisy to receive such great forgiveness from God and then be unwilling to extend forgiveness to those around us.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE WHEN WE LIVE THIS OUT:
- Having set the stage, I understand that what Jesus is calling us to in these verses is difficult.
- With that in mind, I think it will be helpful to spend the rest of the sermon by painting a picture of what it might well look like to live this out. Many people, even many Christians, have never seriously considered living like this.
- It’s probably worth me repeating here a point I’ve made numerous times in the past: Jesus is smart. His instructions for living put us on the path toward the best possible life. That's not to say that His path is the easiest path, but it is the wisest one. Our lives will benefit in numerous ways if we are willing to receive His instruction and actually follow it.
1. Grateful heart toward Christ.
- This is a continuation of a thought we just discussed a moment ago, but I want to zoom in on one particular aspect of it.
- Most of us don’t like thinking of ourselves as bad people. It makes sense - that's an unpleasant thought.
- Because of that, most of us regularly work to mentally minimize our sinfulness. We find justifications for our rude behavior. We see excuses for our questionable actions. We blame others in interpersonal disputes.
- Our thought is that acting and thinking this way will make us feel better. In reality, though, we are often left with a lingering sense of our moral and spiritual inadequacies.
- It seems counterintuitive, then, to hear what Jesus has to say about us. You are a serious sinner. You cannot work your way out of your sin debt. You cannot earn your way to God. You are more morally compromised than you could have known.
- Our initial response to that might be: if I actually believe that about myself, then I’ll feel as bad as possible. It’s a recipe for self-loathing.
- Not exactly.
- When we face the person we really are, we also get to meet the person Jesus really is. He is fully aware of our sinfulness - in fact, that's the reason He was born into this world in the first place. He knew that about us and still considered us worth saving. He knew that about us and still thought we were worth dying for.
- When I see myself in light of Jesus, I see that I am both more sinful than I imagined but also that I am more loved by God than I imagined.
- Thankfully I don’t have to face my sinfulness without also knowing Jesus’ love for me. He loves me in my sinfulness and has a plan to make me into a new creation. In fact, He has a plan to make me like Him, if you can believe that.
- Where does all this lead? You would initially think that facing our great sinfulness would lead to a place of depression and despair. But it doesn’t. It leads to a place of gratitude and joy.
- Yes, I am a sinner, but I have a Savior. Yes, I am messed up, but Jesus loved me while I was still in my sin.
- To know the way that we really are - no pretending, posing, grandstanding, or public relations trickery - and to also know that Jesus will forgive, love, and transform us - what a wonderful truth!
- So accepting all this leads to a grateful, joyful heart toward Christ.
2. Motivated will to change.
- A second thing that accepting all this leads us toward is a motivated will to change.
- When we are hiding our sinfulness, we usually just focus on “sin management.”
- We aren’t necessarily trying to get rid of the sin in our lives, we are just trying to manage the consequences of that sin. We don’t want to get rid of our porn habit, we just don’t want anyone to know about it. We don’t want to get control of our anger, we just want to keep it behind closed doors at home. We don’t want to get our excessive spending under control, we just don't want to have to file bankruptcy.
- While we do our sin management, our sinfulness continues to have its spiritually poisonous impact on our heart and soul.
- In contrast, when we approach this Biblically, we start by honestly looking at our problem. No pretending.
- We were not able to solve these problems on our own, but we aren’t on our own anymore. Now we have a new heart and the Holy Spirit within me to empower my life.
- This gives us a motivated will to change. I have a clear understanding of what the problem is and the tools I need to overcome the problem. That's motivational.
- It’s so encouraging that we don't have to look at people who are struggling and say, “You can be forgiven but you can’t change.” None of that from Jesus. He came to save and to transform.
- This is great news.
3. Deepened sympathy for others.
- A third benefit of doing things Jesus’ way is that we will have a deepened sympathy.
- This is the other side of the coin of a point I made earlier.
- There are many who walk through this life with a calloused heart. They aren’t sympathetic to the struggles and difficulties that others go through.
- Because of that, they miss out on great relationships as well as opportunities to help those around them who are struggling. They are more self-centered than they should be. This leads to a more shallow life.
- But what happens to how we relate to others when we understand our own sinfulness? It’s easy to approach other people with an attitude of harsh judgment. One thing that softens that up is having been through similar struggles and problems.
- For instance, no one understands the struggle of addiction like someone who has been through it themselves and come out on the other side.
- If we think that we are good people who have done little wrong, then when we see other people failing and faltering, it’s easy to judge. But when we have honestly grappled with our own deep sinfulness, it becomes much easier to be sympathetic to others’ struggles.
- This doesn’t mean we excuse their sin or behavior. It doesn’t mean we act like it wasn’t a big deal. It doesn’t mean that we abandon all moral standards. But it does mean that we have more sympathy for the difficulties that others are trying to overcome.
4. Radical witness in relationships.
- The fourth and final impact that I want to cover this morning is the radical witness that this creates.
- People are used to the desire for revenge. People are used to the thirst for vengeance. People are used to bitterness and resentment. They are not used to freely-shared forgiveness.
- There are multiple reasons that we should forgive.
- The most important is that we are commanded to by Christ.
- A second is that it brings healing and freedom to our own souls.
- An additional reason is that it is a radical witness to the world of the radical teaching of the Kingdom of God.
- When they see undeserved forgiveness freely given, it attracts attention. It piques interest. It invites the question “why?”
- This all provides opportunities to witness for Jesus.
- What might that look like? If we forgive someone and a third person is incredulous at how we could do that, when we respond to their inquiry it provides an opportunity for us to share the gospel of forgiveness of Christ. We can share how Jesus forgave us even though we were deep in sin. It is an open door.
