Forgive Us Our Sins

So here we are, about halfway through our series on the Lord’s Prayer.

I hope, like me, you find it helpful to think through each petition of this prayer to reflect anew on what it is we’re praying for with these words that come directly from Jesus himself.

Because, let’s remember that…this is the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples.

This wasn’t put together by some worship committee or theologian sitting in a classroom somewhere…these are the words that the Son of God himself gave when asked, “Teach us how to pray.”

These are the things that Jesus felt were most important to include in your daily prayer life.

Acknowledging our relationship with God…

Offering him the praise and glory due his name…

Desiring God’s kingdom peace and love to reign in the world…

Seeking to live our lives according to his will…

Trusting in his daily provision for our lives…

…and then we come to today’s line from the prayer:

“Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”

Or as some traditions put it, “Forgive us our trespasses,” the word used in William Tyndale’s famous 16th century translation of the New Testament.

And of course some churches use new translations and simply pray, “Forgive us our sins,” which is just updated language for “trespasses.”

Interestingly enough, if you go to the original manuscripts you actually find textual support for the two different approaches to the prayer: both the Greek word for “debt” and the Greek word for “trespasses” or “sins”…both of them appear in the gospel accounts of the Lord’s Prayer.

It’s not surprising, really, because in Jesus’ day the language of debt was often used as a metaphor for sin. There was a sense that sin had a cost to the sinner, and that the cost needed to be dealt with in some way.

The Apostle Paul picks up on that language in Romans when he says, “The wages of sin is death,” and then he uses the metaphor more directly in the book of Colossians when he says:

(SLIDE)

“When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.”—Colossians 2:13-14 (NIV)

So really there’s no reason to get too hung up on which version of the Lord’s Prayer we use, because they both say the same thing.

Whether we use the language of “debts” or “trespasses” or “sins,” the meaning doesn’t change.

But this morning, for the sake of being straightforward, I’ll be using the word “sin” most often, because I think it’s the simplest and most understandable description of what Jesus is talking about.

Jesus is talking about sin in this line of the prayer.

And he’s talking about two dimensions of sin: a vertical dimension, and a horizontal dimension.

In the vertical dimension, it’s about our relationship with God.

Because the simple reality is, our relationship with God is damaged by sin.

That’s one of the core truths of the gospel.

But another core truth of the gospel is that it doesn’t have to be that way.

Time and again in Scripture we are reminded that sin doesn’t have the last word.

Look again at these verses from Colossians:

“When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.”

It doesn’t get any simpler or more glorious than that.

In the cross of Jesus, our sin is dealt with once and for all.

That indebtedness that haunts our souls is erased.

But in the Lord’s Prayer we’re reminded that forgiveness is not something we should simply take for granted.

It’s something we should pursue and embrace, on a daily basis.

Because I know, all too well, that on a daily basis I fall short of God’s plan for my life.

Every day I commit sins of both commission and omission.

Things I do that God would not have me do, and things I fail to do that he would.

Anyone, from the lowliest criminal to the highest “perceived saint”…anyone who doesn’t admit we all live there…is lying to themselves.

But the good news of the gospel is this: forgiveness is real.

Because of Christ’s death and resurrection, sin doesn’t have a hold on us. Forgiveness is a simple prayer away.

Now…there can be a danger in saying that.

We need to make sure that we don’t fall into the trap of thinking, “Well, I know I’ll be forgiven…so I’m not going to worry about what I do or don’t do all that much.”

The problem with that kind of thinking is that it ignores the deeper desire God has for us of transformation, of molding us more and more in the image of Jesus…and it also diminishes our understanding of the depth of God’s love shown in the cross and the empty tomb.

Just because forgiveness isn’t complicated…doesn’t mean it wasn’t costly.

We need to always keep before us the sacrifice of Jesus…and also the call of Jesus to lay down our lives as well in sacrificial discipleship.

Here in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus includes forgiveness of sins in the midst of prayers for God’s kingdom, God’s will, and God’s provision…it’s all part and parcel of aligning our lives with God’s priorities and purposes.

And it’s clear that forgiveness is a priority.

Jesus is saying, “Don’t let a day go by without acknowledging your need for God’s grace.”

Not because God is mad at you, or disappointed in you…but because God desires for you become the person he created you to be.

This whole subject of forgiveness isn’t about condemnation, it’s about liberation.

It’s about freedom to live fully as God’s children…experiencing more and more what it means to live lives that align with God’s purposes and plan, lives that know God’s mercy and love in deeper and more meaningful ways.

By reminding us of our need for forgiveness, it’s as though Jesus is saying, “Don’t settle for anything less.”

Don’t settle for anything less in your relationship with God…and don’t settle for anything less in your relationship with other people as well.

Forgive us our sins…as we forgive those who sin against us.

I’ll be honest, when I was planning this series I originally planned on separating this line into two different sermons: one about the vertical dimension of forgiveness, and then another about this horizontal dimension and how forgiveness impacts our human relationships.

But here’s the thing—every time I tried to split this line of the prayer in two, I found I couldn’t do it.

Because Jesus doesn’t do it.

He makes a direct link between these two kinds of forgiveness: “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.”

In Jesus’ eyes, these two kinds of forgiveness are linked.

In fact, he makes a very stark, and to be honest, difficult, statement about how they’re linked just after teaching the Lord’s Prayer:

(SLIDE)

“For if you forgive other people 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.”—Matthew 6:14-15 (NIV)

These are difficult words…but they highlight an important truth:

Our relationship with other people has a direct impact on our relationship with God.

And Jesus could not be any more plain here: in our relationship with other people, we have no choice but to forgive.

When he says God won’t forgive us unless we forgive others, I don’t think he’s painting a picture of a God who is holding back his grace.

It’s not like a parent who says, “Until you apologise to your sister you’re not getting your tea.”

God is not like that.

Our relationship with God is not like that.

But our relationship with God is built on the idea that when we come to him, we give to him anything that hinders that relationship.

Again, he wants us to experience life that is full and abundant, but we can’t receive that life if we are holding onto things that are hurtful and damaging.

And nothing is as hurtful and damaging as unforgiveness.

Earlier we heard a story from Matthew 18 that provides a picture of unforgiveness and what it does to us.

It starts with Peter coming to Jesus and asking, “Lord…how many times should we forgive someone who sins against us? How about…seven times?”

Now Peter here thinks he’s being generous. After all, the Jewish rabbis taught that you should forgive someone three times for sinning against you.

I can picture Peter thinking so highly of himself, “Hey Jesus…I’m going to double that…and add one more!”

But then Jesus comes back with, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”

Some translations say, “Seventy times seven,” but however you translate it…what Jesus is really saying is, “Keep forgiving them no matter what.”

(UNIVERSITY—THE SEVENTY-EIGHTH SIN/THIRD PERSON)

He was completely missing the point of Jesus’ teaching here. By responding to Peter in this way, by pointing towards a number far higher than what Peter suggested, Jesus is letting us know that forgiveness really has no limit.

And then he illustrates this with a story.

In the story, a servant is forgiven a massive debt he owed to the king, amounting to what we would know as millions and millions of pounds.

We can’t even wrap our heads around the size of the debt he had forgiven.

He then leaves the throne room and immediately comes across another servant, who happens to owe him ten quid.

Just as the first servant had done before the king, this second servant now throws himself to the ground and begs for mercy.

But receives none. The first servant has him thrown in prison.

When the king hears what happened, he calls the first servant back to his chamber and says, “You evil servant! I forgave your entire debt when you begged me for mercy. Shouldn’t you be compelled to be merciful to your fellow servant who asked for mercy?”

He then throws the first servant into prison as well.

And then after telling the story, Jesus repeats what he taught alongside the Lord’s Prayer:

“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

It’s pretty clear isn’t it—Jesus isn’t messing around when it comes to forgiving other people.

As Christians, we have no choice.

And yet as humans, we find it so hard don’t we?

Forgiving other people is hard.

Especially if they’ve hurt us multiple times.

But again…Jesus addressed that as well.

I think part of the problem is that we misunderstand what it means to forgive other people.

To forgive another person is not about dismissing the wrong they’ve done, or acting as though it didn’t hurt us.

Forgiveness acknowledges the offense. Forgiveness acknowledges the pain.

But forgiveness also acknowledges that if we hold on to the offense, if we hold on to the pain, we are putting ourselves in a position higher than God.

If we say, “I can never forgive them for what they’ve done to me,” we are naming ourselves as judge and jury in a way that tells God to shove off.

And we are prolonging the pain of that hurt in a way that ends up distorting our very souls.

When we hold on to unforgiveness, we end up doing damage to ourselves.

Now you can find all sorts of information about there about the “therapeutic benefits” of forgiveness—how when we won't let someone off our hook, they stay hooked to us.

I’ve spoken with Christian counselors who talk about the gift we give ourselves when we choose to let go of bitterness and resentment.

And I agree…and speak from personal experience when I say that unforgiveness binds us to the pain of the past.

If we refuse to forgive someone, we continue to give them control over us.

But as my wife often teaches: if we're only looking at the personal benefits of forgiveness, we're quite self-centered, aren't we?

Jesus calls us to forgive, not because we'll feel better when we do, but because it is the deepest response of love to the grace we have received.

Forgiveness shows that we're children of the Heavenly Father when we forgive as God has forgiven us.

We forgive for Jesus' sake, not just for our own.

And in doing so, we do discover healing and freedom as good and generous gifts from God.

Now I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out one important truth: that forgiveness does not mean reconciliation.

Reconciliation is a two-way street. It requires movement from both sides of the offense.

But Jesus isn’t talking about reconciliation. He isn’t teaching that we must repair the relationship when someone sins against us.

It’s certainly God’s desire, and that bears out in other passages from Scripture.

But it’s not a pre-requisite to forgiveness.

Many of us sit around and say, “Well I’ll forgive them when they apologise. I’ll forgive them when they make the first move.”

Jesus makes it clear that that option…isn’t open to us.

We forgive…as we have been forgiven.

End of story.

(TRANSITION TO PRAYER)