The Sermon on the Mount: Forgiveness

Introduction

Matthew 6:9–15 (ESV)

Pray then like this:

“Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

and forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Over these last few weeks we have seen Jesus teach His disciples how to pray, starting first with the things of God. We are to pray that God’s name and character would be glorified and lifted up, then to pray for God’s kingdom to come and grow upon the earth, and finally for God’s will to be done and obeyed here on earth as the angels do in heaven.

Next, last week, we saw that Jesus teaches us how to lift up our own supplications in prayer, beginning with our physical and spiritual needs as we trust God to provide for our daily bread.

Next, we turn to the prayer for forgiveness.

Pray for Forgiveness

Our Desperate Need for Forgiveness

Here’s where this prayer can possibly get problematic for some of us. Jesus tells us to pray for forgiveness.

By why would anyone pray or ask for forgiveness? To ask for forgiveness would be to imply that there is some wrong that needs to be forgiven.

In a culture that attempts to teach that everyone is mainly good, this can be confusing. What have we possibly done to warrant asking for forgiveness if we are all basically good people?

We are being told that we simply have to be true to ourselves, to follow our hearts. The only thing wrong in this world is people telling you there is something wrong. Just do what makes you happy, just do it, you do you.

We all know there is something wrong in this world, and we are all trying to look for the solution to make things right.

But instead of praying for God to help us accept ourselves as we are, Jesus teaches us to pray for God to forgive us. Which means, Jesus sees the problem to this world as something fundamentally different than what our world tries to say it is.

The problem isn’t that we are failing to be true to ourselves. The problem is we stand in need of forgiveness for what we have done or have failed to do.

This is where we have to turn to Scriptures’ teaching on sin and what it is.

What is Sin?

You may have heard sin defined as a term from archery which means to “miss the mark.” While there is some truth to this definition, I think this definition quite literally misses the mark of how the Bible defines sin.

To miss the mark, it might seem that these are simply accidents and mistakes that we have committed, however sincerely we might have been when we sinned.

However, Wayne Grudem has a more biblically centered definition for sin, “Sin is any failure to conform to the moral law of God in act, attitude, or nature.”

While there are certain times when we may sin on “accident” so to speak, sin is actually much more insidious than simply missing the mark.

Sin is a failure to conform to God’s moral law, in other words, it is rebellion to God’s perfect standard of holiness. It is not simply making a mistake, it is a refusal to submit to what we know to be right.

How Sinful are We?

So how sinful are we? How much forgiveness do we need?

Well, we can try to answer that question by simply looking at the things we do or don’t do and try to compare ourselves with others. We can look at others and say, “Yes, I know I’m not perfect, but at least I haven’t done what that person has done.”

Yet, the Bible, and Jesus Himself, will not let us off the hook that easy.

If you will remember, Jesus talked about what true righteousness looked like. It wasn’t just about outwardly obeying God’s rules. It was about having the right heart as we lived in obedience. It wasn’t just enough to say I’ve never killed anyone or slept with anyone I wasn’t married to. But Jesus tells us, if you harbor anger in your heart towards someone, you’ve committed murder. And if you’ve ever desired someone who wasn’t your spouse, you’ve committed adultery.

Sin is more than just what we do or don’t do. Go back to Grudem’s definition:

“Sin is any failure to conform to the moral law of God in act, attitude, or nature.”

Sin is not just my actions. It also includes my sinful attitudes. My anger and frustration when things don’t go my way.

But it goes beyond even my actions and attitudes. It goes to my very nature. We have failed to conform to God’s moral law by our very nature. Who we are at our very core stands in contrast to the holy requirements of God’s moral law. We might be seen as good people, but God’s law shows us as sinners.

It is not simply because I commit sinful acts that I stand condemned, it is because of who I am in my very essence.

Paul emphasizes this fact for us a number of times through his letters.

Romans 5:8 (ESV)

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Ephesians 2:3 (ESV)

among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Romans 3:10–12 (ESV)

as it is written:

“None is righteous, no, not one;

no one understands;

no one seeks for God.

All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;

no one does good,

not even one.”

None of us are essentially good. We are all sinners and enemies of God in our very nature.

Why forgiveness?

But this still begs the question, why forgiveness? If God loves us as we are, why do we need forgiveness?

God is Holy and Just

It is because God is Holy and Just. God is holy and nothing sinful can come into His presence.

God sent Adam and Eve out of the garden of Eden, not because He quit loving them, but because they could not remain in His presence because of His perfect holiness.

We see throughout the Old Testament, God’s standard of holiness and there were many cleansing rituals the people had to observe to help them remember that we all need to be cleansed of our sin before we can come into the presence of God. It is because of God’s love for us that He demands this because we would not be able to exist in His presence in our current state.

So He separated us from Himself in order to protect us until our sin can be dealt with.

What We Deserve

There is a penalty to our sin.

Paul writes in Romans 6:23

Romans 6:23 (ESV)

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Death is not just loss of life, even though it is that. Death is a complete and total separation from those we love.

This is why in Genesis 3, while man and woman did not experience an immediate physical death, they did experience spiritual death when they were separated from God because of their rebellion.

And what are we separated from? We are separated from the One who is the author of Life Himself, God. If Jesus really is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, then to be separated from He who is the Life is to be dead. We might be walking and breathing, but we are dead nonetheless.

God’s Free (But Costly) Offer of Forgiveness

But here is the good news. While we have sinned and rebelled against God, and while our very nature stands opposed to God’s moral law, this is not to say that we have no worth.

Some people will say that this teaching is destructive and harmful because we are telling people they are worthless.

But this is not true. If our worth was based on what we do and who we see ourselves to be, then yes, this would be destructive.

But our worth is not based on what we do or who we see ourselves to be. Our worth is based on who God has determined us to be. This is why it is so dangerous to find our identity in anything else other than in what Christ has done. As long as we try to find our worth in other things, we will constantly ask the question, “Am I enough?” And the answer will continually be “No.”

But God has placed worth and value within us despite our sinfulness.

Genesis 1:27 (ESV)

So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.

From the very beginning God created us with value and worth even before we sinned when He created us in His image.

This is why we are people who fight for the life of all people, from the womb to the tomb, because God has placed His image and His worth in each person. And whatever their sin is, we must love and respect all people, even if how they live stand in direct opposition to God’s Word.

But how do we know that God still has that value for each of us?

John 3:16 (ESV)

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Christ Came to Purchase Salvation

God sent His Son to be the Savior of the World.

1 John 4:9 (ESV)

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.

Jesus came to demonstrate God’s love for us even in spite of what we have done.

If the wages of sin is death, then Christ took upon Himself the penalty of our sin by dying upon the cross. He made forgiveness available through His death.

1 John 4:10 (ESV)

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Propitiation is a word that means that someone must take on the wrath of God. So Jesus came to take our place in facing the full wrath of God on our behalf.

We Receive Forgiveness and Reconciliation through Faith in Christ

But this payment and forgiveness does not automatically come to everyone. It must be received by faith.

Romans 3:23–25 (ESV)

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

Everyone one of us has sinned and Christ has come to be our propitiation. But in order to receive this grace, it must be received by faith.

Each one of us must recognize our sin and rebellion against God, to acknowledge that we have no good within ourselves that could ever earn God’s grace, and that Christ’s death and resurrection on the cross is the only way we can be made right before a holy God.

We Can Have Assurance of God’s Forgiveness

Here’s the good news as well. Because of what Christ has done, we can have assurance of God’s forgiveness.

How do we have this assurance?

1 John 1:9 (ESV)

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we confess our sins. To confess our sins means to acknowledge and agree with God that we are sinners. We far too easily excuse our sinfulness away and try to see ourselves as good people. But grace comes when we humble ourselves and see ourselves for who we really are and what we have done.

To confess also means that we no longer want to keep living the way we have. We want to be changed from the inside out. So we confess our sins asking God to not just forgive us, but to change us and to give us the grace to live in obedience to Him.

As a result, we see that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Daily Pray for Forgiveness

Now there is the initial forgiveness that comes when we place our faith in Christ as Savior and Lord. When we receive Christ, we are forgiven once and for all, past, present, and future sins. God knows all that we have done and will ever do when we come to Christ by faith and nothing surprises Him and nothing makes Him regret saving us.

This means we will be given a new heart that seeks to love and honor God and to obey Him. But even in our desire to love and obey Him, we find that there are times even as believers where we stumble and fall and do not do what we ought to do.

Jesus teaches us to pray for forgiveness, not because God hasn’t already forgiven us, but because our daily sins can continue to disrupt our relationship with God and to damage our Christian life.

So we continue to pray for forgiveness as we seek to grow closer to Christ and continue to ask Him to cleanse us and to make us more like Him.

This will actually lead us to next week’s part of the prayer which naturally flows from this part, that we would pray that God would lead us not into temptation but rather that He would keep us from evil.

Pray for a Forgiving Spirit

We Pray for God to Treat Us as We Treat Others

As we look at this request, we see that there are actually two parts to this request. We are not just praying that God would forgive us our debts, or our sins. We are praying that God would forgive our debts as we forgive others who sin against us.

So we are in essence praying, “God treat me the way I treat others,” God forgive me as I forgive others.

St. Augustine called this request “the terrible petition,” because he realized that if we pray this prayer with a heart that is unforgiving of others, we are actually asking God not to forgive us.

If I fail to forgive others while praying this prayer I am saying, God I do not want forgiveness either.

Why Forgive Others?

Why does Jesus tie in our forgiveness of others with God’s forgiveness of us?

On the surface it appears that we must earn God’s forgiveness by forgiving others. But if that’s the case, we are no longer receiving God’s grace.

Not to Earn Salvation

So first, we must understand that forgiving others will not earn us salvation. This is not what Jesus is saying. We invalidate God’s grace by trying to earn God’s grace in any way.

A Result of Receiving Forgiveness

There is actually a logical flow that comes with God’s forgiveness. Christ is showing that if we are people who have received God’s forgiveness, then we will be people who will give forgiveness, not as a way to earn God’s grace, but because we have received God’s grace and we want to pass that grace to others who need to receive it.

Jesus’ parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18 illustrates this point. The servant owed a massive debt to the king and because he pled for mercy, the king released him from his debt. However, a fellow servant owed this man a small debt and the first servant threw him into prison for it. The King came back to the first servant and said that because of the mercy he was shown, he should have shown mercy as well. It is such an absurd idea that one who was forgiven so much would not in turn forgive others.

If we do not forgive others, it is a sign that we have not truly experienced forgiveness ourselves and we are in spiritual danger before God.

Forgiveness is Not Easy

However, we also acknowledge that as believers, forgiveness is still hard. Forgiveness is never easy because it is a call to sacrifice. When you choose to forgive, you are choosing to sacrifice your right to seek vengeance and repayment.

So what do we do when we experience how hard forgiveness is?

Even when hard, we should desire to have a forgiving heart

First, we acknowledge that as forgiven people, we want to have a heart that forgives others. Even if we are finding forgiveness to be difficult, we want to pray and ask God to give us a heart that longs to forgive.

Ask God to help you forgive others

But we do not stop there. As we ask God to give us a heart of love that seeks to forgive, we also ask Him to soften our hearts to be able to forgive. Forgiveness can be a long process.

Forgiveness starts with a decision to not hold a wrong committed by someone else against them. But even when you make that decision, there are still hurts and pains to deal with. Those wounds will not go away automatically.

However, we can pray that God will help us to work past the pain and to let go of the hurt so that our hearts will follow our decision to forgive.

But even when it is hard, pray that God will give you the strength to forgive and to help your heart follow the decision you made.

And pray that God would remind you of the forgiveness that was purchased for you at the cross. As Christ was dying for the sins you and I are guilty of, He prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Continue to take yourself back to the cross and to see the grace that was offered for you at Calvary!