2024-07-28 As We Have Forgiven

Well, we are continuing our series on / / Prayer & Fasting as we go through what is called the Lord’s Prayer, or the Disciple’s prayer from Jesus teaching on prayer and fasting in Matthew 6:5-18. So far we’ve gone through Jesus’ introduction, his warnings, not to pray for accolades, or recognition, but to pray in private, and also his encouragement to not pray like other religions that have tried to make it a systematic chore or mantra that can be employed any time we want to get from the gods what we want and need. Prayer is not about getting “what we want”, or at least, not primarily.

Sure, Jesus does say in Mark 11:24, / / “I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours.” But, as we’ll see a bit later, that’s not quite as “cut and dry” as it sounds.

The bible is a constant encouragement to have our motives and attitude right toward God. And I don’t know about you, but when we talk about praying the will of God, I’ve had that thought before when I am praying. “God, what is your will? What do you want? Am I praying something you want to do, or am I praying something that you don’t want to do, and I’m trying to twist your arm?”

This is actually why knowing WHAT you believe is so important. And I don’t mean knowing what you THINK you should believe, because there are a lot of people these days who think they know what they should believe, but it’s far from the truth. But what I mean is studying scripture, seeking God’s word and will so that you KNOW what you should believe about God, you know what the scriptures say, you know what God has done and so you can pray that He would do it again. When you have a right theology, not just moments within scripture, but in the whole story of the bible, you become more confident in praying in line with that.

It’s easy to take a singular scripture, or story in the bible, and think we should pray that way, but that’s not necessarily the case.

Remember last week I mentioned James and John asking Jesus if they should call down fire from heaven on the Samaritan village that rejected them? Well, that’s bible. James and John saw what the Samaritans were doing as wicked, and if you know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah from Genesis 19, you know that these wicked cities were destroyed. Genesis 19:24 says, / / Then the Lord rained down fire and burning sulfur from the sky on Sodom and Gomorrah. He utterly destroyed them, along with the other cities and villages of the plain, wiping out all the people and every bit of vegetation.

Now, we are not going to get into that particular story this morning. BUT, if this is what scripture says, are James and John wrong in asking if that’s what they should do to this Samaritan village?

But what does scripture say? / / But Jesus turned and rebuked them.

Remember we looked at the two rebukes last week. One is to mock, to put down and degrade someone, the other is to verbally correct them, which is a form of teaching. This is the latter. Jesus is teaching the disciples a new way.

So, when Peter, one of the closest disciples to Jesus, writes his epistles to the early church, he writes in 2 Peter 3:9, / / The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.

That’s the heart of Jesus that Peter walks away with and begins to preach.

So, we could kind of read that story like this, “You’ve heard it said that it’s acceptable to call down fire on villages and destroy them, but I tell you, it is my Father’s heart that everyone finds repentance and that no one is destroyed.”

That’s teaching the heart of God, not a rebuke putting them down.

My point is this. We must know scripture from front to back. We have to know what the whole story tells us about God, not just singular parts. We can walk away confused and vindictive if we don’t. We can leave scripture wanting to pray destruction when God wants us to be ambassadors of reconciliation. That’s always been the plan, hasn’t it?

2 Corinthians 5:20 / / So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”

So, Jesus is bringing a new light to the conversation of prayer.

You’ve prayed to God Almighty, but He’s also Father.

You’ve prayed for your will to be done, but I say, forsake your will for the Lord’s. Let go of your kingdoms for the kingdom of heaven.

You’ve prayed for God to bless you beyond measure, let’s ask for our daily portion.

And then we get to vs 12 that we are going to go through today. Matthew 6:12, / / …and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

This is a big one.

Most of the translations of scripture use that word, “debts” and “debtors”. And the word mostly means exactly that, “We owe something to someone else” and “someone else owes something to us”.

Some translations use different words that this thought implies. The NLT simply says, / / “Forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us.” Think about that for a second, what do we read into the word “sins”, it’s missing the mark, right?

So, forgive me for the ways I have missed the mark in our relationship, as I have been willing to, and have forgiven those who missed the mark in their relationships with me.

The CET simply says, / / “Forgive us for doing wrong, as we forgive others.”

So straight forward.

The GNT says, / / “Forgive us the wrongs we have done, as we forgive the wrongs that others have done to us.”

And this is an interesting one, the Weymouth New Testament says, / / “and forgive us our shortcomings, as we also have forgiven those who have failed in their duty towards us;”

But no matter how you read it, interpret it, say it, we have to ask the question, Why is Jesus bringing up forgiveness in his teaching on prayer? and why right after he tells us to say, “Give us our daily bread.”

This one line is packed with implication and teaching.

I want to give you three reasons that Jesus is bringing up forgiveness at this crucial moment.

Forgiveness Comes First

Forgiveness Is Non-Negotiable

Forgiveness Is the Pathway to Freedom

/ / 1. Forgiveness Comes First

So, forgiveness comes up quite a few times in the teachings of Jesus, and this isn’t the only time it comes up in connection to prayer, either. Remember earlier when I quoted Mark 11:24, / / “I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours.” ? I said I would get back to that verse, right? Well, the next verse, Mark 11:25 says, / / “But when you are praying, FIRST forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too.”

So this verse actually hits both of our points about forgiveness and prayer, but let’s focus on the first one first. / / Forgiveness comes first.

/ / When you are praying, FIRST forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against.

This line in the Lord’s prayer, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” is more than just a line in a prayer, it has huge implications within our lives as a whole, and specifically, as Jesus is describing, on our prayer life.

Listen, Jesus could have taught this in a more detailed way:

“Alright everyone, when you pray, make sure the first thing you do is think about who God is, that He is both Abba, your loving, personal, compassionate daddy, and he is also your heavenly Father, creator of the universe, almighty God. Then, once you’ve established who HE is, submit to that authority. Invite his kingdom authority to supersede your own…” so on and so forth.

He could have done that, right? But he didn’t. He simply said, “This is how you should pray…”, and then laid out in each line something to look further into. This is another reason you can look at this and know that Jesus isn’t just saying, “Repeat these words…” because there is so much behind the words.

Now, are we reading into it too much? Is it more simple than I’m saying? Well, yes and no. I’ve already said this, and I believe this to be true. God wants connection with you and me. He wants to have relationship with the humanity that he created and loves. So any conversation, any connection, from a heart that wants the same is going to be welcome. I know that. So if that means me sitting here on a Wednesday morning utilizing the Jesus prayer to focus my heart and mind on the things of God and on His presence rather than the worries and cares of this world. I think God is both honored and pleased.

I think that if we were to pray word for word the Lord’s prayer and truly mean it from our heart He is both praised and glorified. And I believe that prayer is heard.

So, in that sense I think prayer is simple. But on the other side of things. What is the primary method of Jesus’ teaching? Through Parables. We have roughly 40 parables within the gospel writings, and so many times we see the disciples even, his closest followers, didn’t understand them, and he had to explain them further. Jesus talks in mystery and invites us to search it out.

And when it comes to prayer, one of the things he keeps saying is that the whole thing is based on the motive and the approach. Thinking about why we pray, how we pray, who we are praying to, what we pray, and now we are seeing that even BEFORE praying there are things we should be doing FIRST. Jesus took prayer seriously. Which is why He said, go away, in private. Be alone, quiet and allow yourself the time and space to really connect with God. To give it the level of importance that it deserves. It’s what Jesus himself did. In the story of the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus does this amazing miracle and then Matthew 14:22-23 says, / / Immediately after this, Jesus insisted that his disciples get back into the boat and cross to the other side of the lake, while he sent the people home. After sending them home, he went up into the hills by himself to pray.

Solitude and silence for a real connection with “Abba! Father!”

So, Mark 11:25, / / “But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against…”

/ / Forgiveness comes first!

I would say that this is clearly central to the heart of God.

/ / 2. Forgiveness is a Non-Negotiable

In Mark 11:25 Jesus continues, / / “…so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too.”

When you pray, make sure you FIRST forgive…why? so that you can be forgiven…

Wait, so, is this saying that our forgiveness is contingent on us being willing to forgive? And we have to take care of that “first” before we can pray for anything we want?

Did we just switch here? This seems like more of a conversation about forgiveness than it is about prayer, because it seems that this is a statement more than a request. It doesn’t sound like Jesus is saying, “This is best practice, but if you don’t, don’t worry about it.” And he’s not saying, “I want this, but don’t worry, it’s not mandatory.”

It feels mandatory. It feels super important.

Let’s take a quick moment, go back to the Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6, and finish reading it.

/ / 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.

And you can add 13b here if you want, / / For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever, Amen.

And then Jesus adds this, which, most bibles do not include this as part of the prayer. You can just tell by the change of layout on the page. The prayer is indented and displayed differently to show it’s importance, and then vs 14 goes back to full width type.

But this is what Jesus says, / / “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.” (vs 14-15)

This is really starting to look like our forgiveness is dependent on our ability to forgive, doesn’t it?

Let’s turn over to Matthew 18:21-35, this is a parable that Jesus uses to explain the importance of forgiveness. And it starts with a question.

/ / Then Peter came to him and asked, “Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?”

ok, now, this isn’t right after Jesus teaching on prayer, but what did we read already? When you pray, first, go and forgive anyone who has sinned against you. When you pray, pray like this, Forgive me as I have forgiven others.

So Peter is really saying, “Like, every time? How many times do I have to do this? Seven is enough, right?”

/ / “No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven!

And then Jesus tells this parable.

/ / “Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. He couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold - along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned - to pay the debt.

“But the man fell down before his master and begged him, ‘Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.’ Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt.

“But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment.

“His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it,’ he pleaded. But his creditor wouldn’t wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full.

“When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, ‘You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’ Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt.

“That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.”

Wow, do we serve a loving, caring, compassionate God or what?!?!

Almost feels like if we added this to the Lord’s prayer it would be, “And when you pray, fear for your life…for your heavenly father is really good at holding a grudge!”

But see, this is what can happen when we don’t take the time to really understand the parables of Jesus or scripture as a whole.

We have to understand something about God, and understand how the universe that God created works, including the spiritual realm.

Colossians 1:15-16 says, / / Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see - such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him.

So, God created the universe through Jesus Christ, who is God himself in the Trinity. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.

So, God, the Trinity, the Godhead, the decision of the whole, through the spoken word, Jesus Christ, creates.

But what’s important here is creates what?

Everything, and not just what we see, but what we don’t see, which Paul calls: / / thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.

Let’s take that thought for a second and expand it. Yes, he’s talking about the spiritual realm, but let’s just parallel that to the unseen natural realm as well.

What happens when you jump? You come down, right?

Why? Because of what we call the law, or you could say the unseen authority of gravity.

Hear this as a simple explanation. It’s not weird, it’s natural science. What goes up, must come down. Unless, you’re in space. And then, what goes forward, won’t stop… unless it meets another gravitational force.

There are unseen powers, unseen things that govern how we live. And people have been studying these things since time began because we are fascinated at how things work. Especially things we can’t explain, we want to be able to explain them.

Think of Newton’s laws of motion. If an object is at rest, it remains at rest. If an object is in motion it will remain in motion unless something interacts with it. The speed and force of an object is dependent on it’s mass, it’s weight and size and the amount of force that is applied to it.

Those are unseen laws of nature.

There are also unseen laws of the spiritual realm. One we call the law of sowing and reaping. Jesus says in Luke 6:38, / / “Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full - pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.”

I have seen that law at work over and over again in my life and in the lives of others. Tammy can testify, in her life she has seen that law in spades. I’ve seen this law at work in those who aren’t even what we would call “Christian”, or disciples of Jesus. It’s simply a spiritual law within God’s good creation - generosity breeds generosity. Sowing into someone or something has a return. And it’s not always financial, or not always immediate, but it’s real and it’s true and it works.

So, we can see there are physical laws that God created, and there are spiritual laws that God has created.

What Jesus is describing in this parable about forgiveness is very much a spiritual law.

/ / Unforgiveness binds us, and forgiveness releases. And it is a non-negotiable.

But, I want to ask the question, “Is this fair?” Because when you read that story that Jesus tells, it doesn’t sound like the king is very kind, and if in this story, like many of Jesus’ parables, the king represents God the Father. He even says that, right? / / “That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers or sisters from your heart.”

That sounds like the opposite of this loving, caring, compassionate “Abba” that Jesus is telling us to pray too, doesn’t it?

So, is this fair? If God is loving and kind, but also just, how does this work? And why is he threatening to throw us in prison?

Can I suggest to you this morning that he’s not. He’s not saying what he’s saying, except, he’s saying exactly what he’s saying. Now, let me explain that confusing statement.

There is a spiritual law at work here, and that spiritual law is created by God, just like gravity is created by God, and that law exists whether we like it or not, and that law will continue to function for all of time as long as the parameters of that law are in place. The earth has a gravitational force. It’s not going anywhere. Forgiveness has implications that bind or loose, and this is a spiritual law that God created that all of nature and humanity live within, whether we like it or not.

So, can we blame God for being thrown into the unforgiveness prison? Sure, in the same way we can blame God for dying if we jump off a cliff knowing full well what will happen. God created gravity and we either didn’t understand it, or we chose to ignore it.

Jesus is saying through this parable, there is a spiritual law, created by God, that either binds you or releases you, and it’s called forgiveness.

So, we have to ask “why”? Why does this law exist? Is it fair? It seems harsh, doesn’t it? But it’s actually fair and just… Let’s go to our last point this morning:

/ / 3. Forgiveness is the Pathway to Freedom

Like any natural law that exists, like gravity, you can use it to your advantage. Once you know that it exists, and you know how to work within the bounds of it, you know that when you jump you will come down, when you slide into second base you won’t just bounce off the ground and float away, but you’ll slide on the ground and that gravitational pull of the earth will keep you low, it will slow you down and make you stop, hopefully at the base without having been touched out! So you can live within that.

Same with forgiveness. Now that you know it exists. Jesus explains, if you use this properly, you can ASK for forgiveness and it will be given to you by my Father.

If the king is being described as God the Father who adheres to his own just laws and demands, then the same is true, he can forgive completely.

One of the amazing things about this parable that Jesus tells is the drastic difference in amounts owning. The first guy that goes into see the king owes him an amount that he will never be able to pay, and Jesus is exaggerating for a purpose.

We read the NLT and it says / / “millions”, but the correct translation is “ten thousand talents”.

Now, a talent was a measure of weight, and wasn’t an exact science at the time, so it varied depending on where you were, but what we are pretty sure on is that it was worth about / / 6,000 denarii. Another unit of money. And a denarii is worth one day of work. So, in Jesus culture you don’t work on the sabbath, so you make 6 denarii a week. Which means / / 1 talent is worth 1,000 weeks of work. That’s nearly 20 years. And Jesus is saying that this guy owes the king “ten thousand talents”! Which means he owes him roughly / / 192,000 years of day labor.

Let’s just put that into the last little bit of perspective here, ok. What’s that mean in terms of dollars today? Jesus is talking in terms of a days wage, which means this story is timeless, because you can always look at a days wage. I looked it up, just because I was curious. The average hourly rate in July 2024, estimated by ZipRecruiter, both nationwide and in Miami, is $15.00/hr. For the majority of people I guess we are making between 13 - 19/hr.

In terms of Jesus’ story, what’s that mean? It means a days wage is $120. Which means 1 talent is worth $720,000. Which means if we were to tell this story today, this guy owes the king / / $7.2 Billion.

And what does this guy ask for? “A little more time”

It’s laughable. When you know the numbers. It’s laughable. And everyone hearing the story would have known the numbers. They worked for a denarii and probably had no hopes of ever even owning a talent, let alone ten thousand of them. This guy will never be able to pay, not in a million years will he be able to pay this king back what he owes him. Jesus is making a point - / / our debt makes our situation hopeless. He is at the complete mercy of the king. The king has every right to demand payment, and if he cannot pay, sell everything he has, including his wife and children, which will STILL not pay for it, and he will still go to prison for the rest of his life.

Jesus is describing a dire situation to explain what? The forgiveness of his Father. Not the judgment of his Father, but the forgiveness. The extent that God will go to see humanity forgiven. And not against the wrath of God but against the spiritual laws that are in place in this world to make it work.

Paul says in Romans 6:23, / / For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

The wage of our sin, is a debt we could never repay. Not in a million years. But the FREE gift of God cancels that debt. It’s priceless.

So, this is how it affects us. There IS a / / spiritual law. Forgive and be forgiven. Do not forgive, you are not forgiven.

Why?

Because God is fair and just.

Moses says of God in Deuteronomy 32:4, / / He is the Rock; his deeds are perfect. Everything he does is just and fair. He is a faithful God who does no wrong; how just and upright he is!

Psalm 33:5, / / He loves whatever is just and good…

God is a God of justice, of law making and law keeping. But here’s where Christianity, where the God we serve, the God we worship, breaks his own rules. What we deserve is NOT what we get.

Isaiah 30:18 in the ESV says, / / Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice;

So, what is just? or justice

Justice is defined as giving / / just, or exact, equal behavior or treatment. Being fair to all.

Fair is defined as being impartial, showing NO favoritism or discrimination.

So, God is just and fair, that’s what Scripture says, which means, God is going to treat everyone the same, without favoritism, without discrimination, we all get the same treatment. And what did Paul say in Romans that we deserve? The wages of our actions, which are sinful, which we can not fix on our own is what? death. That’s what we deserve, and there’s no payment for that that we can make that satisfies the debt we owe. We are the man standing before the king owing $7.2 Billion dollars making $15/hr… our situation is hopeless.

And that’s the case for everyone. We all live under the same just and fair God.

What does that mean? It means we all live under that same law and God has promised he will adhere by it.

Let me ask you a simple question.

Would it be fair and just of me to expect you to forgive me, but i don’t have to forgive you?

I heard T.D. Jakes once say, “We want everyone else to give us grace on our journey, but we expect everyone else to have arrived.” Meaning, if you aren’t perfect toward me, I can hold a grudge, but if I’m not perfect toward you, you should be merciful and give me a chance. or let it go.

Is that fair?

Is that just?

And when we put ourselves in the position of the judge, and we cast a judgement on someone, based on what they have done, to us, or to someone else - how many know it’s easy to be offended for someone else when it doesn’t even involve us? So, we step into the judgement seat and say, “You are evil because you did this.” or “You hurt me, so you need to repay me.” “You broke my heart, and I could never forgive you.” “You cut me off in the round-a-bout, you are a terrible person.”

Oh, we don’t make those judgements. You’d be surprised, when you start paying attention to the words you use, how often and how easy it is to make a judgement about someone.

Here’s where God is just and fair.

/ / The standard you want for others is the standard God will use for you.

“But…but God… you forgave me, you were gracious toward me… you set me free from my debt toward you…”

“Ya, but you didn’t want that? You want to live in a world where everyone gets what they deserve…”

“No, no, no, you misunderstood. I want to live in a world where THEY get what THEY deserve…”

oooops….

See, for God to be just and fair the same rules need to apply for everyone because that’s exactly what it means to be just and fair.

James 2:13 says, / / There is no mercy for those who have not shown mercy to others. But if you have been merciful, God will be merciful when he judges you.

See, this is where this spiritual law is complete. The spiritual law is NOT only all must be judged. The spiritual law is, / / Judgement against you requires Judgement against me, BUT Mercy for you enables mercy for me.

When it comes to forgiveness, we have to understand, / / the justice we want is the justice we receive. If I want to dictate the rules that you should live by, I am dictating them for myself. That is the only way for God to treat us all the same.

Which means, the free gift of God that is eternal life and forgiveness of that debt we could not ever repay is available for ALL who want receive it.

So, Jesus says, / / “When you pray, FIRST, forgive…”

Why? How can i expect a fair and just God to forgive me, when I am unwilling to forgive you?

Is that fair? Is that just?

When you pray, and if you are willing to pray, / / “Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors.” Or as the NLT says it, “and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us.” do we actually have the right to pray that?

Have we truly forgiven those who have sinned against us?

There’s this beautiful prayer in the Big Book of AA, it’s called the “Sick Man’s Prayer.” and it says, / / We realized the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. Though we did not like their symptoms and the way they disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too. We asked God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend. When a person offended us we said to ourselves, “This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done.

That puts things into perspective.

We all have a sickness, it’s called the human condition of looking after #1, of wanting mercy for our actions while demanding justice for how we have been treated.

And we are all the same. We are all on the same playing field, all of humanity.

James 2:10 says this, / / For the person who keeps all of the laws except one is as guilty as a person who has broken all of God’s laws.

Broken the law… that’s falling short, that’s missing the mark, that’s sin. That’s ALL of us.

Romans 3:23 and Romans 6:23, / / For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard… …the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

We are all the man in Jesus parable owing God more than we could ever repay because there is no forgiveness of sins without Jesus Christ.

So, the question is, / / can we see ourselves as the sick man, the one who owed more than we could ever repay, and in the justice of God that would require our very life, but for the grace of Jesus Christ we are offered a pardon for our debt.

And can we then release those who have wrong us, hurt us, treated us poorly, or even just in their own inability to be perfect, were imperfect toward us?

Can we recognize that any amount, when you are unable to pay, is more than we can handle, and if one sin is all it takes to be considered as breaking all the law before God, then we have been forgiven a debt that goes beyond any measure. And if we’ve been forgiven much, then we should love much.

You have been forgiven more than you could ever repay. It doesn’t matter how good you have been. It doesn’t matter how nearly perfect you have been. There is no one who is perfect. Good, sure, perfect, no. And sin is that great leveling field of humanity that we all live in. Not a single one of us is free from it on our own merit. And no amount of good can set us free.

Only grace.

So, Matthew 6:12, when Jesus says we should pray like this, / / Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, remember this, you have been forgiven much, and in the economy of God that requires forgiving others.

I don’t want you to get what you deserve because then I have to advocate for me getting what I deserve, and I deserve death. We all do. Let’s be honest. Let’s be real. The wages of sin, of my action, of my inability to be perfect, require my life. But for the grace of God I am free.

That is the power YOU have in your heart.

You have the power to hold on to the grudge, the hurt, the pain. You can hold on as long as you want, and as long as you are willing to hold on, it will be yours. But here’s the thing, when you won’t let go, when you want revenge, justice, you are stewing in your “It’s not fair…”, you are not allowing God access to the wound, hurt or pain, which means it cannot be healed. You are literally holding yourself in the prison of your own making, just like the parable Jesus tells.

BUT, if you are willing to let it go, to let God have it instead of you, to allow the justice and mercy of God to work IN you AND through you, then you can live a life of freedom.

But you have to be willing to let go. Letting go doesn’t mean what they did was right. Letting go doesn’t mean they are free from the consequences of their actions. Your forgiveness doesn’t mean they find peace with God themselves, but it does mean you will find peace with God and peace in your own life.

So, I want to do three things this morning. I know, this hasn’t been much about prayer, except it has everything to do with prayer.

/ / Salvation

I want to, and I want you to receive the forgiveness of Jesus this morning

Whether you have or have not prayed this before. Whether you think you are a good person, or a broken soul like me. We all need the saving grace of Jesus Christ. And let me tell you this. It’s so much better on this side. It doesn’t mean it’s all perfect. It doesn’t pull you out of the world we live in that has hurt and pain and suffering. But it makes you aware that there is a God who is with you, walking beside you, desiring you to fill you with his very Spirit. Psalm 23 becomes alive. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for YOU ARE WITH ME.

Are you willing to admit you’re not enough on your own?

Are you willing to admit you aren’t strong enough, can’t do it, don’t have the mental fortitude to make it on your own?

Are you willing to accept the forgiveness of Jesus Christ, and in so doing offer your life to His way of living? That’s the invitation for all of us this morning. To choose to follow a better way of living, following Jesus.

/ / Acceptance

Next, we need to be as good to ourselves as Jesus is. We need to be able to forgive ourselves. Let ourselves go from the bondage we keep putting on our own hearts. You did it wrong, you messed up, you gave in again, or were with the wrong crowd, the wrong guy, the wrong girl, the wrong situation, you have hated for so long, you have internalized the hurt and pain.

I get it. But if Jesus, who is perfect, can forgive you. Can you forgive yourself?

Forgive yourself for being human. Forgive yourself for not knowing it all, for not being perfect. Forgive yourself for messing up….again…and again…and again…

Maybe that’s a prayer, “Jesus, I’ve been sick for so long I don’t know how to be well.” That’s a good prayer. God wants to lead you into life and freedom. And the more you can allow yourself to receive HIS forgiveness, the more you will have grace for yourself.

/ / Release

And the last thing I want to do here is let go of those people and situations we’re holding on to.

Are you tired of holding on to the pain, the hurt, the regret? Even if you’re “saved”, you might not be living free. And this is what Jesus is offering, a road to freedom, a road to life. Yes, it’s narrow and hard, and holding on to the grudge or whatever else might seem easier. But I’m telling you if you are willing to walk this road of release, the freedom is better than you could ever imagine.

And it might take more than once. When Peter asks Jesus how many times should he forgive, do you remember the answer? 70*7… that doesn’t mean 490, it means, as long as it takes. The heart can be a pretty damaged thing, it might take more than once, it might take a consistent road of release, but if you are willing, if you will be consistent, you will find freedom.

So, I want to pray this morning. And I don’t do this often, but I’d like you, if you feel comfortable, to pray this prayer with me:

Jesus, I get that I am not perfect. And if my imperfection can only be overcome by your perfection, then today, I choose you. If my imperfection stops me from living life, I want to follow you to the life you promise. Would you forgive me? And I accept your forgiveness. I accept that you gave your life as a sacrifice to cover the payment for eternal life I could never make. Would you be Lord, King, Savior of my life? Would you give me your Holy Spirit to lead me and guide me? Would you fill me with the Love of God the Father?

Jesus, I choose to forgive myself for not being perfect. I choose to let go of all the ways I have condemned myself, expected better, beat myself up for not being good, put myself down for not being like someone else, and put expectations on myself I could never live up to. I forgive myself this morning.

Now, this last one, even though we are praying, this is a decision. There is a decision behind these words. You are no longer willing to hold the other person in prison for their mistakes. Yes, they may owe you a debt. They may have hurt you, but you are choosing, because you have received forgiveness you did not deserve, that they also can be forgiven even though they don’t deserve it.

You might be thinking of a specific person that has hurt you. You might not have anyone in mind at the moment. That’s ok. But today is decision day. We are going to be a people that forgives because we have been forgiven.

Jesus, I am choosing today, to forgive. I do not want to be judge and jury against those who have hurt me. Help me to forgive.

And if you have been thinking about someone, be willing now to say to them in your heart and mind,

“I forgive you! I no longer hold you in the prison of the debt I was demanding that you repay.” Whether you ever understand how you hurt me or not. Whether or not you ever come to me asking for forgiveness. I am choosing today to forgive you.

Now let me pray over us and we can go live free.

God I thank you for your forgiveness that is perfect. You leave nothing out. When we come to you, you forgive it all. You are not half way on this one. You don’t decrease our debt so it’s manageable for us to handle on our own, you completely wipe the slate clean, even when we owe way more than we could every repay. You are that good. You are gracious, kind and merciful. Thank you. Would you continue to lead us and guide us in the life of forgiveness. Remind us, when we come to pray, if there are people we have not set free of the judgements we carry. Help us release. Help us be free of those wounds and hurts as we make this decision to be a forgiving people.

In Jesus name, Amen!