Penance?
Notes
Transcript
Good morning church! It’s so great to see you this morning! If you have a Bible, go on and open up to Matthew chapter 6 again.
(((If you are new here, we are so thankful you’ve chosen to worship with us at East! You are our guest today and we hope you have felt and continue to feel welcome here. We have a gift we would love to give you at Next Steps in our lobby. If you will take the card from the back of the seat in front of you, fill it out with as much info as you feel comfortable with, and drop it by Next Steps, one of the folks there will hook you up with a small bag that includes your very own East tshirt.)))
Today, we are continuing in this study called Pray Like This as we stroll through the Lords’ Prayer found in Matthew chapter 6. Let me read it, pray, then we will come back and start breaking it down.
“Therefore, you should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy.
Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
Our focus today will be on verse 12 about forgiveness.
PRAY
One of the things I try to prioritize as the spiritual leader in my house is asking for forgiveness. I want my kids to apologize when they hurt or wrong someone. Sometimes that’s me! And what I try to say when they come to apologize is not “It’s OK.” I want them to hear from me, “I forgive you.”
The best way to teach them how to ask forgiveness is to ask for it myself from them. More often than I wish, I get to model this! Whether it is me wrestling with them and hurting on accident or it’s me losing my cool and raising my voice in unfruitful ways, There are times I sin against my kids. And in those moments, I try to sit down with them and lovingly ask them to forgive me. And they don’t get to say “It’s OK.” They have to say, “I forgive you Daddy.” I want them to know what forgiveness is and that even their daddy messes up sometimes and that relationships are more important than pride!
Jesus is teaching the same things to his disciples in verse 12 of Matthew 6.
The first thing he helps them understand is...
1. We need forgiveness
1. We need forgiveness
Jesus says here, “Forgive us our debts...” Wouldn’t that be an answer to prayer? No more mortgage! No more car payment! That’s of course not what Jesus is talking about here. Luke records a form of this prayer in chapter 11, and uses a different word there that gets translated “sins,” “Forgive us our sins.”
There are a few small truths for us to see here...
a. You are a sinner
a. You are a sinner
Jesus doesn’t add a caveat here saying, “If you happen to sin you need to ask forgiveness.” There is an assumption that you will sin.
If we say, “We have no sin,” we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
Your sinfulness is always a good thing to be reminded of often. It keeps us humble and aware of our inability to do what God has asked of us, which is obedience!
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;
This is a harsh reality for all of mankind.
The second assumption by Jesus..
b. You are in debt
b. You are in debt
The fact that Jesus taught his disciples in such a way that when they look back on his teaching, the words sin and debt are being used interchangeably shows a deep theological truth that Jesus believed and taught! Sin creates in the human heart an indebtedness to God!
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Because we are sinners, we deserve death from God! He is a perfectly, holy and just God who set the world up to be perfect as well. But we chose our own way over God’s way.
Within the prayer, “Forgive us our debts,” is an assumption that our sin against God has created a rift in our relationship with him. We are now IN DEBT to him.
The last assumption here is that...
c. You cannot pay it
c. You cannot pay it
There are two ways to get out of debt. One is to pay it off over a period of time. Whether it is a 12 month same as cash deal on a Lowe’s mower, 5 years of payments on a new Jeep Wrangler, or a 30 year mortgage on your dream house, there is an amount that is owed and a time period it must be paid back in. You must be paid in full by the time the period is over. If you don’t get behind on your payments, eventually your debts are paid for by your own hard work. That’s one way.
The other way to get out of debt is to have your debt removed or paid for by someone else. This is probably not one that most of us are used to seeing in the world around us! Though we would like to! In this case, you don’t earn anything. You don’t do anything to pay it off. Someone else does all the work.
When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he didn’t tell them to pray “God help us work our debts off.” The prayer is “Forgive our debts against you.” It is calling on the graciousness of God to forgive our debts by taking another form of payment.
Paul tells Timothy...
For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus,
who gave himself as a ransom for all, a testimony at the proper time.
Jesus was the ransom… The word means a payment made to free someone else from bondage or indebtedness. Jesus’s life was the ransom that covered your sin debt with God. The blood he shed was the spiritual money needed to set you free!
We need only turn from sin and believe in Jesus to receive this freedom in Christ! If you have trusted in Jesus as Savior, your ransom is paid, your debt has been cleared. You have been finally and fully forgiven of your sin!
And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses.
He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross.
This is GOOD NEWS!
However...
If God truly has “erased our certificate of debt” in Jesus by nothing of our own doing, simply by grace, then why does Jesus teach to ask forgiveness for sins?
This is a good question right?
If I have been forgiven, finally and fully, why do I need to ask for it when I sin?
The New Testament speaks comfortably about a forgiveness that we receive when we are saved and an ongoing forgiveness that we need.
If we say, “We have no sin,” we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
It can seem like a contradiction if you don’t study it deeply, seeking the Spirit’s help to understand. The key to this seeming contradiction is in something we have talked about before: union and communion.
Once we have surrendered our lives to Christ, we are in that moment brought into a UNION with Christ. This is the term we use “salvation.” You are saved. Part of that salvation is having your sins paid for fully and finally. Your sins no longer separate you from God in an eternal perspective.
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus,
If you were to die tomorrow, you would be ushered into God’s presence immediately. Until then, our salvation gives us an opportunity to have a relationship with the God of all creation.
That relationship is not promised to be killer all the time though! We have a responsibility in that relationship with God. When we are in God’s Word, worshiping through song , sharing our faith, being an active part of a local church, we will experience a closeness with God that is awesome!
However, if we neglect these things, we will experience a distance from God.
This is not a foreign idea. Our human relationships work the same way, right? Don’t spend time with me, don’t have my back, talk bad about me, how’s our relationship? Not good, right?
And do something ugly and really mean to me and then just walk up to me the next day like nothing happened and want to talk to me......... Not gon’ happen. Our relationship has been affected. Do I hate you? No. But you need to seek reconciliation by asking for forgiveness right?
This is our communion with Christ. We sin against God one day, and then stroll up in to the church house on Sunday ready to worship God like we didn’t totally disregard his Spirit leading us yesterday!
When we walk through life day in and day out with unconfessed sin against God, it will affect our relationship with HIM! We need to confess those things to God and asking him to forgive us of our sin debt on a regular basis.
Again, it doesn’t affect our union with Christ, that is secure. It will help greatly in our COMMUNION with Christ though! It’s an issue of sanctification not salvation.
But there’s a little more to the story here. Jesus doesn’t just pray Forgive us our debts… He concludes it with...
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Jesus draws a direct tie between our own debts being forgiven and our willingness to forgive those who sin against us! That’s scary!
2. We need to forgive others.
2. We need to forgive others.
Jesus elaborates on this a little more at the end of the prayer...
“For if you forgive others their offenses, your heavenly Father will forgive you as well.
But if you don’t forgive others, your Father will not forgive your offenses.
Here again, the forgiveness being offered from the Father is one that affects daily communion not eternal union. Meaning, if you are struggling to forgive someone, your salvation is not in jeopardy. HOWEVER, your walk with God is! You are hindering your ability to worship, learn from, be guided by God! The unforgiveness that SOOOOOO many Christians find themselves in gets downplayed much more than it should.
If there is anyone who should be able to forgive it should be Christians! We know more than any others what it means to be forgiven…
And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ.
Do you see the reciprocal nature of forgiveness? In Matthew 6, Jesus says, “Forgive others or you won’t be forgiven.” Here Paul says, kind of the opposite: “Because you have been forgiven, forgive others.” Which came first? Right?
The point is that your ability to forgive others must be fueled by the forgiveness you have experienced in Christ yourself.
At another time in Jesus’ ministry, Peter the suck up wanted to impress Jesus with his ability to forgive. He says this...
Then Peter approached him and asked, “Lord, how many times must I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? As many as seven times?”
Surely Jesus would be impressed by that, right? Can you imagine someone sinning against you in the exact same way and you forgiving them 7 times?
Jesus isn’t impressed though...
“I tell you, not as many as seven,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven.
YIKES! Jesus says, “Let me take your number and multiply it over several times!” Jesus was helping Peter see that forgiveness was now built into the DNA of believers. That doesn’t mean it is always easy! There are times in which the sins others commit is going to be hard! But we must seek it!
There is a whole nother sermon on that for another day.
We need to be willing to forgive others!
As we start asking the question: What am I going to do with this message? I like to look at three spectrums of response...
How do the ideas presented in the text today change the way I think?\
How will they change what I believe?
How will they change what I do?
Many of you are having trouble forgiving others or yourself. That’s the pain of human nature!
If you are having trouble forgiving yourself, you need to be reminded that your salvation is already and completely secure in Christ Jesus! If you are uncertain about that, we want to help you take that step today! Talk to me or one of our decision counselors during this last song. We want to help you take that next step.
If you are having trouble forgiving others, God’s word has a message for you too! Your unforgiveness towards them is causing unforgiveness towards you! You are affecting your relationship with God in real and lasting ways. You may need to come to this altar in prayer, asking God for strength to forgive, or you may need to have the conversation before you head home today. Step out of your seat and talk to the person you have issue with if they are here and step into the hallway to call if they are not here. All of this is open for you!
We can also talk to us about other next steps. Maybe you are a Christian, but never been baptized. We can do that! We can talk about joining this church (EAST101 in second service.) Or we can talk about finding you a place to begin serving here at East. No matter your need, step out and talk to us today!
