Debts and Debtors [B]

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Transcript:

Well, in the message tonight, I only have one point, which it’s always reassuring if the preacher has a point, isn’t it? We’re going to look at the final point of this morning’s message and the second portion of the verse we looked at this morning. If you’ll turn with me to Matthew chapter 6, and as we look at the Lord’s Prayer, we’re going to read it again for context’s sake.

But starting in verse 9, it says, And tonight we look at the second part of verse 12. We talked this morning about the beginning of verse 12, where he says, forgive us our debts, indicating that there is a need for forgiveness when we talk to God. There’s a need to keep a short list of accounts when we go to God, and it’s not in the sense that we constantly have to be going and asking for forgiveness in the sense that we did when we were first saved.

God, forgive me so I don’t go to hell, in order that that relationship would be there. Everything I understand about the Bible tells me that the relationship between us and God doesn’t go away, but sometimes the fellowship is hindered, and sometimes we need to go and get things cleaned up and reconciled. And so prayer acknowledges the need for forgiveness we talked about this morning, but it’s not just forgiveness for accidents or wrong choices or oversights.

It’s forgiveness for our offenses against God. And we’ve talked in past messages about how when there’s sin in our lives, we want to call it everything but sin. And we’ll call it mistakes.

Oh, I messed up. Oh, I made a wrong choice. Oh, I fell in with the wrong crowd.

When we want to call it anything but what it really is, and it’s sin. It’s an offense against a holy God. And I shared with you the example of Benjamin spilling his drink.

He did not, just boy wants to do anything he can to prove me a liar. He did not spill his drink at lunch today after I told you it was just set in stone. But, you know, he’ll spill his drink on a regular basis and say, I’m sorry.

He’ll ask for forgiveness. That’s not the kind of thing we’re talking about. It’s not, oops, I spilled my milk, God, I’m sorry I made a mess, an accident.

It’s we have sinned and offended a holy God. Our sin is offensive to God because our sin goes against the very nature of God. I brought this point out in Sunday school this morning when we were talking about Romans chapter 4, or Romans chapter 3, I believe, and it talks about the holiness, the righteousness of God which was manifest before the law.

Folks, God was righteous before the law. There’s an idea among philosophers, they try to disprove, atheist philosophers will try to disprove the idea of God because they say the moral law as we understand it doesn’t work. They say either if God is the one who determined what’s right and wrong for us, if God is the one who determined what is sin and what is righteousness, then it’s either based on some higher moral law and that makes God subject to some higher moral law and he’s not sovereign at all, or it means that he arbitrarily determined what was right and wrong and he could have just as easily said, thou shalt murder as thou shalt not.

And for years I was bothered by that until I realized in the Bible there’s a third option and that’s that the moral law flows from God’s nature. We’re told not to kill, not to murder because it’s in God’s nature not to murder. We’re told thou shalt not lie.

I know it doesn’t say those exact words, but we’re told not to lie because God cannot lie. We’re told not to steal because it’s not in God’s nature to steal. See, the moral law flows from who God is. And God is righteous whether there was ever a moral law set down or not, just because that’s his nature.

And so when we sin, we’re not just breaking his law, we’re offending the very essence of who he is. We’re going against the very essence of who God is. And our sin is incompatible with who he is.

And so we’re not just apologizing for mistakes, for accidents. We are seeking forgiveness over offenses that we have committed against God, his law, and his nature. We come tonight to the second part of this verse, which may be even more difficult for us.

He starts out and says, and forgive us our debts, but the second part of the verse says, as we forgive our debtors. Some translations say, forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who have trespassed against us. And so there’s this idea in this passage that we are to pray for forgiveness, but we’re also to pray to be forgiving.

And prayer seeks to be forgiving of others’ offenses against us. Just as we’re seeking forgiveness, just as we’re seeking mercy from God for the offenses that we’ve committed against him, so we should seek to be forgiving and merciful about the offenses that others have committed toward us. And I say this recognizing fully that this is very easy to say, very easy to preach on, and very, very hard to do.

When it comes time that it costs you something to forgive, to let go of the anger, to let go of the offense, and say, I’m going to forgive you, and I’m going to be merciful whether you deserve it or not, That is really hard to do. And sometimes it’s a daily struggle. Sometimes, you know, we’re not perfect at forgiveness the way God is.

And I think we can fully intend to forgive something one day. I don’t have a verse to back this up. And if I’m wrong, I’m wrong.

But just in my personal experience, I can have every intention of one day saying, I forgive you. I absolutely unconditionally forgive you of this. And then the next day, there it is again.

And I have to forgive all over again. But we should seek to be forgiving the way God is forgiving. Okay, prayer seeks to be forgiving of others’ offenses.

Now, we need to make sure there’s one thing we don’t misunderstand in this passage. Okay, when we pray and ask God, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, we are not tying our forgiveness, we are not tying our forgiveness of others to his forgiveness of us. The idea here is not that somehow we can earn our forgiveness by being forgiving of others.

Okay, this is not a loophole to heaven. This is not a loophole in the gospel. That somehow, if I was never born again, never repented, never trusted Christ as my Savior, but I went around forgiving everybody that ever sinned against me, everybody who ever offended me, that somehow God would then, his hands would be tied and he’d have no option but to forgive me for what I’ve done in sinning against him.

That’s not what it’s saying. It doesn’t work that way. When he says, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, he’s not talking about a correlation, That one thing causes another, and to the degree you forgive, that’s the degree to which you’ll be forgiven.

I think he’s talking about, if I can use big words here, he’s talking about a concurrency. Two things going on at the same time. Not a correlation, where you forgive this much, you’ll automatically be forgiven this much.

You only forgive this much, it’s this much. That would be a correlation. Concurrency means we’re doing this at the same time.

That our focus is to be just as forgiving as we’re seeking God to be of us. And we know that God forgives perfectly and we fall short of that on a daily basis. And yet that’s what we’re seeking to do.

We seek to forgive those who have sinned against us, those who have trespassed against us, just as God has forgiven us. That’s what we shoot for. And I realize it could seem like there’s a contradiction with what I told you this morning because the second point this morning was that every sin is ultimately against God.

David said, against thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. Okay, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t matter that I’ve offended my brother. As I gave the example this morning, it doesn’t mean that if I offended Brother Buford, I could say he’ll either get over it or he won’t.

I’m just going to deal with God. The Bible says that if there’s friction between me and my brother, I need to leave my gift at the altar and then go back and be. .

. And the Bible doesn’t use the word friction. That’s my paraphrase of it.

But if there’s bad blood between me and my brother, I need to leave my gift at the altar, go to him and be reconciled, and then come back and offer. There is precedent in the Bible for seeking reconciliation when one of us offends one another, when one of us sins against the other. But what I was talking about this morning and what David was talking about is not to say that what we do to each other, how we treat other people doesn’t matter, but ultimately, every sin is against God.

And ultimately, it’s that forgiveness that matters. But folks, there’s still the sense in which what goes on between us needs to be forgiven and we need to forgive. But we shouldn’t look at it as though if I just forgive enough, God automatically forgives me.

What he’s saying here, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. We are praying, God be merciful to me. And at the same time, I’m praying that you’ll be merciful to me.

I’m praying that you’ll help me be merciful to them over here. they’re not tied together in the sense that we do one to earn the other from God but we are seeking to mirror what God has done for us again imperfectly I think of Christians oftentimes as being like the moon the moon puts off no light of its own you realize that the moon puts off no light of its own the sun puts forth the light and the moon reflects it I still don’t understand how the moon reflects the light that it does because it’s just dirt and here on earth you shine a flashlight on dirt it It doesn’t have a mirror effect. But somehow God has worked the creation of the moon that that’s what it does.

It reflects the light. It’s not as bright. It’s not as pure.

It’s not as perfect, but it reflects the light of the sun. And I really think in many instances Christians are supposed to be like the moon. We reflect the light of the sun, S-O-N in that case.

We reflect the light of the sun. It’s paler. It’s not as noticeable.

It’s not as brilliant as his light, but we’re supposed to reflect his light. And as we’re praying, God, be merciful to me, we’re also praying that at the same time, God, help me be merciful to them. There’s a good illustration of this later on in the book of Matthew, in Matthew chapter 18, if you’d like to turn there with me.

Believe it or not, we are almost finished tonight. Matthew chapter 18, and we’re going to start in verse 21 and read through a few verses here. Matthew 18, 21, then came Peter to him and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him.

until seven times? This story confused me when I was a child. How many times am I supposed to forgive my brother if he sins against me?

How many times am I supposed to let go of that offense? How many times am I supposed to be forgiving? Seven times?

And Jesus said unto him, I say not unto thee until seven times, but until 70 times seven. Now, if you’ve never done the math, that’s 490 times. Now, Jesus here is not telling them, as we’ll see in just a minute.

Jesus is not telling them, keep a list, and when he, you know, you have to forgive him 490 times. But when he messes up time number 491, you slap him down. You just, you don’t have to worry about it anymore.

If we are keeping such a list of offenses that we know, okay, you are on 489. You are on thin ice with me. We’re not really forgiving.

And I understand, I realize, I believe firmly there’s a difference between forgiving and forgetting in our fallen sinful nature. God chooses to remember things no more. It’s a little harder for us to do that.

But remembering something and holding it against someone and punishing them for it over and over are two different things. And if we’re keeping such a list of offenses that we can say, okay, on this day you did this, on this day you did this, on this day you did this, and you’re going to pay for it. You’re on 489 and then all bets are off.

we have not forgiven. And the idea of saying 70 times 7 is you keep on forgiving. There’s not a point at which we stop forgiving.

Somebody came to me for counseling just last week and said, I just don’t feel like I could, talking about their dealings with another person, said, I just don’t feel like I can be forgiven for what I’ve done. And what I told him, I think rings true for all of us, that all he could do was ask for forgiveness. I said, and I’ll tell you, no Christian has the right not to forgive.

We do not have the right to withhold forgiveness. I don’t care how much we’re in the right. I don’t care how innocent we are.

We do not have the right to withhold forgiveness when it’s asked for. In verse 23, he says, therefore is that Jesus still speaking, therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him 10,000 talents.

And I do not know exactly how much this amount would be in our money or in their money. But what I do recognize is it is way more. We can learn from the context it is way more than what he had the ability to pay.

He owed the king 10,000 talents. But for as much as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold and his wife and children and all that he had in payment to be made. So the king could say, you owe me 10,000 talents and since you can’t pay up, We’re going to sell you and your wife and your children into indentured servitude so that we can make back the money that you owe.

And servant, verse 26, The servant therefore fell down and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. He asked mercy. Now at this point, the king, given that he’s about to sell him, obviously has the right to sell him.

And yet he asked for mercy. He asks for the king to spare him what he deserves. And the Lord of that servant, verse 27, was moved with compassion and loosed him and forgave the debt.

So out of a show of humility and a request for mercy, the king was moved with compassion and forgave the entire debt. Where the man had just said, be patient with me and I’ll pay back everything, he just said, it’s forgiven, you don’t have to pay it. But the same servant, verse 28, went out and found one of his fellow servants which owed him a hundred pence, and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, pay me that thou owest. Goes out to this other man who in contrast owes a pittance and lays hands on him, grabs him by the throat.

I’ve never been so mad in my life that I’ve wanted to take somebody by the throat. Maybe in traffic, but most of the time not. And says, pay me everything you owe.

And his fellow servant fell down at his feet and besought him saying, have patience with me and I will pay thee all. Does that sound familiar? I think we just heard that somewhere.

And verse 30 says, and he would not. That means the first servant wouldn’t hear any of it, but went and cast him into prison until he should pay the debt. And I never understood this about the way things used to work.

If somebody couldn’t pay the debt, let’s just throw them in prison until they can pay. How are they going to earn the money in prison to pay you back? But that’s what they used to do.

Cast him into prison until he should pay the debt. So when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were very sorry and came and told unto their Lord all that was done. So the other people saw what was going on and went and told the king.

Then his Lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me. Shouldst not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee? And his Lord was wroth and delivered him to the tormentors, until he should pay all that was due unto him.

So likewise shall my heavenly Father do unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses. And I read various commentaries on this passage and others, and some would indicate that if you don’t forgive, you lose your salvation. Again, I don’t think that’s consistent with the whole of what the Bible teaches.

More likely, it seems to me that a spirit of unforgiveness is an indication of not being born again. A believer, I think, can be unforgiving at times. But if we have a spirit of unforgiveness consistently, we might want to check, as one of the apostles’ rights and see that we be in the faith.

We might want to check and make sure, because a Christian should not be characterized by a spirit of unforgiveness, but a willingness to forgive. Because we, you know, we look at this man and we say, how wicked, how awful was he, that he was forgiven so much, and yet was so unwilling to forgive so little. But you take it away from money, and you get to the spiritual heart of the problem, which is always what Jesus was talking about.

And ladies and gentlemen, we have been forgiven so much. We have been forgiven as believers, as children of God, we have been forgiven, not because of anything that we did, but because of what Christ did. We have been forgiven infinite trespasses against an infinitely holy God.

We have been forgiven more than we could imagine, and yet we are so willing at times to withhold forgiveness from those who have sinned against us a little. Folks, as believers, we have no right not to forgive. I’m not saying it’s easy, and I’m not saying it’s always immediate, but we have no right to withhold forgiveness from those who ask for it.

We have no right to withhold forgiveness, and we should be praying in this Lord’s Prayer, not only asking God for his mercy when we need it, but asking God to give us the capacity to make us merciful when others need it. Because it doesn’t come naturally to us to be merciful and forgiving. It’s something God has to do in us and work through us and give us a capacity to forgive.

And we should be praying and asking, Lord, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lord, be merciful to us and help us to be just as merciful.