[This sermon is one of a series entitled "Sermon on the Mount, Concentrating on the Beatitudes," which is being preached on Sunday mornings by Pastor Tim Senter.]
Last week we talked about the daily bread we should seek from God. When we opened the scriptures, we found that it was not only table bread, but also the staple sustenance for our whole existence. This meant spiritually and physically. What many do not see is that there is literality in grace. That was somewhat the punch line in the exposition. God’s grace literally gives us bread to eat. God’s grace literally gives us eternal life – the bread of life in Christ Jesus. This literal sustenance for physical and spiritual existence is the “daily bread” in Matthew 6:11. Praise God for this daily grace, the daily bread we eat, and the daily spiritual food we are provided. We should thank Him every day for these precious gifts. Jesus’ disciples, as did all those in the first century, normally lived a day at a time. Their environment, the social state and the lack of food availability demanded it. They could not run to the nearest grocery store and grab the staples of life. This was not only due to poverty, it was because stores did not exist. We would do well to live one day at a time and remember that “all good things, even our ability to work and earn our food, come from God’s hand.”[1]
Today we turn to a new part of our spiritual lives – forgiveness. This is one area that not only requires the activity of God, but also looks at our hearts in comparison to God’s provision of forgiveness.
Once again, we find a verse that is so oft misquoted among unbelievers. They take our scripture today, Matthew 6:12, to mean if we do not forgive others, we will not be forgiven. They make the second clause conditional for salvation. Is that the case? Is our salvation dependent upon our forgiving spirit? That question has instruction in it for the believer.
To hold a grudge, or not to hold a grudge—that seems to be the question. Some people can stay angry for a long time. I have been in discussions where individuals have literally escalated the rhetoric simply to be angry, simply to be hateful, simply to feed their anger. They want to be mad. Some want a fight and keep driving down a path in an argument that does nothing but further that atmosphere. I believe some people are abrasive because they want to live their lives in a constant state of aggravation. In many ways, they figure if they are not agitated at someone for some reason, they have no purpose in life. That has to be the saddest and most unfulfilling way to live.
There is reason for all of these emotions. Many of them deal with individual pain and suffering in life. For instance, being brought up as a child in an aggressive home where siblings fight for everything they get, can present problems. Having constantly combative parents is also a difficulty that carries over to the overall attitude in the children. When children see the people in their lives constantly bickering and holding on to anger, they tend to follow along. We have all heard about the argument where one of the participants always seems to dredge up issues from months before. This is an issue of forgiveness, or the lack thereof. These individuals have unforgiving spirits.
Whether natural man or a child of Christ, we all try to take credit and responsibility for our salvation especially when we do “nice” things like forgiving one another. Though the natural man is not saved, and the saved man is not condemned, both are sinful in their attitudes. Every one of us should bear in mind that first we are forgiven, then we can forgive.
We should begin where God’s word begins, with Him and His forgiveness. We first ask for His perfect provision, then we should say, “and forgive us our debts.”
I. God’s Forgiveness (Verse 12a)
True biblical forgiveness is multi-faceted. We will just look at a few examples today. First, we should note, there is no obligation for us to forgive before we receive forgiveness. This is taught in 2 Corinthians 5:18-20 where we read:
“18 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. 20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.”
Nothing in this passage indicates that we are to forgive others before we are reconciled with God through Christ Jesus. If we first had to forgive (perfectly) all those who had offended us before we could be saved, we would be in a heap of trouble. The forgiveness of God is one-way, and without expectation of recompensation. However, in verse 20 we see that the truly forgiven and committed heart will act differently. We will act as “ambassadors for Christ.”
There is much discussion concerning forgiveness and the debts we are to forgive. These “debts” are very widely accepted to mean sins. They are not monetary in nature. This is therefore a metaphor. The word translated here as “debt” is not contended, it does mean a debt, something someone owes. However, the word is used to describe sin debts. It is translated to indicate sin debt in various places in scripture, in varying languages, and in a variety of ways that indicate sin is a debt we owe.[2] Ultimately the textual evidence shows that man owes a sin debt to God. This is certainly not a monetary debt owed to people on earth. The debt is the sin we commit. We suffer our payment in the wages earned for these sins. We increase this debt and as we sin, we dig the hole deeper and deeper. As we sin without God’s forgiveness, we pile high the credit in our account. We apply for, receive and max out credit card after credit card. We also earn death (Rom 6:23)…it is our payment for sin. We are pulling the string in two different directions with sin. We earn death on one end, and go deeper into debt on the other. Our debt to God is a never ending, ever increasing list of “transactions” (sins) whereby the unregenerate person draws presumptuously upon His grace. In salvation, the debt is paid by Him in full. What many do not realize is that these two negatives (our wages and our debt) will never make a positive. Our sin’s debt is not an unsecured loan folks. The collateral is your eternal life. Praise God His Son paid the debt and eliminates what we owe. One day, God will call in our loan when His longsuffering ends. Barnes notes that,
“We have not met the claims of law; we have violated its obligations; we are exposed to its penalty; we are guilty; and God only can forgive, in the same way, as none but a creditor can forgive a debtor. Debts here, therefore, mean sins, or offences against God—offences which none but God can forgive.”[3]
God further expects us to exercise this merciful forgiveness. We forgive other loved ones in Christ as a regular and abiding act, as we live in and through Him. Psalm 18:25 tells us that if we abide in mercy, we become merciful. If we abide in blamelessness, we show ourselves to be blameless. This is the mirror, in many ways, to Matthew 5:7: “Blessed are the merciful, for they will have mercy.” (sermon on this text here) Once again, we find the Beatitudes in operation and extending through this exposition by the Savior. Psalm 18 goes on to say that with the purified we make ourselves pure. Finally, at the end of verse 26 we find “and with the forward thou wilt shew thyself forward.” If we show ourselves to be crooked, wicked or perverted, we make ourselves seem tortured. Literally, we have no peace and no tranquility. If you lack forgiveness, you therefore torture yourself because you never see that you are “getting any respect.” This person is always hateful because they will not forgive unless forgiven. Their anger toward others grows as they perceive a growing account of offenses against their own person. They take even the smallest things more and more personally and are quickly and easily angered. This is the individual in Psalm 18:26.
So you might ask, “Pastor are you going to tell me I need to forgive, even when I’m not asked to? The short answer: yes. Especially before you can come to worship God. “As the fate of the debtor is in the creditor’s hand, so is the sinner in the hands of God.”[4] Look with me at Mark 11:25. Look carefully at the conditions for forgiveness in this passage. There is no condition listed. There is no rebuke here that you can issue before you issue forgiveness (Lk 17:3-4). The individual who is required to issue forgiveness does so as they are entering prayer and going before the Father. Your open forgiveness of others is the result of the fact that God the Father also gives you forgiveness for your sins against Him. This is a result, not a requirement.
Now look at Luke 17:3 and consider the forgiveness in this passage. This passage talks about rebuking the offender before issuing forgiveness to them. One might ask then if there is a contradiction in these verses. You could ask many questions concerning the differences in these two verses (Luke 17:3 and Mark 11:25). It boils down to the fact that both deal with an entirely different set of circumstances. Luke’s passage is discussing our relationship with others. Mark’s passage is focused upon the relationship with and communication to God.
Forgiveness in our target verse then (Matt 6:12) has many different colors, fragrances and applications. The primary concern though is that we first receive God’s forgiveness. Stott notes,
“Once our eyes have been opened to see the enormity of our offence against God, the injuries which others have done to us appear by comparison extremely trifling.”[5]
The Christian, therefore, first seeking and receiving the forgiveness of God born through the Son of God has the capacity to bear the burden of forgiving the manifold transgressions against his own person. Though we do not grant salvation to one another (that is quite beyond man), we can provide for and grant tranquility between one another. Understanding our manifold sins before God and our inability to reconcile that sin account without His Son’s righteousness should also give us insight into our need to forgive.
We are to be Christlike. We are to put off the old man who seeks revenge and retribution for wrongs against our person. We are to put on the new man who seeks always to have God honoring relationships with people and with God Himself. When we deal with brothers and sisters in Christ (the principle discussion in our passage today) our outlook toward people changes. Truthfully, we should display these attributes toward all people. Everyone should see Christ in us. We put on Christ and our worldview changes. We should no longer seek the revenge because, “revenge is mine saith the Lord.” We should no longer seek retribution or recompense because God said, “I will repay.” Ladies and gentlemen I submit to you that if you are unable to forgive, you struggle with sins in your own life that need the manifold forgiveness of God.
If we are forgiven, we are commanded to practice forgiveness. How can we go forward and ask God to forgive us our sins when we are not even willing to forgive those around us? If we do not practice forgiveness, we do not understand how much God has forgiven us for our transgressions (Matt 18:21-25). If we are not willing to forgive, we are not prepared for worship (Matt 5:23-24-sermon on this text here). Consider this, if we are not willing to forgive one another, the Lord will not hear our prayer (Ps 66:18). Further, if we are not willing to be forgiving, God may not forgive us our sins because being unforgiving is a sin in itself. Being unforgiving or holding a grudge develops into a perpetual sin.
God’s forgiveness is one thing and having His forgiveness certainly sets the stage for the sinful heart to be able to properly forgive. God gives us up to our own unrighteousness at times to show us how sinful we really are (Rom 1:24). He also forgives us wholly for those sins when we rightly come to Him in repentance (1 Jn 1:9). Further, God gave us His Son even before we asked for His forgiveness. In this He is willing to forgive and He shows that willingness and loving desire to forgive in the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross at Calvary (Jn 3:16).
II. Our Forgiveness (Verse 12b)
We are therefore commanded, “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Eph 4:32). God gave us this scripture in a section that describes the new man in Christ , who no longer lives for the world. Paul’s words in scripture fill in with bright colors some of the areas that Jesus has sketched with His instruction in Matthew 6:12. These are the brilliant colors of the gospel of Christ that must tint our attitude concerning forgiveness.
We can consider briefly the atrocity so well known as “forgive and forget.” There is no such thing. Man simply cannot do it. However, we are commanded to forgive when asked. The focus is forgiveness of sins for one another. If we look at Luke 17:3 and 4 we find a very condemning passage that calls for us to change (repent) and forgive one another. It reads,
“3 Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. 4 And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.”
Therefore, according to our scriptures, you are clearly directed to forgive, and forgive graciously. We have had much discussion concerning imperatives lately. Here in this short passage in Luke 17 we find no less than three. Take heed, rebuke and forgive. You might ask if the words, “turn again” in verse four is a command. It is– but not in the same category as those in verse three. The words in verse three clearly define the direction. Verse four simply states if, when you continue to notice your brother’s trespass, you continue to rebuke him, and if he repents, you continue to forgive him. You should continue to repeat your same behavior. There should be no change on your part. We are directed therefore, to be willing to forgive. We should look forward to forgiving one another.
We are supposed to rebuke in love (speaking the truth in love) (Eph 4:15). This means accusatory forgiveness is out the door. Using words to the effect, “I know you did this, and I forgive you because I have to” is not going to get you anywhere. Instead, opening a discussion and establishing fact is the key. Then provide forgiveness, regardless of the fault or blame.
We should revisit Mark 11:25 to further understand how we are to forgive. First, prayer is the activity here. Second, there is no condition for forgiveness except that the individual has actually remembered some problem between themselves and a brother or sister in Christ. The command in the verse is to forgive. It does not say forgive him, forgive her, forgive for only one issue, forgive for this very issue, or forgive for anything specific. The command is to forgive and the purpose is to facilitate prayer or open communications with God. It is a wholehearted forgiveness. The person who committed the sin is not even present and is not required – this forgiveness is given in their absence. This is between you and God. The focus of the forgiveness then is your relationship with God. His relationship with you is not only the driving force behind the forgiveness; it determines and demands forgiveness. The neat thing is that you, the one who was offended, are the sole beneficiary of this forgiveness. Because you forgive, you can communicate with God. That is the joy here. If you do not forgive, you sin and your ability to communicate with God is hindered if not severed.
One last note – only God can forgive and choose not to remember the offense. We are never commanded to. God says in Jeremiah 31:34 that He will forgive Israel’s iniquity, “and I will remember their sin no more.” God does that; man cannot do that perfectly. Equally, we must never address the subject to the individual again unless there is another sin debt, another transgression. In this case we either go back to Luke 17:3 or Mark 11:25, whichever is appropriate. It is instructive to remember that in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is building in His arguments and growing the instruction gradually. If we then look forward briefly, we find in chapter 7 and verses 3-5 the following:
“3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? 4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? 5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.”
This is not to say we should not exercise some judgment, but that we should not be judgmental. Ascribing motive to issues is wholly inappropriate. Understanding the actual events may provide discernment. These are two wholly different considerations when we make decisions concerning fault. Be careful to forgive or the beam in your eye will poke others.
God first forgives. Sins are forgiven as they are paid for on the Cross at Calvary. God is the great forgiver and the forgiver of all sins. Providing His Son for this purpose gives us new life in Him. It also gives us the capacity to forgive as He forgave us our sin debt to Him.
To be changed into His image, we need to be great forgivers. We must learn to forgive others for their transgressions against us. We would do well to first remember, “against thee and thee only have I sinned” (Ps 51:4). Sins, therefore, are ultimately against God. Sure, you may feel the impact of it. It may even directly affect you in your life. However, the sin is against God not against you. You, being made in the image of God, suffer the aggression of the sinful heart against God. Sadly, they cannot attack God so they attack the next best thing, His children, you. Change into the image of God and forgive those who have ought against you. After all, He forgave you the sins which caused the death of His Son. God’s own Son paid the sin debt for the whole world. Jesus paid your personal debt too. It is therefore incumbent upon you to not hold on to a debt since it is not even yours. The debt is not owed to you. It is owed to God and He already paid for it.
[1] D. A. Carson, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, with the New International Version, Matthew, vol 8. Frank E. Gæbelein, gen. ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervon, 1984, 172.
[2] Carson, 172. The parallel passage in Luke 6:37 discusses your sins. Though the word means a literal debt, and due to this some commentators argue that in the Matthew passage the Lord’s prayer is not really dealing with sins but with Israelite loans in their sixth year, the evidence in the passage leads to a far and away different conclusion. The word “opheilēma” is only found four times in scriptures (two in the LXX and two in the NT). We find it here and in Romans 4:4. In the OT it is used to translate the Hebrew word “hōbā” (debt) which is used in the ancient writings to indicate a sin debt or a transgression. The Targums make clear and repeated use of this type of terminology. There is also correlation in the phrase “sin debt” or “hamartian opheilō” which translated literally means, “I owe sin.” Therefore, there is no reason to take this word, “debts” as meaning anything other than sin debts. Tyndale actually translated these words as trespasses (debts) and trespassers (debtors). These debts are, therefore, owed to God. They are sin for which we owe God.
[3] Albert Barnes’, Notes on the New Testament, Public Domain Derived from an electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library http://www.ccel.org, Formatted and corrected by OakTree Software, Inc. ver 1.0
[4] Jamieson Robert, Fausset, A. R., Brown, David. A Commentary Critical, Experimental, and Practical on the Old and New Testaments, Vol III. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Pub Co., 1973), 41.
[5] John R. W. Stott, Christian Counter-culture, Downers Grove: Inter Varsity Press, 1978, 149.
Comments