The Lord's Prayer Sermon Series: Forgive Us As We Forgive

“The Lord’s Prayer: Forgive Us as We Forgive”
A Lenten Sermon Series 4/6
Matthew 6: 9-12, 14-15
by Rev. Carson Overstreet
Van Wyck Presbyterian Church
March 11, 2018

‘Pray then in this way:
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...

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. - Matthew 6: 9-12, 14-15

The season of Lent is a time to reflect and examine our commitment to follow Jesus Christ; to look at our spiritual steps in light of the costly grace of the cross and the Easter promise of new life.

Each week we have been breaking down The Lord’s Prayer. Matthew remembers the prayer Jesus taught opens our hearts to God’s vision of the kingdom that is already here and still yet to come. The key of the Lord’s Prayer is that it hinges upon authentic relationships with God and one another.

The example of Jesus’ life and ministry captures a relationship of great intimacy and trust with God as a divine parent. Jesus is bold to lay down his wants for God’s purposes in his life. Jesus proclaims if we trust God to give us our daily bread then God also moves us to be as generous as God. Authentic relationships that receive also give so that all of God’s children may flourish in God’s kingdom.

Today we look at what is essential for our relationships to thrive as we pray for God’s kingdom to come. Jesus prays, “Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors” (verse 12).

Each time I think of that word, “forgive,” I pause because I am still learning how to do it. Forgiveness is a complicated thing, isn’t it? It is hard to live as a person of faith in a world that lives at odds with God’s mercy.

Human history says people should get what they deserve; that retributive mindset contradicts Christ’s teachings. Judgement that triumphs over mercy makes forgiveness quite a challenge.

Forgiveness is one of the hardest things to do in life, no matter how young or old we are. It is not magic. It is a mystery of grace.

Jesus’ prayer holds an important truth. God has already forgiven our sins on the cross. Sin includes our thoughts, actions, and even failure to act which offends God.

Just imagine every possible sin humanity has committed, is committing now, and could commit written on the chalk board. Our sins are not just individual, but they are also collective (corporate); they cause hurt to God and to other people. How many miles would that chalkboard extend?

And yet God does not give us what we deserve. God’s love keeps no record of wrongs (1 Corinthians 13:5). God erased everything. God let it go and forgives us through Jesus’ Christ (Romans 5:18).

Does that mean that our actions no longer bear consequences? No. But it does mean that on our own we are incapable of making reparations to restore right relationships with God and one another.

John Calvin says, “Jesus calls sins ‘debts,’ because we owe penalty for them and we could in no way satisfy it unless we were released by this forgiveness. This pardon – this letting go – comes of God’s free mercy, by which he generously wipes out these debts, exacting no payment from us. [Christ alone made us right with God] by his own mercy [on the cross].”[1]

As we pray, “Forgive us our debts,” we remember God’s amazing grace – how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. Jesus’ forgiveness is a gift of salvation and yet do we sin all the more so that grace may abound? By no means, the Apostle Paul would say (Romans 6:1).

We continue to confess our need to be forgiven for there was only one who lived in perfect relationship with God and with humanity; Jesus Christ.

We confess every week in worship that we need God’s help to live into Christ’s faithfulness. The human condition of sin taints everything we think, say, and do. Just as we pinned our prayers of confession to the cross this morning, we trust the good news that by grace we have been saved through faith, and this is not our own doing; it is the gift of God, not the result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2: 8-9).

Even as we pray with a growing trust to live into the reality of God’s forgiveness, the second part of Jesus’ petition says as we approach the throne of grace we have already forgiven our debtors (Matthew 6:13).

Did you catch that? As we petition God, we have already forgiven someone who has hurt us. Past tense. Now think about that! Is there someone in your life whom you have not ALREADY forgiven even as you ask God to forgive the terrible awful in you? What does this petition mean?

According to Matthew’s Gospel something is at stake for us to live into reality of God’s merciful kingdom.

Matthew’s Gospel is quite sobering about forgiveness. Jesus says, “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6: 14-15; 7:12).

Jesus is not saying that God’s forgiveness is conditional. And Jesus is not saying that our forgiveness of another is pinned down to a relative time of action; rather the past tense Jesus uses indicates the KIND of action.

Jesus is saying the way we treat one another should bear the weight of God’s grace and mercy. God has already paid the debt we owe because of sin. Therefore, we are to show the same mercy and release the debts others owe us. Mercy triumphs over judgment (James 2:13).

Not long after Jesus’ teaching on prayer he says, “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get…In everything do to others as you would have them do to you” (Mathew 7:1-2, 12).

If the Lord’s Prayer is about the integrity of our relationships with God and one another, then we are to prayerfully prepare our minds for action to not live for ourselves. The heart of God’s forgiveness and saving grace on the cross is reconciliation that is self-giving.

The Apostle Paul says, “God has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting our debts against us, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. Therefore, we are now ambassadors for Christ” (2 Corinthians 5: 18-20).

Our ongoing commitment to forgive others as God freely forgives us is imperative to our calling to be holy, or set apart for God’s purposes, as God is holy(1 Peter 1:15).

Dietrich Bonhoeffer once preached, “It is of no use for us to confess our faith in Christ if we have not gone first and reconciled ourselves to our brothers and sisters…as a church that calls a nation to faith in Christ must itself be the burning fire of love in this nation, a driving force for reconciliation, the place in which all the fires of hatred are extinguished and prideful, hateful people are turned into people who love. Our Reformation churches have accomplished great things, and yet it seems to me that they have not yet succeeded in doing this greatest of all things.”[2]

Bonhoeffer preached these words 84 years ago and yet they still ring true today.

The prayer Jesus teaches invites us to be builders of God’s kingdom. The petition for forgiveness invites us to join Christ in this holy work of mending the estrangements between each other individually and corporately even as God has already been reconciling the world back to God through Jesus Christ.

As the Apostle Paul says, we are to “work out our own salvation with great reverence for it is God who is at work in us enabling us both to will and to work for God’s good pleasure (Philippians 2:12c-13).

Just imagine what might happen if we acknowledge the hurt we have caused our sisters and brothers by what we have done and also what we have left undone. For on any given day each of us is in need of mercy that we do not deserve.

Just imagine what the world might be like if everyone demonstrated their action to forgive another by pinning a prayer to the cross like we did this morning. Give it to God and let it go.

Even as reconciliation is the godly goal of forgiveness, the hope is that we learn from our mistakes and misgivings.

Our sins are ever before us on that cross. The cross leads us to the freedom of walking in God’s path of wisdom, justice, and self-giving love.

The blessing of God’s forgiveness restores to us the joy of the Lord’s salvation and sustains in us a willing spirit to follow Jesus (Psalm 51:3, 12).

In this fourth week of Lent, may we pray to be ambassadors for Christ to be a driving force of reconciliation.

May God’s Holy Spirit move among us so that we owe no one anything, except to love one another (Romans 13:8).

In the name of God our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Amen.

Sources Referenced:

[1] John Calvin, “The Institutes of the Christian Religion” (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, Reissued in 2006), p. 910.
[2] Dietrich Bonhoeffer "A Testament of Freedom: The Essential Writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (New York: Harper One, 1990, 1995), p. 249.