Just a Thought: A study on forgiveness LORD, GIVE US A FORGIVING SPIRIT: Matthew 6:12-15 INTRODUCTION Robert Louis Stevenson in his PICTURESQUE NOTES OF EDENBURGH tells the story of two unmarried sisters who shared a single room. As people who live in close quarters are apt to do, the sisters had a falling out, which Stevenson says was “on some point of controversial divinity.” In other words, they disagreed over some aspect of theology. The controversy was so bitter that they never spoke again to each other. There were no words! Now those of you that are married know that many times the worst kind of punishment is the “Silent treatment”. We would think that they would have separated, but nothing of the sort. Possible it was because they each could not afford to live alone or the innate Scottish fear of scandal that they continued to keep house together in that single room. A chalk-line was drawn across the floor which separated their two domains. It divided the doorway and the fireplace, so that each could go in and out and do her cooking without stepping into the territory of the other. Thus, for years they coexisted in hateful silence. Their friends and family visitors were exposed to the other’s unfriendly silence. And at night, each went to bed listening to the heavy breathing of her enemy. Thus, the two sisters, who were also daughters of the Church of Jesus Christ, lived out their miserable lives, never coming to terms with each other. No doubt when they attended church services they were often compelled to “say” the “Lord’s prayer”. The obviously never truly prayed it—for then it would have meant their reconciliation. How could any true Christian pray “our Father” and not be in harmony with his/her brothers and sisters, whom also would have God as their Father? And how could anyone say “Give US this day OUR daily bread” and not be reconciled to the other part of “US” and “OUR”? And if neither of these worked, there would be the next petition, “Forgive us OUR debts, as WE for give OUR debtors.” There is no way they could have remained bitter and unforgiving and truly prayed these words. Thus, this petition is an explicit prayer for forgiveness, and also it is an implicit prayer for a forgiving spirit. Let us look at it more closely. There are certain principles which we can deduce from this petition. I. PRINCIPLE ONE – This petition implies OUR sinfulness 1. What is sin? We must, if we are to understand the mercy and love of God have a clear understanding of what is sin. This prayer is found not only in Matthew, but it is also in Luke 11:1-4: “It happened that while Jesus was praying in a certain place, after He had finished, one of His disciples said to Him, Lord, teach us to pray just as John also taught his disciples. And He said to them, When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, For we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation. In Matthew, it occurs in the Sermon on the Mount. In Luke, it occurs as an answer from Christ to a request from the disciples concerning proper prayer. In the two versions two different words for “sin” are used. In Matthew we have the word that is properly translated by our English word “debt” – Opheilema. In Luke, we have the more common word for sin in the Bible-“Harmartia.” It denotes an aiming at the wrong mark, a striving after the wrong purpose, missing the mark. Since the two conceptions belong together, we can combine them and form conclusions concerning sin and our relationship to God. A. God is a Sinless God Notice that I did not say that God is a perfect God. He is perfect; but perfection can imply a mere separation from that which is defiled. We are commanded to be perfect/holy, but only God is Sinless. And only God can be sinless in and of Himself. God cannot possess sin, view sin, thus He cannot have anything to be with sin. The Holiness of God implies both perfection and sinlessness. B. God Has a Purpose for Man The word “Harmartia” implies that God so created us that in all our actions we are engaged as rational, moral creatures; and that therefore we must have an aim, a purpose for which we strive, a reason why we do things, an inner motive that urges us to act. In order for us to miss the mark, there must be a mark. It also presupposes that God has appointed for man that purpose. God sets before man the mark at which man must aim. That purpose is the highest end of all things for which we must consciously and willingly strive. What is that aim? It is the GLORY of GOD. This then implies that all that man does must be motivated by our pure love of God. Sin then, is the missing of that purpose. 2. We ALL are Sinners Taking into account both what sin is and what the sinlessness of God is, we can come to no other conclusion than that all of us are sinners. Let me drive this home a bit further: When we say that we all have missed the mark, we are all sinners, we do not mean that we miss the mark by some kind of accident. No! We are enemies of God by nature. We willfully and deliberately miss the mark. We will not seek the glory of God, not on our own. We deliberately aim at something else—our own glory, the satisfaction of the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. But, someone might say “I am a Christian, I seek God’s glory.” Are you sure? What about when we do not get what we want and react as if we deserve all that we want? Truly, we are all sinners—the Christian know this and thus under-stands the wonderful gifts of repentance and forgiveness which come from a Merciful God. II. PRINCIPLE TWO: This Petition Implies Forgiveness 1. What does “FORGIVE” Mean? This word in the original means “to send away, to dismiss.” That is significant. For it denotes that forgiveness is something very wonderful and that the prayer for forgiveness is a very bold and amazing request. It means that we implore God to dismiss our debts! Now, let’s look at this forgiveness a bit closer. A. We are asking God to FORGET something This, in itself is unbelievable! We are asking God to dismiss the debt that we owe Him from His own heart and mind, so that He will never recall then again, never make mention of them again; that He completely obliterates them from His book of remembrance, so blots them out that they can never be found any more. It means that God will never hold it against us that we miss the mark that we did not fulfill His purpose for us that we were in active rebellion against Him and His Son. B. We are asking God to REMEMBER something This is the positive side. We know that our sins are a fact. Nevertheless, since God’s attitude toward us cannot be neutral, we ask Him for His favor, His lovingkindness, and His blessed friendship. We ask Him to remember, for all eternity, His love toward us in Christ Jesus. We ask Him not to treat us in His wrath, but to deal with us as righteous in His eternal favor. C. We are asking God for the ASSURANCE of Forgiveness This follows from the fact that in this petition, we are asking for something—for forgiveness. When you ask someone for something, you expect an answer. Either you will get or won’t get what you ask for. In this petition, we are asking God not only to forgive us, but also that we might know that He has forgiven us. If you do not know that God has forgiven you, maybe you need to say this prayer right now! You know the text that says that the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God; that is the answer to this prayer. 2. There Are TWO Kinds of Forgiveness A. Judicial Forgiveness Judicial forgiveness views God as Judge. Now, God is a totally righteous Judge. He cannot and will not excuse our sins. Thus, He will not excuse us. The Evangelical notion taught today in many circles that God loves the sinners but hates the sin, is totally wrong. The Bible says that “the wages of sin is death.” Notice that it is not sin that dies but the sinner. Proverbs 15:9 says, “The Lord detests the way of the wicked but He loves those who pursue righteousness.” Proverbs 15:29 says, “The Lord is far from the wicked but He hears the prayer of the righteous.” Isaiah 3:11 says, “Woe to the wicked! Disaster is upon them! They will be paid back for what their hands have done.” Here we have the dilemma. On the one hand, we have the love of God; but on the other hand we have the wrath of God. The one cannot cancel out the other. How can a righteous God have fellowship with sinners? The answer—ATONEMENT I quote from “In the Sanctuary”, an exposition of the Lord’s Prayer by Herman Hoeksema: What is atonement? The heart and essence of atonement is satisfaction of God’s righteousness with respect to sin. And what may satisfy the righteousness of God with respect to sin, so that the sinner is truly justified before God? Only such an act of perfect obedience, of the obedience of love, whereby the sinner bears the full wrath of God against sin in all its implications and consequences willingly. In other words, if the sinner willingly, obediently, from the love of God, descends into the suffering of deepest death, and thus sacrifices himself on the altar of God’s righteousness, he thereby expiates his guilt and becomes righteous before God. But this the sinner cannot do. If he could, he would need no forgiveness. But this is forever impossible. The sinner is an enemy of God, and he can only increase his debt with God daily. And this is the unfathomable mystery of the love of God, not that in justifying the ungodly He winks at sin and sets aside His justice, but that in the Person of Immanuel, His only begotten Son in our flesh, He Himself accomplishes this act of perfect obedience for the expiation of our sins. B. Relational Forgiveness Christians sin. We know this, don’t we? The difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is not that the one sins but the other does not. The difference is in our relationship, or better, God’s relationship with us. To the non-Christian, He is Judge; but to the Christian, He is Abba-Father. When a child of God sins his position in not effected. But his relationship, his fellowship with his heavenly Father is. He is needs relational forgiveness. How does this happen? We have a Mediator, a High Priest, Jesus Christ the Son of God. You see, salvation from beginning to end is because of Christ. Thus, because of the need for relational forgiveness, the Lord Jesus Christ gave us this prayer. III. PRINCIPLE THREE – This Petition Implies the Need for Confession Principle One – This petition implies our sinfulness Principle Two – This petition implies Forgiveness Now, Principle Three – We have the need for Confession. Paul says, in Acts 20:21 that “Repentance toward God” and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ results in salvation. John in I John 1:9 says, in effect, that the ones confessing their sins are the ones giving evidence that they are being forgiven. It says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Now don’t get me wrong; we must confess our sins in order to be forgiven, but the reason why we even would think of confessing our sins is because God is at work in us. Nevertheless, we must confess our sins. Proverbs 28: 13 says “Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.” Your spiritual prosperity is at stake. Many Christians who are Judicially forgiven, thus eternally secured, can be for a time so hardened by willful sin, so impenitent, so un-confessing, so insensitive to their sins, that they are totally joyless in their Christian life. May this not be the case with anyone here. Brothers & sisters in Christ, let us not, because of pride, reject such great gifts, as the privilege to confess our sins, to repent of them, to be forgiven, and to be restored into fellowship with our merciful God & Father. But also remember that these gifts (repentance, confession, forgiveness, restoration) are also part of the family of God. This leads us to my last Principle: IV. PRINCIPLE FOUR – This Petition Implies a Forgiving Spirit in Our Part – “…as we forgive our debtors.” 1. What it Cannot mean This cannot mean that forgiving others is a ground for our plea for forgiveness. We do not make ourselves worthy of forgiveness by forgiving others. We can never make ourselves worthy of God’s forgiveness. That is a gift based upon the perfect life and sacrifice of Jesus Christ. 2. What Does It Mean? We must take this clause very seriously. Does it really mean that God will not forgive my sins if I do not forgive the brother or sister who sinned against me? You bet it does! Look at Matthew 6:14-15, “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.” Matthew 18 has a great illustration concerning this truth. In verse 21 Peter ask Jesus how many times must we forgive our brother. Peter says “seven times.” Jesus answers “seventy times seven;” in other words - “indefinitely.” In verse 23, Jesus tells the story of a King who was owed a great amount of money. The King asked for his money. How much did his servant owed?-ten thousand talents. How much is that? One talent would be worth about six thousand day’s work. So it would take this man about nineteen years, working six days a week to earn one talent; and he owed ten thousand. How could he owe that much? Perhaps he was stealing from the King’s treasure and had lost it all in bad investments. He had nothing with which to pay. This guy had to be a rat and also very stupid. We can see his stupidity in that he asked the King for patience because he was going to pay it all back. That is really stupid. He would have to live over 190 years to pay it back. But this guy was blessed and he did not even know it. His lord was a compassionate man. He forgave him. The man didn’t even have to pay a single dime. Can you guess who the King represents?-God. Guess who the servant represents? All of us! We owe a debt we could not pay. And He forgave us. Why? He was compassionate! Because of His great love, He forgave the great debt we owed Him. In fact, He will remember it no more. The same servant, in verse 28, went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him money worth about three months’ work. Peanuts, compared to what he owed the King. The one who was forgiven grabbed the other by the neck and demanded payment. The other asked for patience: But instead, he imprisoned him. When the King heard of this, he said to the servant, “You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?” The angry King delivered him to the inquisitors. So likewise shall God do unto us if we do not from our hearts forgive others. 3. What Are the Implications? A. There is a Comparison: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” This means that we must model our forgiving of one another after the forgiveness of God, and that we are son conscious of God’s forgiveness that we are now able to pray that he would forgive us in the same manner as we have forgiven each other. B. Our Debtors Desire Forgiveness Only through repentance and confession can we obtain forgiveness from God, and only in the same way can we forgive one another. The notion taught today that we are to forgive others irrespective of their wrong behavior, is not Biblical. What we can not do is allow someone else’s behavior to make us sin or to make us be miserable. But, just as God does not forgive those who are not repented, we are not to excuse each others behavior as if it does not matter. C. We Must Seek Our Brother Some might think that because we do not have to forgive until our brother repents that we can leave the matter at that. But a truly, godlike and forgiving spirit will do as God did—He did not wait until we came to Him; if He did that, He would wail forever. But when we were His enemies, He came to us. We must do the same with any brother or sister that has offended us. D. There Can be No End to Our Forgiveness As long as God is our Father, as long as Jesus is our Mediator, as long as we need forgiveness, God will forgive us. There is never a last time for God. But about the brother or sister that takes advantage of your good nature? Do as God does. Do not excuse their sin, confront them; but do not play God with them either. God holds us accountable for our actions, but He never stops loving us, inspite of our actions. “Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord.” Besides our attitude ought not to depend upon how we are treated; but how we want to be treated by others. So, if you are taken advantage of because of your Christ-like nature, so be it. I pray that all here today can exclaim with the Psalmist: “O the blessedness of man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.”
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 00:43:55 +0000
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