Debts, Trespasses and Temptations
Matthew 6:9-13
Luke 11:1-4
Last week we examined the
meaning of asking God for our daily bread.
The bread we ask for is a gift given to us from God. We should learn to receive it with thankful
hearts.
We move to the two last and
extremely important petitions of the Lord’s Prayer:
Forgive to us our debtors as we have forgiven our debtors.
“Esbouqlan
Khoubayn Heyk bisbouqna lahayyabeyn.”
If bread is important for our
daily living, forgiveness is important for our relationships. Our relationship with God has a connection with
our relations with others. We do not live
in vacuum. Christianity is not about
just a personal relationship with God. No,
it starts with a personal relationship and it reflects outward, to the “other”,
to the community. How can one say that
he/she loves God and hates his brother and sister?
Take the parable of the Prodigal
Son. The prodigal son has left “home”. He arrogantly takes his share of the
inheritance while his father was alive. He finds it difficult to come home. On one hand he is ashamed of his father and on
the other hand he is not sure how his older brother would take his return. The prodigal son comes back home. The father rejoices and accepts him while the
older brother goes out and refuses to join the celebration. Besides showing the father’s love to his sons,
the parable also illustrates how important it is for brothers (you and the
other) to forgive each other.
How about the parable of
debts? (Matthew 18:23-35). Two people owe
money. The first is a servant who owes a
million dollars to his master. When he
begs him, the master pities, cancels the debt and lets him go. The same person goes and finds his co-servant
who owes him $100 and asks for the money without mercy. The man begs for forgiveness but is
eventually thrown in jail.
Listen to how Jesus finished this
parable: "This is how my heavenly
Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart"
(35).
We know that God forgives us.
We know that God’s love is unconditional toward us. Yet how can we ask God’s forgiveness when we
are not broken in heart? John Stott says
it best: “God forgives only the
penitent, and one of the chief evidences of true penitence is a forgiving
spirit.” 1
In Matthew 6 just after the
Lord’s Prayer, Jesus continues with this issue:
“For if you
forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive
you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your
Father will not forgive your sins” (Matt 6:14-15).
I think it starts with
recognizing and accepting God’s justice and grace. We did discuss this in the previous
sermons about God as a Daddy, a loving God and also a Holy God, a God of
justice.
According to God’s justice,
we do not deserve forgiveness. What we
deserve is death. The penalty of sin is
death. We all sinned. We all failed. How can this phenomenon reverse and change? We cannot do it. Someone put it this way:
“He came to pay a debt he did
not owe, because we owed a debt we cannot pay.”
Jesus Christ brought the grace of forgiveness. Pastor Darrell Johnson put it very well
indeed: “Grace is God giving me what I
do not deserve.”2
Once we taste the forgiveness
of God, how can we not forgive others?
I know it is very difficult. It takes time to learn to forgive others
especially if they hurt us badly.
Some people ask, “How about
if the other does not forgive?”
Then the burden is on their
shoulders. You have done your part, you
continue praying for them.
Today we will approach the Lord’s
Table. It is very important that we make
peace with people as much as possible. In
Matthew 5, Jesus asks us to leave our offering in the
There is a big emphasis on
this because God is a God of love. We
are the body of Christ. The body should
be connected.
We will continue in English.
1 John R. W. Stott, Christian
Counter- culture: The Message of the Sermon on the Mount. P. 149
2 Darrel W.
Johnson, Fifty Seven Words that Change the World. p. 87