SERIES: Living through the Lord’s Prayer (6) “Forgiveness”

Matthew 6:12

1. when our family went to Europe 5 years ago we visited the Corrie Ten Boom House in Haarlem, Holland, about 60 minutes from Amsterdam. The family ran a watch business on the 1st floor & lived in rooms above the shop.

The Ten Boom family were devoted Christians. During WWII their home became a hiding place for Jews & others hunted by the Nazis. Corrie, her father Casper, and her sister Betsie risked their lives in this act of non-violent resistance. They saved the lives of over 800 Jews from the Nazi holocaust.

On February 28, 1944 the Gestapo raided their home. Casper, Corrie & Betsie were arrested. 6 people escaped detection. They were hiding behind a false wall that had been built in Corrie’s bedroom - the hiding place.

Casper (84) died 10 days later in prison. Corrie & Betsie spent 10 months in 3 different prisons. Their last stop was the infamous Ravensbruck Concentration Camp located outside of Berlin where Betsie died but Corrie survived.

At age 53 Corrie Ten Boom began a world-wide ministry that took her into more than 60 countries in the next 33 years. Forgiveness was one of her messages – God will give us the love to be able to forgive our enemies.

2. after the war at one of her speaking engagements she looked out into the crowd & saw the face of a woman guard who mistreated her in prison. She was immediately filled with anger & hate. She prayed to God for strength to forgive this lady. Then she went up, introduced herself, and forgave her tormentor.
3. in my 25 years of pastoral counseling I’ve learned that few things are more critical to healthy relationships than forgiveness. We can’t live without forgiveness.

forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors
1. the words forgive & debts are used twice. Both words come from the business world. They are not religious words. They are found in a MBA textbook NOT a seminary lecture.

2. Debt is something that is owed or due to someone. In its narrowest sense the word refers to a financial debt. I am thousands of dollars in debt to Wells Fargo Bank for the mortgage on our house. I owe them money.

3. forgive means to cancel the debt; to wipe the slate clean. Forgive means receiving a letter from the Wells Fargo mortgage division informing me that out of the goodness of their heart they have canceled my debt. Fat chance!

4. Jesus brilliantly takes these 2 words and gives them a new meaning. He turns marketplace words into kingdom of God words. The debt owed is not money. The debt owed is spiritual & moral. All of us carry a spiritual & moral mortgage on our lives. The question becomes – who are we in debt to?

who are we in debt to?
1. one of the early church fathers helps us here. Origen is his name. He lived from A.D. 185-254. He wrote about the 3-fold nature of our debt.

2. 1st the debt we owe to others – to love our neighbor as ourself, parents, poor, those in authority.

3. 2nd the debt we owe to ourselves – to care for our bodies as the temple of God, to not abuse our bodies, to grow our minds, to watch over our souls

4. 3rd the debt we owe to God – to love him with our heart soul mind will strength, to serve him, to trust him with our needs & worries

5. the bad news is that we have failed to pay these debts to God, others, self. In fact, we don’t have the moral or spiritual capital to make our payments. We are in serious trouble. We have run out of favors. We have extended our loans as long as possible. In reality, we face foreclosure. We are spiritually bankrupt.

6. all we can do is pray AND pray is the best that we can do. Father in heaven, Creator & Judge, forgive us our debts, cancel our debts, all of them. The debts we owe to you, to others, to ourselves. Please cancel them, all of them.

7. how does this work?

ephesians 4:32
1. here we are commanded to be kind, to be compassionate & to be forgiving to one another. Kindness, compassion & forgiveness are the lubricants of human relationships. They overcome our abrasiveness & selfishness.

2. the most important phrase in the sentence comes next – just as. Kindness, compassion & forgiveness are not exercised in a vacuum. Paul doesn’t just pull them out of thin air. They have a context. And the context is the life of God himself.

3. just as in Christ God forgave you. This is a reference to the cross of Jesus Christ. God sent his Son Jesus Christ to die for our sins – our spiritual & moral bankruptcy – and to rescue us from the punishment that our sins deserve.

4. on the cross Jesus applied the sinless perfect spiritual capital of his life to pay off our debts. Debts owed to God, to others, to self.

5. the One who teaches us to pray Father, forgive us our debts is the one who takes our debts upon himself, goes to the cross & dies to wipe the slate clean. The moral/spiritual mortgage on our lives has been forgiven.

6. out of the kindness of God, the compassion of God & the forgiving heart of God. To be kind, to be compassionate, to be forgiving is to be God-like. Which is what Corrie Ten Boom was to the guard who used to persecute her in prison.

the movement of forgiveness
1. the 1st movement is God to us. Just as in Christ God forgave you. The Bible calls this salvation or the gospel or entering the kingdom of God.

2. we admit that we are spiritually & morally bankrupt. That we can’t pay off our debts. That we’ve run out of personal capital. That our lives are being foreclosed upon.

3. and then we cast our eyes upon Jesus, the Divine loan officer who comes seeking us. And he offers to pay off our debt by the funds of his own life. He applies his assets of righteousness & perfection to us.

4. we say ‘yes’ to Jesus for the canceling of our debts. We call him King Jesus. We invite him into our lives. We let him set up his office in every room in the house of our lives. He buys us with the price of his shed blood on the cross. He liquidates our debts.

5. this is the 1st movement of forgiveness. God to us. The 2nd movement is us to others. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other. As we have been forgiven, so we forgive. As the grace of Jesus has come to us, so we extend that grace to others. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

6. the forgiven become the forgiving. John Stott – forgiving others doesn’t earn us forgiveness. God forgives the penitent. And 1 of the chief evidences of true penitence is a forgiving spirit.

7. not long before she died in 1988, in a moment of surprising candor on television, Marghanita Laski, a well-known secular humanist and novelist, said, 'What I envy most about you Christians is your forgiveness; I have nobody to forgive me."

8. If our greatest need had been information, God would have sent us an educator; If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist; If our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us an economist; If our greatest need had been pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer; If our greatest need had been medical, God would have sent us a doctor; If our greatest need had been food, God would have sent us a farmer; But our greatest need was forgiveness, so God sent us a Savior.

questions
1. have you been forgiven for salvation? This is saying ‘yes’ to Jesus as your Savior. Asking him to forgive ALL your sins. Inviting him into your life. Becoming a Christ-follower.

2. have you been forgiven for your daily sins? Once we say ‘yes’ to Jesus for salvation, then every day we need to examine our lives, confess our sins, & keep an up-to-date relationship with him. I John 1:9.

3. who do you need to forgive? To be forgiven is to forgive others. Is there someone in your life that you need to forgive today? Maybe you need to forgive yourself for something in your past.

4. we can’t live without being forgiven & forgiving others.
Music i listened to while sermonizing – jon buller; bruce springsteen; harry nilsson; chris tomlin; david crowder band; chris hall; matt redman

Books i read & studied while sermonizing – the hiding place by corrie ten boom; suffering & the sovereignty of God by john piper; the message of the sermon on the mount by john stott; studies in the sermon on the mount by martyn lloyd-jones; a passion for God: the spiritual journey of aw tozer by lyle dorsett; the shack by william p. young