The Lord's Prayer: Debts/Debtors and the Power of Forgiveness (Matthew 6.9-12)
This sermon was preached on August 4th, 2024.
A mountain climber is climbing alone and slips. At just the last moment he reaches out and grabs one small branch growing of from the side of the ledge, far above the ground. He cries out to God for help, and God replies “Just let go. Trust me, it will be okay."
The man looks at the branch, looks down at the ground, and responds “um…is there anyone else up there who can help me?”
We know what this feels like. Maybe not because we're holding onto a branch on the side of a mountain and can only see the fall. But when we read Jesus say things like the passage the opened our worship service today: that I should forgive someone who sins against me seventy times seven? Um…is there anyone else up there who can help me?
This morning we're looking at one of the most difficult things that Jesus teaches us to pray in the Lord’s prayer—forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Which is difficult to pray for two reasons: 1) to pray for forgiveness is to admit that we need forgiveness 2) to pray that the our forgiveness of others matches God's forgiveness of us. We’ll look at both of them
Forgive Us Our Debts
You may have heard the Lord’s prayer with the word “trespasses” or “sins.” But the word there in the Greek is one that specifically carries the idea of a state of owing something. An obligation. It’s an economic term of someone needing to do something to make things right.
This tells us something important about how Jesus saw sin and its effects. The reality of sin is one that puts us in a state of obligation. There is a record that has to be dealt with that cannot be ignored. And sin is the worst kind of debt, because we have no way to pay it. There is no currency we can offer to take care of the debt.
There’s been a whole lot of talk the last few years about debt, particularly student loan debt. I saw someone making a joke once, proposing a solution—let’s take all that student loan debt, all however-many-trillion dollars of it, and transfer it to one guy. He’ll be the one that owes it and everyone else doesn’t have to worry about it anymore.
It was a joke, but a joke that pointed to the great reality of the gospel. That is exactly what has happened to our sin debt. It was removed from us and placed on Jesus who bore it. God moved heaven and earth, literally, to remove every obstacle that stood in the way of you finding forgiveness, and he did all of it with eyes wipe open.
You are a sinner. Welcome to the club. I am too. I'm the worst one I know. And I need forgiveness. I need his grace like I need oxygen to keep breathing. I’m lost without it. And this thing that I desperately need, that I cannot find or earn in any way, is given to me as a free gift.
But here's the thing about the forgiveness that God gives us. It isn't the forgiveness we would give ourselves, or others. We don’t really forgive. We harbor resentments. Even when we work at forgiveness, we kind of do like having something to hang over somebody else, even if we never say it out loud. Or worse, we never forgive ourselves. We live lives of regret and shame.
Yet God’s forgiveness that is full and complete! It’s why Scripture speaks of God removing our sin from us 'as far as the east is from the west,’ or even speaks of him stomping on our sins underfoot and hurling them into the depths of the sea. Your sin debt is eradicated by the work of Jesus, and God isn't saving it for later to bring it out and hang it over your head.
Your sin runs deep? His grace is deeper still. His love for you has no limit. We are beggars telling other beggars where to find bread. I’m one sinner who is telling a room full of sinners that God is real, that if you go to him with your worst he won’t be angry with you. He’ll love you. Go to him dirty. Go to him filthy with your worst sins, not trying to cover them up. And you’ll find in God a Father that will scoop you up to embrace you and wash you clean with a cleansing stronger than your worst dirt. Find his full and complete forgiveness by faith and faith alone.
As We Forgive Our Debtors
His forgiveness full and complete in another way too: it unites us to others, which is the only way that we as human beings can truly heal and be complete. We are made for community and friendship. And the reality of sin has destroyed this. But in his forgiveness of us, Jesus plunges us into grace. Jesus didn’t die a bunch of different times for each of us. The forgiveness God brings to us is one that Jesus accomplished all at one time, meaning the way and the moment of your forgiveness is the same as mine and everyone else who comes to God for forgiveness.
He had to reach no further to find and rescue you than he did me or anyone else. I heard a story years ago from a friend who is a pastor. He had a married couple who had come to faith in Jesus, both of whom came from a long history of bad decisions. But recently something had come to light from the wife's past that the husband was struggling to come to terms with. He couldn't forgive her. When she was younger she had been a part of a pornographic movie. She hadn't thought about it for a long time, but it suddenly popped back up.
Her husband was struggling. He had a long past of his own, I’m sure stuff he hadn't told her or had forgotten about himself. But he was holding this against her. My friend asked the husband: “did Jesus have to suffer longer for your sin than he did hers? Did he have to do something extra to save her than he had to do to save you? Then you have to leave your high horse. There’s no favorites among God’s children.”
So we are led by our Father to copy him in forgiveness. We are empowered to forgive by his forgiveness, and his forgiveness sets us on a pathway to forgive. We are forgiven to forgive. And the truth is that it is only those who have a deep sense of their own forgiveness that are able to truly forgive others.
I can’t help but think of the Mother Emmanuel church massacre that happened in Charleston, SC. You may remember it—in the summer of 2015 a 21 year old white man walked into a bible study at Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston—a predominately black church that was founded in 1817. Including him, there were 13 people there, a small group gathering on a Monday night to study Scripture and pray together.
During the Bible study the young man, named Dylan Roof, participated in the discussion, disagreeing on a few points. At the end of the time, the group stood up to pray together and when they began to pray, he pulled out a gun, aiming it at an 87 year old woman named Susie Jackson. When someone in the group tried to talk him down and asked him why he was doing what he was doing, he said "I have to do it. You rape our women and you're taking over our country. And you have to go."
He began shooting, yelling racial slurs and saying: “Y'all want something to pray about? I'll give you something to pray about.” Over the next six minutes he shot and shot and shot, stopping to reload his gun five times.
Eventually he was arrested and, as far as I know, to this day has shown no remorse. Six weeks after his arrest he said this: "I would like to make it crystal clear, I do not regret what I did. I am not sorry. I have not shed a tear for the innocent people I killed.”
I hate this story for so many reasons, but I’m telling it this morning because of what happened in the aftermath. Only 48 hours after the event, the loved ones of the victims were able to speak at the bond hearing. It was the first time any of them would come face to face with him, and they were invited to make a statement if they wanted.
First up was Nadine Collier, who lost her mother Ethel Lance. Through tears she said this: "I forgive you ... You took something really precious from me. I will never talk to her ever again, I will never be able to hold her again, but I forgive you and have mercy on your soul.”
Alanna Simmons, the granddaughter of 74-year-old retired pastor Daniel Simmons, stood after Sanders. “Although my grandfather and the other victims died at the hands of hate, [forgiveness] is proof that they lived and loved,” she said. “Hate won’t win.”
Then Felicia Sanders, whose son Tywanza Sanders was killed trying to shield his great aunt from the gunfire, said this: “We welcomed you Wednesday night in our Bible study with open arms. You have killed some of the most beautiful people that I know. Every fiber in my body hurts. I will never be the same. [My son] was my hero. But as they say in the Bible study, we enjoyed you. May God have mercy on your soul.”
Finally Anthony Thompson, grandson of Myra Thompson, said this: “We would like you to take this opportunity to repent. Repent. Confess. Give your life to the one who matters the most, Christ, so he can change your ways no matter what happens to you and you’ll be OK.”
Another survivor reflected later: "After seeing what happened and the reason why it happened, and after seeing how people could forgive, I truly hope that people will see that it wasn't just us saying words," Singleton says. "I know, for a fact, that it was something greater than us, using us to bring our city together.” Dylan Roof had set out to start a race war, hoping that his actions would inspire violence and the destruction of the Black community. But his intentions and violence stopped with him because of the power of forgiveness.
And how could they forgive? Only because their hearts were captured, seized, won to the love of God in Jesus. Because they knew Jesus and they took his words seriously: “forgive us our debtors as we forgive our debtors.”
This is what Jesus teaches us to pray here. To forgive our debts as we forgive others. We ask for the quality of our forgiveness of others to match God’s forgiveness of us: meaning we are asking for God to form our hearts and character to be like him.
But we are not like Jesus in this way—we do not die for other’s forgiveness. That is not what God is asking you to do. There is only one death that can make things right, and it’s not yours. So the call to step into forgiveness is not a call for you to be torn apart. But to enter this circle of forgiveness is to get off our high horse, to toss away our pride.
Of course we forgive with wisdom. Meaning you can forgive someone who has wronged you, but still draw a boundary that protects you. Particularly if you’re forgiving them but they're still refusing to admit they have hurt you.
To forgive is to maybe to eventually forget, if that’s possible. But not necessarily. If you still remember the ways you’ve been wronged, that doesn't mean that you're holding onto bitterness.
But to forgive is to decide that you will not nurse bitterness and resentment. That you will allow yourself to let go of holding them accountable to your for that debt, and entrust it to God’s hands. And in the process, you will set yourself free.
In the series Ted Lasso, which is about a soccer team in England, there’s this incredibly talented player who, as the series goes along, is revealed to have had a terrible relationship with his dad. His dad had berated him his whole life. Yelled at him anytime he’d pass it, any time he missed a shot. And he hated his dad for that—and that hatred had fueled hm for years. But that doesn’t work any more.
His coach says this: “if hating your Pops ain't motivating you like it used to, it might be time to try something different. Forgive him.” The player says “no, I’m not giving him that.” Coach: “Mm-mmm, no. You ain't giving him anything. When you choose to do that, you're giving that to yourself.”
This kind of forgiveness is rarely a one-time event for us, but an ongoing process. And it begins in prayer. Notice that Jesus doesn’t simply say “go forgive people as you’ve forgiven”—he teaches us to pray this. I think it’s because Jesus knows that we can’t do it ourself. We don’t have the resources within to make that kind of forgiveness happen.
But God does. God can do a miraculous work of grace in our hearts. And in praying this we recognize that, and ask him to do exactly that. We ask for nothing from God ourselves that we are not prepared to give to others. And as we ask God—as we pray as Jesus has taught us to pray—God will do this work in us.
Leave revenge behind. Leave that bitterness behind. The need to settle scores. Leave the scales where we weight out our lives and the lives of others. Be free.