Forgive Us Our Debts (Mat 6.12, 14-15)

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Podcast intro

This particular sermon is entitled “Forgive Us Our Debts,” and as the title suggests, it concerns the petition in the Lord’s Prayer where Jesus teaches us to ask the Father to “forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors.”  If you are like me, that petition causes a cluster of questions to pop up in your mind.  And if it doesn’t, then Jesus’ commentary immediately after the Lord’s Prayer surely will.  For Jesus explains that if we do not forgive those who have trespassed against us, neither will the Father forgive us our trespasses against him (Mat 6.14-15).  Why does Jesus link our forgiveness to our forgiving of others?  Is forgiving others some sort of work by which we must earn our own forgiveness?  Is it some sort of ritual act we must do to qualify for forgiveness?  Is unforgiveness of others the unforgivable sin?  If not, isn’t it covered by the cross of Christ like other sins?  And while we are at it, why do we need to ask for forgiveness at all if we have already been forgiven in Christ?  Aren’t all our sins, past, present, and future, covered in Christ?  And why does Jesus refer to our sins as debts?  The answers to those questions are as surprising as they are profound.  To hear them, you will have to listen to the sermon.  I hope you enjoy it.  Thanks for listening.  –Alan Burrow

Discussion questions

1. In the sermon, Pastor Burrow said:

Jesus is not talking about forgiving others as a means of earning or qualifying for our own forgiveness. He is talking about being like the Father into whose family we have been adopted. (Mat 5.45, 48; Gal 4.4-6; 2Pet 1.4.) The head of this family is one who has gone to great lengths to forgive, even though he has never needed forgiveness. Thus while this is the family of those who have been forgiven (for all the children, save one, have been forgiven), it is even more fundamentally the family of those who forgive. Being forgiven does not make us like God; forgiving does. When we do not forgive others, we are saying we do not want to be like the Father, which is another way of saying we do not want to be part of his family.

Does this help you see forgiving others is a different light? How so? Does this make it easier for you to forgive? How so?

2. Paul says that as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, we are to clothe ourselves with special clothing. What are we supposed to clothe ourselves with? (Col 3.12.) If we wear these clothes, how will we behave toward one another? (Col 3.13.) Paul expands the concept of forgiving one another in two directions: (1) he expands forgiving to include “bearing with one another,” and (2) he expands what we forgive to include “complaint[s]” against one another. How do these two expansions affect your concept of forgiving in the local body of Christ? Based on Paul’s two expansions, does your self-evaluation of how forgiving you are go up or down? Going back to Paul’s list of attitudes we are to clothe ourselves with, how will each of these help us bear with those in the body we have complaints against? Do you think maybe we each need to re-evaluate our complaints? Do you think sometimes our complaints tell us more about ourselves than those we have complaints against?