Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
This morning, we are, beginning, or, we are continuing our study on the Lord's Prayer by looking at forgiveness. All of us here can likely agree that forgiveness is at the very heart of Christianity. We believe that we have sinned against God and that we need His forgiveness, and that we in turn also need to forgive others, those who have wronged us. It's it's one of the most basic principles of Christianity. Yet, I have found that many Christians struggle to define forgiveness, or to tell exactly what forgiveness is supposed to look like in our lives.
Joel Brooks:To demonstrate this, I'm gonna give a number of statements about forgiveness, and I want you to decide if you agree or you disagree with these statements. This is what I did at the, the dinner table with my kids the other night. It's one of the privileges of being a pastor's child, is they, they have to hear all of my sermon material ahead of time. But I would say a statement and say, could a forgiving person say this or not? So here we go.
Joel Brooks:Just because I forgive you, doesn't mean I have to like you. I'm not gonna make you raise your hand and say yes or no. A forgiving person will say this, but internally, I want you to say, yeah, no, no, yes, no. I forgive you, but I'm still angry with you. Yes, I forgive you, but you still owe me.
Joel Brooks:I know that God has forgiven me, but I need to learn to forgive myself. Forgiving you is going to take some time. I'll forgive you, but that doesn't mean I will forget. If you do this for me, then I'll forgive you. 1 must be repentant before one can be forgiven.
Joel Brooks:Or one is forgiven in order to bring about repentance. Once again, our family discussed all of these things around the dinner table. And I did make each one of them vote. And surprise surprise, we did not agree on any of them. They they were all there was always a nuance to to one of these statements.
Joel Brooks:It led to a great dialogue. At least, I appreciated it. You'll have to ask my teenage daughters later. But what we realize is, for as much as we talk about forgiveness as Christians, it's actually a little hard to define what it looks like. Now for us as Christians, I will say this at the start.
Joel Brooks:We have to go to the cross. The death and the resurrection of Jesus, it is where we get our understanding for forgiveness and where we get our under our understanding of forgiveness and our motivation for forgiveness. And that's true of all of Jesus' teachings. Jesus' teachings will not make sense apart from His death and His resurrection. For you to love your enemies, forgive your enemies, to bless those who persecute you, to turn the other cheek, those things might be really bad ideas apart from the resurrection of Christ.
Joel Brooks:Apart from his promise of your resurrection. Because if you bless your enemies, if you turn the other cheek, you very well might be killed. It only makes sense to obey those things in light of the resurrection. It only makes sense to forgive others in light of the death and the resurrection of Christ. And so I wanna go ahead and say that at the start.
Joel Brooks:And now typically what we've done, at the beginning of each week is we have prayed the Lord's Prayer together, but I want us to do something a little different this week. I'm actually going to read you from Matthew's version of the Lord's Prayer, and then I will pray for us, and we'll look at what Jesus has to teach us about forgiveness. But our text this morning is from Matthew chapter 6, beginning in verse 9. Pray then like this, our father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Joel Brooks:Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. 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. This is the word of the Lord.
Joel Brooks:Please pray with me. Father, in this moment through Your Spirit, would You just show us the magnitude of Your forgiveness? Lord, would it permeate into the deepest part of our beings? Would it flood our souls and then may that forgiveness spill out into others. May we be a forgiving people.
Joel Brooks:I ask that in this moment, my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But, Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. So apart from a Tom Cruise movie, have you ever seen a grown man running in public?
Joel Brooks:And I'm not talking about like a sports event, you know, or or at the gym, or anything like that, but actually seen a man wearing some business attire, wearing a suit, just running full throttle as fast as he can. It'll catch your attention. It's a disconcerting sight actually to see that. Because you immediately, you know something's wrong. Either the person is, you know, running from an accident, or to help somebody in an accident, or perhaps they're trying to catch a taxi, or maybe the the plane is about to take off and they're trying to get to the gate in time.
Joel Brooks:But it's not a normal thing to see grown men dressed for work, running as fast as they can. This was it's true in our day. It's equally true in Jesus' day. Yet when Jesus taught us what God's forgiveness of us looks like, He said, I want you to picture a grown man running. Picture a dignified man, a father in wearing a robe.
Joel Brooks:And I want you to picture that man. He's scanning the horizon, just trying to find the the first glimpse of his prodigal son returning home. And the moment he sees just the the faintest silhouette against the horizon of his son, he he lifts up his robe so he can run, and he takes off as fast as he can running towards his child. And when he gets to his child, he embraces him, he kisses him, he forgives him. All the father needed was just the glimpse of His son's return, and that was enough to set him off running.
Joel Brooks:And when Jesus taught us to pray, forgive us our trespasses, he said, don't ever forget that you're praying to your father who delights in running to you. We don't go to God groveling. We don't go to him offering to pay a pittance, all in hopes that he might not punish us. All, You know, thinking, if I show just enough remorse, maybe I could get back on His good side. Maybe He'll warm up to me again.
Joel Brooks:No. We have a father who sets off running towards us because He delights to forgive. When Jesus taught us to pray for forgiveness, He did not teach us to pray, our judge who art in heaven. Instead, we pray to our father. Make no mistake, God is your judge.
Joel Brooks:But if you only think of God as your judge, then your relationship with Him is gonna be pretty sterile. You're gonna relate to Him only in terms of whether you are guilty or innocent. Are you righteous or unrighteous? Have you been declared innocent or are you still guilty? Justified or not justified?
Joel Brooks:And these are not the ingredients of a warm relationship. But when we go to Him as our Father, this means that we know we are 100% secure, even though we have sinned. We know that we are unconditionally loved. We are completely safe in His arms because He delights to forgive His children. My my love for my daughters is unconditional.
Joel Brooks:I love them with the most fierce and loyal love you can imagine. I would not hesitate to lay down my life for them. But it might surprise you if you know them, that there's occasionally, on rare rare occasions, they do things that displease me. I mean, we can have a, you know, a car ride, and it's just, you know, it's peaceful, it's joyful, there's lots of laughing, and then something can be said. And then instantly, there's tension.
Joel Brooks:Instantly, we could tell there's a brokenness in the relationship. No longer is it life giving, but we're kind of on edge. But I'll tell you this, the moment my daughters ask for forgiveness, I leap for it. Because I want that restored. That's why we ask God for forgiveness.
Joel Brooks:When we ask our Father for forgiveness, we're not asking in order to become his child. We're asking because we are his child. We don't ever ever ask, Father, will you forgive me so I can become part of your family? It's because we are family. That we want forgiveness.
Joel Brooks:Because we want that life giving joyful relationship restored when we have done something wrong against our Father. It grieves us to hurt Him. And so when we ask for forgiveness, like any good Father though, He jumps at it, He runs to us. He doesn't hold a grudge. He doesn't say, well, just give me some time to warm back up to you.
Joel Brooks:He runs. Now it's likely that many of us, if not most of us in here, we actually don't have a problem with the first part of this petition. Father, forgive us our trespasses. I mean, we ask God for forgiveness all the time. It's the second part of this petition that we kinda struggle with.
Joel Brooks:As we forgive those who trespass against us. Now if you notice, in all the other petitions, Jesus doesn't link it with any kind of action that we are supposed to be doing. He did not say, you know, we need to pray, father, give us this day our daily bread as I give daily bread to others who are in need. We don't find that, but we find that about forgiveness. That's how important forgiveness is.
Joel Brooks:As a matter of fact, in Matthew's account of the Lord's prayer, Jesus actually adds an addendum or a little footnote almost if you will. So at the end of the prayer about forgiveness. Not about any of the other things, but about forgiveness. And he says, 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.
Joel Brooks:God forgives us. We in turn forgive others. And not just that. If we've refused to forgive others, God will not forgive us. Jesus here is is not abandoning grace.
Joel Brooks:He's he's not here presenting, you know, salvation by works, some works based righteousness here. Once again, we're already praying to him as father. We are already his child. But what he is saying is that forgiven people forgive. A heart that seeks vengeance on another person is not a heart that has experienced the forgiveness of God.
Joel Brooks:Because we're family, we are his child, we begin to take on a family resemblance. He's a forgiver. We become a forgiver. So the question is this, are you a forgiving person? Not a rhetorical question.
Joel Brooks:I know a lot of times as Christians, like box check. No. Are you a forgiving person? You know, one of the litmus test for that, whether you're a forgiving person or not, is are you living a life that is becoming increasingly isolated from others? Isolated not just physically, but isolated emotionally.
Joel Brooks:If you're isolating yourself from others, this likely is not due to you being an introvert. It's likely not due to you, just being too busy, no longer having the time to spend with people. It's likely because you struggle to forgive. You're allowing those little wrongs done to you. Those little slights.
Joel Brooks:Those little you know, social media posts that seem like a little jab at you. You're allowing those things to grow into relational barriers. And they isolate you from others. Even isolating you from people who used to be dear dear friends. Forgiveness is the ingredient that's necessary for any relationship that involves sinners.
Joel Brooks:For those of you who are married, hear me. There will be no intimacy in your marriage apart from forgiveness. If you want to keep friends for the long haul, not just for a few weeks or even a few years, but for decades, you have to learn to forgive one another. If you want to spend time with your extended family, more than once or twice a year, you're gonna have to learn to forgive them. If you want to enjoy your neighbor or you want to enjoy being part of a church, you can't just bolt when you're sinned against.
Joel Brooks:You have to learn both to give and to receive forgiveness. So what is forgiveness? How exactly will we define it? Well, I'm gonna give you a definition of forgiveness. There's many facets of it, and I'll probably give you some other definitions a little bit later.
Joel Brooks:But we're gonna start with this. Forgiveness is replacing your anger with a desire for the other person's good. Forgiveness is replacing your anger with a desire for the other person's good. It does not necessarily mean that, you don't desire justice to be done. It does not mean that if you are in an abusive relationship, you should stay in that relationship or you shouldn't call the cops.
Joel Brooks:You probably should. It means this though, that your anger towards the person who has wronged you is gone. You refuse to act on that. You you hand that anger over to Jesus and you will not seek vengeance and you truly desire what is best for that person. That's forgiveness.
Joel Brooks:Forgiven people forgive. Now, if you've really been sinned against, I mean not just a little slight or a little insult, but I mean, you have truly been sinned against, will it be hard to forgive this person? No. It will be impossible. It will be impossible apart from God.
Joel Brooks:Forgiveness is not hard. Forgiveness is impossible apart from God. Forgiveness is the most godlike thing we can do. We we serve a God who instead of seeking vengeance for our sins, He chose to suffer and die on the cross and say, Father forgive them of their sins. We read in Romans that while we were enemies with God, He reconciled us to Himself.
Joel Brooks:That's why when we forgive others, it's the most God like thing we could do. It points people to the cross. So when we don't lash out at others who have wronged us, but instead, we suffer internally and we forgive them. We point to Christ as the most godlike thing we could do. Is this hard?
Joel Brooks:No. It's impossible apart from God. My old preaching professor, Doctor Robert Smith is the one who taught me that. 13 years ago, October 30th, 2010, 4 young men went into a convenience store where doctor Smith's son, Tony, was working and they robbed the place. They had already stolen money from the safe and then they had gone up to the cash register, which is where Tony was working and demanded money.
Joel Brooks:He was so scared, his hands were trembling and he couldn't get it open. So they shot him, killed him. They caught the person who did this. He was a 17 year old boy. Doctor Smith said when he when he heard the news about this, so it was the darkest day of his life and he had been through some dark days.
Joel Brooks:He'd already lost his first wife to cancer, but there was something about losing a child. But when this young man was tried and convicted and put in jail, the Lord told doctor Smith he needed to forgive this person. He needed to write him a letter of forgiveness. He said it wasn't hard. It was impossible apart from God.
Joel Brooks:So he wrote them and he heard nothing for 3 years. But 3 years later, he got a letter back from this young man and I'm gonna read you part of this letter. Says, dear mister Smith, let me say that I am truly sorry for your loss. I really am. Also, I hope that this is really you that I'm writing to because I have received a lot of threat mail from your family members and from your friends.
Joel Brooks:That's why I never wrote back. But today, I thought I should give it a try because I really do wanna talk to you. I've been locked up for 3 years now and it's been the worst 3 years of my life. I don't think I will make it much longer. You know, I actually grew up in church my whole life.
Joel Brooks:I just hung out with the wrong crowd that night. I'm so sorry. You probably even know my pastor. I hope to hear from you very, very soon. Thank you for forgiving me.
Joel Brooks:And will you please keep praying for me? This is getting too hard for me to bear, and sometimes I feel like giving up. Doctor Smith said he would keep writing letters. He has kept writing letters and visiting this man to this day. If you were to ask him about this, he'd tell you it has been painfully good for his soul.
Joel Brooks:It's kinda like pouring alcohol in an open wound. It's like you need it to clean it out, but it hurts. But it's driven him back over and over again to the gospel that he believes, where he remembers another father who lost his son because of him. It was his his sins. His sins were the reason that Jesus died.
Joel Brooks:And He said, every time he kept forgiving this young man of his sins, he was reminded of the gospel that he believes. He's reminded that his own forgiveness was costly, but God forgave him and so he should forgive others. Forgiving people forgive. It's kind of a beautiful thing that, I heard him recently say, but there there's actually a a scholarship that's been set up at Beeson Divinity School in honor of Tony, doctor Smith's son. And he has hoped and he has prayed that someday his son's murderer will get freed and get to apply for that scholarship.
Joel Brooks:How beautiful would that be? It's the gospel. So this is the picture we have of what forgiveness is. Is it costly? Yes.
Joel Brooks:Very costly. It's impossible apart from God. But besides the cross, Jesus did give us another picture of what forgiveness should look like, and what it looked like in our lives, and what it's gonna look like when we offer forgiveness to others. And we find this picture in Matthew 18. I have that text there in your worship guide, if you wanna look at it.
Joel Brooks:And this is really Jesus unpacking more about what he says in the Lord's Prayer. I'll begin reading in verse 23. Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servant. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold with his wife and children and all that he had, and payments to be made.
Joel Brooks:So the servant fell on his knees imploring him, have patience with me and I will pay you everything. And out of pity for him, the master of the servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a 100 denarii. And seizing him, he began to choke him. Saying, pay what you owe.
Joel Brooks:So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, have patience with me and I will pay you. He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. And when his fellow servants saw that what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, you wicked servant. I forgave you all that debt because he pleaded with me.
Joel Brooks:And should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you? And in anger, his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. I like this illustration because, Jesus here, he talks about forgiveness in terms of forgiving a debt, which is the language used in Matthew 6. You know, there's always that awkward part whenever you're saying the Lord's Prayer in a public setting, which you say it all the time now.
Joel Brooks:It could be at a football game. Whatever. You say the Lord's prayer. But there's that awkward moment when you say, and forgive us our and you're kinda like, which ways are they gonna lean? Is this forgive us our sins as we forgive those who've sinned against us?
Joel Brooks:Is this forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us? Or is this forgive us our debts? Different traditions say different things. And we land on trespasses typically. That comes from the book of common prayer.
Joel Brooks:It's also from Luke's version of the Lord's prayer. Matthew's version uses the word debts. Sin is not found anywhere. It's like it's the compromise between the 2. But I like this word, debt.
Joel Brooks:Because of our sin, there is a debt that we owe God. And here in this parable, Jesus, He's unpacking what this debt looks like. And it is a debt that we can never never never pay back. Do you know how much money 10,000 talents is? You probably have like, you know, those of you every like Bible's like a super fancy edition now.
Joel Brooks:Probably has a footnote that tells you, but it's in today's dollars, it is 300,000,000,000 to $1,000,000,000,000 It's an absurd number. It's shocking. Jesus gave that number to completely shock people so their jaws would drop. No one owes that amount of money, but he says, yes that's exactly how much you owe God. That's your debt.
Joel Brooks:It's unfathomable. Now, when his servant is told that he has to pay this up, notice that he doesn't plead for forgiveness. He actually ask for more time. He thinks he could pay back the debt. You can't pay back that debt.
Joel Brooks:That's the entire point of this. And some of us are thinking, oh, I could pay God back. You know, I could give him a little penance here. I I can do some right things. Certainly, I can make up the difference.
Joel Brooks:I can make things right with us and God's saying, no, you can't. That is delusional thinking. Do you know how much you owe your Creator? He's given you life. He's given you your next breath.
Joel Brooks:You owe Him everything. Yet from your earliest moments, you have rebelled against him. The debt is way too large for you. The only option that the king has is well, just throw him in prison. But he doesn't do that.
Joel Brooks:Instead, he forgives the servant of his debts. Meaning, the king lost a $1,000,000,000,000. Absorbing what this servant owed him. Now let me ask you this question. When you think of Jesus dying on the cross for your sins, How great was your debt and how much did he pay?
Joel Brooks:What was the percentage of your sin that he paid for? Did he pay for half of your sin and he expects you to make up the difference? Did he pay for 90% of your sin? Did He pay for 99% of your sin and you just have to pay that 1% back, you know, through all of your good works, you gotta do enough of those good works but you only owe 1%. Is that what you think?
Joel Brooks:Do you know what 1% of a $1,000,000,000,000 is? I had to check my math multiple times because I'm terrible at this. It's $10,000,000,000 You you can't pay back even the smallest fraction for your sins. That's why Jesus paid it all. You cannot pay back all of the debt that you owe to your creator.
Joel Brooks:So how does this servant here respond to such unbelievable forgiveness? Well, he responds this way. He immediately leaves the king's presence. He goes to someone who owes him some money and demands payment. And this man just owes him a 100 denarii.
Joel Brooks:It's about $3,000. Not insignificant, but it is point 0003 percent of what he has been forgiven. And yet, he refuses to let it go. He won't forgive the man his debt. He throws the man in prison.
Joel Brooks:Even though that man pleaded for forgiveness, he received none. And when the king found out about this, he called his servant back into his presence. He's like, how could you do this? Do you have any idea how much it costs me to forgive you? How great of a debt I just wipe clean?
Joel Brooks:You obviously don't. So the king throws him into prison because the man did not understand that forgiven people forgive. So in this parable that Jesus gives, He unpacks what forgiveness looks like. And it's this, being forgiven is being set free. Being forgiven is being set free.
Joel Brooks:Being forgiven is having all your debts removed is being given a clean slate. That's forgiveness. That's what Jesus gave us on the cross. Clean slate. 100% paid for.
Joel Brooks:Now being forgiving is the opposite of being forgiven. To forgive another person means that you absorb the debt. You pay the debt that someone owes you. And it will cost you. Once again, it's not hard.
Joel Brooks:It's impossible apart from God. This is where the cross and resurrection have to be central when you're thinking about forgiveness because you will not want to forgive otherwise. Forgiveness is costly. Now forgiving someone of a monetary debt is a lot easier than forgiving someone of an emotional debt that they owe you. You know, if someone sins against you by maybe publicly humiliating you or being dismissive of you, what's what do you wanna do right back?
Joel Brooks:Humiliate them right back. You wanna insult them publicly as a way of making things even, as a way of balancing the ledger. They need to pay for their sins. It's a very natural response to do that. In many ways, it's a very just response.
Joel Brooks:You're demanding payment for what they did that was wrong. That's just. It needs to be punished, their sin. Or what if somebody sends against you this way? What if, you know, one of your friends, they have a dinner party and they didn't invite you.
Joel Brooks:Well, it's not like you wanted to go to the party anyway, but it hurt that you weren't invited. So what are you gonna do? You're gonna make them pay. How do you make them pay? Well, you'll probably have a party and not invite them.
Joel Brooks:Or you'll probably give them the cold shoulder next time you see them. There's a million different ways you can make that person owe the debt, Pay back the debt that they owe you. And we make people pay for their sins all the time in all sorts of ways. But forgiveness is when we refuse to do that. When we don't lash out at others who deserve it.
Joel Brooks:When we don't give someone the cold shoulder when they're unkind to us. When we don't criticize or try to shame someone when they have embarrassed us. Forgiveness is about absorbing that debt and paying it ourselves. And can I tell you the greater the transgression against you, the more it's gonna hurt? Forgiveness hurts because you're absorbing a whole lot of punishment you'd like to dish out.
Joel Brooks:Once again, a lot of Jesus' teachings don't make sense apart from the death and resurrection and the hope of our resurrection. Turning the other cheek hurts. It could even cost you your life, but we have the promise of resurrection. That's why when we forgive, it's the most godlike thing we could do. It points straight to the gospel.
Joel Brooks:The gospel is this, Jesus taking the incomprehensible debt that we owe. And instead of making us pay him, he absorbs it and he pays it himself. This is forgiveness and when we forgive, it's the most godlike thing we can do. Once again, this does not mean you do not pray for justice. It doesn't mean that you are not gonna remove yourself from an abusive relationship.
Joel Brooks:Staying in that relationship and allowing a person to keep doing those horrible things to you is not showing love to that person by allowing them to continue in that type of sin. What forgiveness does though, it means you lay your anger down at the feet of Jesus. You lay it down and say, I choose love over vengeance. And I truly want what is best for the person who's doing wrong to me. Is that hard?
Joel Brooks:No. It is impossible apart from God. But when the forgiveness of our king penetrates our hearts, we cannot help but be a forgiving people. When we forgive the when we realize the trillion sins that have been forgiven, it becomes a whole lot easier to forgive the sins that were done against us. Pray with me, church.
Joel Brooks:Father, once again, we ask that through your spirit, you would show us the magnitude of our sins, the debt that we can never ever ever pay back. And your extraordinary costly generosity of forgiveness to us. And may that forgiveness overflow from our hearts into those around us. May we forgive others as you have forgiven us. And we pray this all in the sweet name of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Amen.