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Amber Albee Swenson, one of our Time of Grace writers and bloggers, will help you navigate through some of life’s challenges and struggles by using Scripture and her own experiences of being a mom, wife, speaker, teacher, and forgiven child of God ... Because in God's kingdom, the little things ARE the big things.
We are continuing our series on the Lord's prayer with the 5th petition, which is forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. We are all pretty comfortable with the first part of this petition, not so much maybe with the second part of the petition. Hey. It's Amber. Wife, mother, type a child of god.
Amber:Here at Little Things, we look at everyday issues from a biblical perspective with one simple goal, to know and love God more. Thanks for listening. So we're gonna break down this petition just a little bit as we always do, starting with forgive us. Why does god need to forgive us? Simply put, because we daily sin much.
Amber:We sin in our thoughts, all those times that you are thinking things, whether they come out of your mouth or not. When you're driving and the thought goes through your head, what an idiot. That is a terrible driver. Maybe you don't say anything out loud, but you have just called somebody a name, and you are sitting in your head. Or as you grumble in your head, maybe the words do not come out of your mouth, but you start grumbling.
Amber:You are complaining and sinning rather than praising and thanking God, even if you don't say anything about it. So all the sins that we commit every single day in our head are thoughts, our words. Sometimes we simply sin by what we say. I heard somebody say recently, all I did was say mean things. I didn't hit anybody.
Amber:I didn't cause any bodily harm. Yeah. Words can cause a lot of damage. We can say some pretty nasty things to people. Just with the things that we say, the way we put people down instead of building them up, our tone of voice.
Amber:I've said that for years. If I could just control my tone, things would go so much easier so many times. It's not so much what I'm saying, but the way that I'm saying it sometimes, especially with my family, that gets me into trouble. So our thoughts, our words, and our deeds. And Martin Luther, the theologian who wrote the large catechism that I'm using for reference and context in this, he said, it's not just what we do, but what we fail to do where we sin with our deeds.
Amber:So sometimes we sin by doing things wrong. We absolutely blatantly sin, and we know we have. You know, you move the boundary line between your neighbors. You know, there's a fence there or there's a rock there or there's something that distinguishes. This is where your property ends and mine begins, and you just start to move it over.
Amber:You plant some shrubs just a little beyond your property line. You know you're blatantly doing it, but you don't really care all that much. So sometimes you blatantly sin in what you do, but sometimes we sin by not doing things that we should be doing. When, for instance, you know that your elderly parents need help and you think, well, I'm not gonna do anything. My brother or my sister hasn't really done much lately, so I'm just gonna let them pick up the slack.
Amber:And in the meantime, nobody's helping. You see what needs to be done. You see somebody needing help and you refuse. You turn a blind eye. You don't acknowledge them and you just think, not my problem, is and our actions.
Amber:So where does this bring us? Well, this brings us to the foot of the cross and needing forgiveness. And aren't we thrilled that we receive it? Scripture is just full of promises that our sins are forgiven. I just have a few that I wrote down.
Amber:Psalm 103 says, as far as the east is from the west, so far has God removed our sins. Isaiah 1 verse 18, though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Romans 623, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. So through Jesus' sacrifice, we gratefully receive the forgiveness of our sins. And that is where we would like to have this petition end.
Amber:We are forgiven no matter how much we do wrong every day. God is so gracious. He is so good, and he forgives our many, many sins. That is not where this potential ends, though. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
Amber:God forgives our sins without any expectation on our part, except that we, out of gratefulness for all that he has done for us, not out of obligation, not to earn our way to heaven, but just knowing the many, many sins that God has forgiven us of, he asks us to forgive our neighbor in turn. Whatever. That coworker who grinds you day after day after day, who takes advantage of you, Who knows you're on and so they switch your assignment or they make sure you have the harder things to do, or they say they're doing more than they're doing. Or that neighbor who, you know, likes to party late into the night all summer long. And, you'd like to be in bed, but you've asked them 6 or 7 times if, you know, after 11, they would be kind enough to turn the music down, but they don't they don't care about you.
Amber:Or the other neighbor who yells at you every time you're outside has another complaint. They've looked at your yard or your driveway or something, a tree branch or what have you. And there's always something there's always something that isn't quite right. Your neighbor, your coworker, that person at church who grinds you the wrong way, who seems to notice things and make little comments. Oh, I noticed your daughter didn't get here until the third stanza of the first verse.
Amber:Have you talked to her about being to church on time? I was just thrilled she came. I don't I guess I hadn't. She made it, so I'm feeling pretty good. Or I don't know.
Amber:There's always people who do things, some very minor, not that big of a deal, and some people can really cause a lot of grief in your life. I mean, there are the drunk drivers who kill a member of your family. There are the people who have committed rape against someone you love. There are the people who have stolen things blatantly from you and have not returned them. There are other sins that are, you know, pretty hurtful and God asks us to forgive those.
Amber:That's not to say that we can't put up boundaries. It is to say that the expectation is that we forgive. Now this is the absolute heart of Christianity. Jesus forgives us, and Jesus went through a great deal to make sure we were forgiven. He was sinless.
Amber:He didn't have to do anything for his own sake. He came to earth, kept the law, lived as a human, leaving glory, and died a horrific death for us. He went through a great deal. Now he expects that we forgive even the big things that other people do to us. How do I know?
Amber:Well, again, this isn't just one place in scripture. In Matthew 18, Peter asked a question of Jesus. Lord, how often should we forgive our brother? Up to 7 times? And Jesus said, I tell you not 7, but 70 times 7.
Amber:And then he told the parable of the unmerciful servant. There was a man who was seized and put into jail and asked to pay, or he would have to be in jail. And he owed a great debt, A debt so huge, he could never pay. And so he was forgiven the debt. But then he went out and found somebody who owed him just a little tiny bit of money, and that person couldn't pay.
Amber:So he had that man put into jail. And when the master or the king heard that this servant who had been forgiven much went out and had a man put in jail who owed just a very little bit relative to what the man had been forgiven. The king was not happy. And he said, go get that man and throw him in jail until he pays everything, which the man could never pay. And when we look at how much God forgives of us, Jesus was saying in this parable, god expects us no matter what it is, big or small, once or over and over, he expects us to forgive one another.
Amber:Colossians 313 says, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Ephesians 3432. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as God in Christ forgave you. So much easier said than done. I am gonna say this though.
Amber:I know other people have said it. I know I've mentioned it before too. Forgiving actually releases you. It helps you. So when you hold a grudge, when you hold onto even the pain that other people have done to you, you don't heal, and you are the one carrying the burden, whether or not they continue to acknowledge that they ever sinned against you or not.
Amber:So so often the way that people have hurt us, we're we're left hurting and squirming with pain, and they go on with their life as if nothing has ever happened. And who suffers? We do. When we hold the grudge, when we are holding on to that and can't let it go. So what can we do instead?
Amber:We can forgive them completely and totally. We can do as Jesus told us to do, which was to pray for our enemies. Bless those who curse you and pray for those pray for your enemies. Don't hate your enemies. Love your enemies.
Amber:How can you pray for them? Pray that the Lord helps them to change their mindset. Pray that they understand the way that they treated you was very hurtful to you because my guess is if they're treating you that way, they're probably treating other people that way. And for their own sake that they don't cause a whole bunch of grief to other people. Pray that God shows them that that's not the right way.
Amber:Pray that he brings them to repentance because we are all gonna stand in front of God for the sins that we've committed. And, you know, sometimes I have to remember I hurt people too, and I might not even know how I'm hurting people. Maybe it is in the tone of voice that I'm using or the things that I'm saying or when I forget to invite somebody to something or god only knows what. So knowing that I also am probably hurting people without even understanding or knowing it, it is good for me to pray for other people. I pray always that these people come to a closer relationship with Jesus.
Amber:As we all get to that point in our life where we're reading the word and we're praying and we're asking God to forgive us, we should be praying, Lord, show me if I'm hurting other people. Show me how I need to change. Show me the changes that I need to make so I don't cause pain and grief in other people's lives. As we pray for other people, as we pray for God actually to bless them, that they have a closer walk with Jesus, that they get to a point in their spiritual journey that they are conscientious of hurting other people. It is amazing how freeing that is for us when we let that go.
Amber:We're told to not repay evil with evil, to not worry about revenge, leave it to the Lord. And when we completely release people and actually just start praying for them, it is amazing the healing that takes place and the wait that leaves us. So we forgive, not saying that what they did was right. Forgiving doesn't do that. It is wrong.
Amber:But when we forgive, we release the pain and our effort in carrying the weight of that sin. And we give it to God and we say, look, you are the judge. You deal with this. I don't have to. All you have asked of me is that I forgive.
Amber:And because you have asked me to forgive, I'm going to do that. I'm going to obey you. I'm gonna forgive this person for what they've done. And I am going to put this person in your hands. Then it is up to God.
Amber:1 100%. Whatever God wants to do, however he works it out in their life, that's that's no longer anything you need to worry about. And that is freedom. That is when you go on with your life knowing, you know what? It doesn't matter.
Amber:It was done. But this is what I know. I know that God has promised to work all things out for good. So if he allowed me to go through this pain, there was a reason. Maybe he had some refining he needed to do on me.
Amber:Maybe he needed to humble me just a little bit and make sure that I was in a position of listening. And we know, you know, pain is a great way to get your ears open. When you actually are in pain, you are sitting at the feet of the Lord Jesus saying, teach me what you want me to learn. So whatever purpose God had for your pain, there was a purpose. It's never for nothing.
Amber:Look at Joseph being sold into slavery and taken to Egypt and then going to work for Potiphar and then losing his position as Potiphar's right hand man to go to prison, finally being lifted up. And when he met his brothers years later, he said, you intended to harm me, but God intended it for good, the saving of many lives. We can be absolutely positive that God would not have it, that we would have pain. But because we live in a sinful world, pain is part of it. People will sin against us and it will hurt and it will hurt bad at times.
Amber:And it's not fair and it's not right, and it's not that God would want that for his children. None of us want to see our children get hurt. But what God is really good at doing is taking us when we are hurt and saying, man, I can use this and I will use this. You will not be the same person, but I'll make you better. I'll make you wiser.
Amber:I'll make you a better friend. I'll make you more compassionate, or I'll use this to raise you up to be something different. He will always use our pain, and he will use whatever we have been through for his glory and his purposes. So forgiving, it's just an easy thing to do when you know that God is bigger than anything that has ever happened to you. It all becomes so minuscule in the whole, you know, frame of a of your life that whatever anybody has done for you, it gets to the point of saying, god, I can't wait to see how you're gonna work this out and how you will change me for the better because of this.
Amber:Because I know you are good and I know your plans are good, So I trust you. It's a tough petition in some ways except for when we realize how big God is and how much he has forgiven of us. And then it becomes so much easier to forgive other people. God was so gracious to cancel our sin and Martin Luther, Martin Luther said, our debt of sin that God graciously canceled should lead us to do the same for others. This has been little things because in God's kingdom, the little things are the big things.