Lord's Prayer - Part 4

The Prayer of a Forgiven People

Today, we are going to explore the topic of forgiveness, but before we get to that, there is one huge assumption that Jesus made when he taught his disciples the Lord’s Prayer: he assumed that the person praying actually identified as a child of God. After all, if we don’t accept that God is our Father in Heaven who is Holy (and therefore worthy of our respect), then we’re not going to be interested in seeing His Kingdom advancing into our world, or His will being carried out in our spheres of influence. And if we don’t accept God as our Heavenly Father, then we won’t look to Him to provide what we need - our daily bread.

But if God IS our Father, then it follows that our values would reflect His values. Or at the very least, as members of His family we’d desire that our values be a reflection of His. And this is nowhere more important than when it comes to forgiveness.

   Forgive us our debts,
       as we also have forgiven our debtors.

A debt is something owed to another, and when someone owes us, we’re usually pretty aware of it: If someone runs into my car, they owe me what it costs to fix the damage. If someone says something rude to me, they owe me an apology. If someone takes something that belongs to me, they owe me that thing back. Right?

My guess is you can think of several things that people owe you. Take a moment to think about it. And I’m not just talking about money or things people have borrowed. Think of people that have wronged you, hurt you, sinned against you.

Are you thinking of someone? Maybe a couple people? What is it that you feel they owe you? What is it you want from them?

Repayment? 

An apology?

That they feel bad for what they did? 

That they suffer like you’ve suffered?

But forgiveness is the act of releasing someone from what they owe us, without the expectation of repayment, and as children of God, He calls us to forgive as we have been forgiven.

One of Jesus’ disciples asked him how many times we should forgive someone. “Up to seven times?” the disciple asked. According to Jewish rabbinic teaching, if someone harmed you three times, you were to cut that person off and have nothing to do with them. This disciple doubled that number and added one. I’m sure he felt he was being overly gracious. But Jesus blows his idea of grace out of the water:

“I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” (Matthew 18:22) 

In other words, never stop forgiving. Never run out of grace towards others. Why? Because God has already forgiven us more than we could ever hope to repay. Consider how much selfishness and rebelliousness was nailed with Jesus to the cross. It would be ridiculous not to show the same sort of grace towards others.

Jesus illustrates this point with a parable about a servant who owes his master more money than he could ever repay. If he’d tried, even if he’d paid every penny he earned at the average daily wage, it would have taken him 200,000 years to pay it all back. Yeah, he owed a lot.

But here’s the crazy thing: when the servant begs for patience, his master not only relents, he actually forgives his debt in full. The servant didn’t have to pay back a penny. I bet you wish someone would do that with your mortgage, huh?

Later on, this servant runs into a man who owes him a whole lot less (about 1/600,000) of the debt he’s just had forgiven. But rather than show mercy to the man who owes him, he begins to demand repayment and even goes so far as to have the poor guy thrown in jail.

You can read the rest in Matthew 18:21-35, but let’s just say that when the master finds out, it doesn’t go so well for the unmerciful servant. And the point of Jesus’ parable is that it is both unfitting and spiritually dangerous for children of God to be unforgiving towards others. If we hold onto grudges and slights, then we have no right to ask for forgiveness from our Heavenly Father.

Now, forgiveness is not the same as ignoring abuse or submitting to more of it. If someone is being physically or emotionally abusive towards you, Jesus is not suggesting that you allow this person to continue hurting you. All it requires of us is to release this person from the debt we feel they owe us, just as we have already been released by God. And as has been said many times before, when we hold onto grudges or unforgiveness, we are actually hurting ourselves. It is like ingesting poison and hoping the other person will die.

Nor is forgiveness the same as reconciliation. Forgiveness requires one person to release another; reconciliation requires both people to want the same thing. While reconciliation can happen, and I pray that it does, all you can do is choose to release the person from the debt they owe you. It may be hard, but I can assure you, the debt you forgive is far less than the one your Heavenly Father has wiped away for you.

Father, thank you for the immense gift of grace you shower upon us day after day. As your children, we pray that you would help us reflect your heart. We invite you to search us and unearth any bitterness, anger, resentment or unforgiveness that has taken root in our hearts. And when it is exposed, we pray that you’d give us the courage and strength to lay our right to demand repayment. Help us to forgive as we have been forgiven. Amen