The story is told about little John and his trying out his new slingshot! He perched tin cans on the farm fence, but missed every shot. He shot at a bird in a tree and missed. After all, John is just in the 4th grade and he is just learning because slingshots are not very accurate. He shot at a rabbit and missed. He shot at a dog and missed and he was getting more and more frustrated by the moment.
Grandma called him for dinner. On the way to the house, he shot at his grandmother’s favorite duck—and this time he hit his target. The missile hit the duck in the head, instantly killing it. No one was in the yard. John looked both ways to be sure that no one saw him. Quickly, he grabbed the shovel and ran behind the barn to bury the duck. After dinner, Grandma asked Sally, John’s older sister, to wash the dishes. Sally said that John wanted to wash the dishes. Then she whispered to him, “remember the duck.” Apparently, she saw what had happened and blackmailed her brother. John washed the dishes.
The next morning Grandma asked Sally to sweep the porch and you guessed it, she said John wanted to do it. Then she whispered to John, “remember the duck.” All that week Sally blackmailed John to do her chores. When John could not stand any more guilt, he finally confessed to his Grandma that he had killed her favorite duck. She replied, “I was washing dishes at the window and saw you hit the duck. I know you didn’t mean to do it. I could see fear on your face.” She explained to John, “I forgave you the moment you did it, but I wondered how long you would live with your guilt before you told me.”
Many Christians are like John. We have done something wrong, and someone like the “Sallys” of this world hold us in bondage. For others, the “Sallys” are internal. We are in slavery to our own guilt.
Quoting Henri Nouwen: “The spiritual life can only be real when it is lived in the midst of the pains and joys of the here and now. Therefore, we need to begin with a careful look at the way we think, speak, feel, and act…in order to become more fully aware of our hunger for the Spirit. As long as we have only a vague inner feeling of discontent with our present way of living, and only an indefinite desire for “things spiritual,” our lives will continue to stagnate…we must honestly unmask and courageously confront our many self-deceptive games. We must trust that our honesty and courage will lead us not to despair but to a new heaven and new earth.”
Often, it is easy to rush into God’s presence with a shopping list of things that we would desire…but as we have looked at the Lord’s prayer these past weeks, we know that is not the way Jesus taught to approach prayer.
Some come into the Lord’s presence immediately saying “I’m sorry…or forgive me.” They feel so guilty about a sin that they begin with confession. As much as sin blocks our fellowship with God, however, that is not the way Jesus taught to begin in the Lord’s Prayer.
We are to first worship God—Hallowed or Holy be your name. Then we are to seek to live by His kingdom principles—“thy kingdom come in my life on earth.” Thirdly, we ask for guidance—“thy will be done.” Because we must have physical life to have spiritual life, we pray the 4th petition that we covered last week, “give us bread for today.”
When we have prayed in these ways as we enter the Lord’s presence, we are then ready to confront the sin in our lives because we are assured of who the Lord is and that we are loved by Him. So, we come today to the next line in the Lord’s prayer, “forgive us our sins (debts) as we forgive those who sin against us.”
Today we concentrate on the idea that sins block our fellowship with God. This part of the prayer is not about your salvation, we are not saying that your sin has cast away all hope and that you are afraid of dying outside of Christ.
When you and I pray, “forgive us our sins” we are praying as a child of the Father who has not lived up to our Father’s expectations. You are saying, “I’m sorry” to your Heavenly Father so you can have fellowship with Him again.
“Forgive us our sins” is not initial forgiveness, which is the sinner coming to God for salvation. When you are praying this, you are already a believer who calls God your Father. You are already a child of the King and in the kingdom of God. When you pray, forgive my sin—you are asking for parental forgiveness. You are God’s child.
Suppose a child sneaks behind his father’s back and does what his father told him or her not to do. Is the father no longer the child’s father? The answer is obviously no! Disobeying the father does not break the father/child relationship, but the fellowship between father and child is harmed. The relationship is intact but the father is disappointed.
We became children of the Heavenly Father by the new birth. Just as fathers on earth are crushed when their children go wrong, so God’s heart is broken when His children disobey Him. No wonder we feel guilt. We let our Father down. When we pray this line of the Lord’s prayer, we are asking Abba Father to restore our fellowship with Him—not to restore the Father/child relationship.
The Lord’s prayer teaches us that as children of God we do not always do God’s will and act according to the Word of God. I John 2:1 says, My little children, these things I write to you, that you sin not.”
When we are praying, forgive us our sin, we understand that we sin, that we are not perfect. Paul says in Romans 3:23 that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Our Scripture in 1 John tells us that if we say we don’t have sin, we are a liar and the truth is not in us!
Paul writes in Romans 7, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do etc…but he ends this portion understanding that the deliverance from sin comes from Jesus! We all experience that inner struggle at times!
But Romans 8 begins with a powerful message—therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…
I remember a saying I heard one time—condemnation is sin unrepented of! It is that inner guilt we feel when what we have done has hindered our free and loving fellowship with our Father.
When we sin, we break fellowship with God by disobeying Him. We break fellowship with God when we do the opposite of God’s command. We break fellowship with God by ignoring Him.
Sin can be great or small—it doesn’t matter, sin is sin. Wrong doing is wrong doing. We have an obligation to the Father to do what is right as his children.
We need to understand—you cannot sow wild oats and pray for crop failure! Every action has a consequence. The seed you plant is the harvest you will get. The key is to plant good seeds and not seeds of wrong doing etc.
We all have experienced guilt in our lives and when we ask the Lord to grant us forgiveness, it is His way of releasing us from the guilt we feel. Praying this line in the Lord’s prayer also opens the door for the Holy Spirit to deal with hidden things in our hearts.
Psalm 139:23-24 says, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
Psalm 51:6-7—“Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place. Cleanse me with hyssop and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.”
There are a number of things we need to understand today:
Guilt as a result of unrepented sin robs us of sweet fellowship with the Lord and can deeply affect your health. Guilt can produce self-doubt, anxiety, stress, and the end result is a sick soul and when you have a sick soul—it can eventually affect your physical health as well.
Forgiveness takes the step toward emotional and mental health. You are telling the truth to yourself and to God. You are restoring your self-respect and your relationship with God. When you feel good about yourself, it shows in your relationships, your job, your conversation, and how you react to things.
You and I pray “forgive us our debts” not just to feel better or to grow in personal strength. We pray it to restore fellowship with our Abba Father…if it is broken…and to keep it healthy if you have not broken it. You pray this prayer for a healthy relationship, an intimate relationship with the Father who loves and adores you as His child.
When we confess our sin, we must understand first that we are forgiven but we must also understand that it demands an outward change or a determination to start working on change so you won’t sin any longer in that area of your life.
Through the blood of Christ we have been forgiven, are forgiven today, and will be forgiven in the future—but even though God has already forgiven our sin, He waits to cleanse us from the sin and the remnants of it in our hearts and lives.
Our honesty before God is crucial to our growth as believers.
But there is another aspect of the Lord’s prayer that cannot be ignored today—first we know our own hearts need to be clean. The second part of this is “as we forgive our debtors”—in other words, those who have wronged us in one way or another!
When you forgive others, it demonstrates that God has forgiven you!
Forgiveness is like a circle—what you give is what you get! Everything always goes in a circle and comes back to us! Jesus reminded us, “to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.” God does not want us to love ourselves only. Nor are we to love our neighbors only. It is impossible to do one without the other. To be loved, we must love others. The same thing is true of forgiveness. To be forgiven, you must forgive.
The words of Jesus are very powerful in Matthew 6:14-15; For if you forgive others their offenses your heavenly Father will forgive you as well. But if you don’t forgive others, your Father will not forgive your offenses.”
A powerful verse in found in Proverbs 4:23—Guard your heart above all else for it is the source of life.
The inclinations of your heart direct your thoughts, attitudes, how you treat people, how you walk with the Lord—it is absolutely crucial that you keep your heart in tune with the Lord and not allow sin of any kind to penetrate your life. It is especially true when someone had done you harm in one way or another—whether purposely (this is tougher to forgive) or the individual did not mean to cause harm. In today’s world so many people wear their feelings on their sleeves perse and are quickly offended or quickly jump to conclusions about things without taking a step back, truthfully looking at the situation, before going sideways with their emotions.
When I first came to Trinity, I was learning everybody’s names etc. One Sunday, someone pulled me aside and told me I had really hurt their feelings. I was honestly taken back by it and asked what I did. Their response was that the Sunday prior I did not greet them or acknowledge them. This individual had made a judgment and let it fester throughout the week.
The Apostle Paul writes in Colossians 3:12-17 (The Message)--So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it. 15-17 Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.
What is the bottom line of all of this—we have been forgiven so much through the sacrifice of Jesus for each of us. In turn, the expectation for each of us, as we walk this walk of faith, is to also offer forgiveness to those who have hurt us.
Jesus, hanging on the cross for you and for me prayed a powerful prayer—"Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing.” In my personal life there have been many times when I have prayed this prayer to release my own heart in some situations.
There would be so much more to discuss in this regard about relationships etc, but again, we are called to love—to love ourselves and to love others—and that love, the love of God that is beyond our full comprehension, invites us to not only receive His love and forgiveness, but to take that love and cause it to help us to forgive others.
1 Corinthians tells us that love, real love, keeps no record of wrongs.
“Forgiveness is the restoration of freedom to oneself; it is the key held in our own hand to our prison cell.”
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