The Prayer That Turned The World Upside Down - Session 6 - Forgive Us Our Debts

The Church of Divine Guidance Sunday Morning Adult Bible Study Group studying the book Prayer That Turned The World Upside Down: The Lord's Prayer as a Manifesto for Revolution by R. Albert Mohler, The President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

The Lord’s Prayer is the most powerful prayer in the Bible, taught by Jesus to those closest to him. We desperately need to relearn its power and practice.

The opening words of the Lord’s Prayer have become so familiar that we often speak them without a thought, sometimes without any awareness that we are speaking at all. But to the disciples who first heard these words from Jesus, the prayer was a thunderbolt, a radical new way to pray that changed them and the course of history.

Far from a safe series of comforting words, the Lord’s Prayer makes extraordinary claims, topples every earthly power, and announces God’s reign over all things in heaven and on earth. Study along with us by getting a copy of the book by clicking this LINK or the image of the book in the study notes. 

Last week we talked about Jesus telling His disciples that they should recognize their total dependence on God and ask that He provide their most basic physical needs.

The petition “give us this day our daily bread” reminds us of our dependence on God for even the most fundamental needs of life. Jesus in this model of prayer points out the difference in the Creator ant the creature. God’s name is to be hallowed in heaven.  We, on the other hand, are incapable of even getting basic sustenance without his help. Jesus teaches us to exalt God while humbling ourselves.
 

FORGIVENESS: THE GOSPEL FOUNDATION OF THE LORD’S PRAYER

 Matthew 6:12 NIV And forgive us our debts,  as we also have forgiven our debtors.

Let's first talk about the significance of Jesus using forgiveness of debt. 

Debt for us today can be very stressful.  Too much debt can put serious strain on our lives restricting our ability to live stress free lives. The Bible says that debt makes us slaves.

 Proverbs 22:7 NIV The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.

Today debt can cause strain in relationships.  It is the number one cause for divorces.  However in Jesus’ day it meant literal slavery and or prison.  We even had debtors prisons in the early history of the United States.

This is the context in which Jesus teaches us to pray “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Jesus’ use of the word debts is meant to evoke in our mind both a serious offense and a corresponding serious punishment. To be forgiven a debt was no mere trifle, but an act of extravagant mercy.
        
 The petition “give us this day our daily bread” emphasizes our most urgent physical needs, the petition “forgive us our debts” emphasizes our most urgent spiritual need. Saying we owe a debt to God means that we have failed to give him the obedience he is rightly due. We owe God our obedience, and we have failed to pay up. Thus, as sinners, we stand before God condemned, rightly deserving his just wrath. Only God’s forgiveness can clear our guilt and establish a meaningful relationship between God and us.

We can only say these words and ask these things of God when we stand on the finished, atoning work of Jesus Christ. Indeed, this petition demonstrates that the theological bedrock of the Lord's Prayer is nothing less than the gospel. We can only rightly pray the Lord's Prayer when we recognize that we are deeply sinful and only God’s grace in Christian remedy our souls.

God’s forgiveness of sin is the basis of the gospel.  The gospel, or the Good News, is the news of the coming of the Kingdom of God, and of Jesus's death on the cross and resurrection to restore people's relationship with God.

This kingdom arrived with the coming of Christ, who urged his hearers to repent because the “kingdom of God is at hand.” Christians are now part of that kingdom. As Paulstated, “[God] has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Col. 1:13). Thus, even though we await the full expression of God’s kingdom that will come in glory and power at the return of Christ, we are at this time living under the reign of God as his people—we are citizens of that kingdom.

First, this prayer establishes that we are sinners in need of forgiveness. Jesus okidentifies that our deepest, most urgent spiritual problem is nothing less than personal rebellion against a holy God. Our fundamental spiritual problem is

not a lack of education, lack of opportunity, and inability to express ourselves, or unmet social needs. Our problem is sin. We have transgressed God’s law and spurned his commandments. As a result, we need his forgiveness.
        
 Second, Jesus teaches us not only that we have sinned but also that we have the hope of forgiveness. It is easy to miss just how audacious the words of Jesus actually are. Jesus is teaching sinners, rebels against God, to have the audacity to approach God's throne—a throne established in justice and holiness—and ask for forgiveness. The only thing that can account for this boldness is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Only the work of Christ on behalf of sinners could possibly enable a sinner to go before God's holy throne to petition that God forgive his debts. Only those with hearts fixedon the Lord Jesus Christ and his atoning work on the cross can appeal to God’s mercy and redemption.
        
Third, we see in this passage that God is willing to forgive sin. By teaching us to pray in this way, Jesus implies that God desires to forgive our sin. Scripture repeatedly makes this point:
        
[God] desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (1Tim. 2:4)
        

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)
        
Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? (Ezek. 18:23)

Richard Sibbes famously said, “There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us.”

By agreeing with God that we are sinners and repenting of that sin by asking for forgiveness, God clears our debts on account of Christ’s work for us.

The only way we can be forgiven is through the sacrifice of Jesus.  Jesus Christ the Son, whose perfect obedience and perfectly accomplished atonement on the cross purchased all that is necessary for our salvation.
 Jesus Christ met the full demands of the righteousness and justice of God against our sin.
        
Paul summarized the work of Christ in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

We do not earn the righteousness of God in Christ; instead it is given to us freely when we believe the gospel: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:23–24). Indeed, nothing in us or achieved by us is the grounds of our acceptance with God. Instead, as Paul made clear, “To the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness” (Rom. 4:5).

When God saves us he starts the sanctification process which means that he is working through the Holy Spirit to confirm us to the image of Jesus.

Romans 8:28-29 NIV  And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

FROM FORGIVEN TO FORGIVING: THE TRANSFORMATIVE POWER OF THE TRANSFORMATIVE POWER OF GOD’S FORGIVENESS

It's because we have been forgiven that we forgive.  Not only does Jesus teach us to petition God for forgiveness, he also teaches us to pray that God forgive us in the same way that we forgive our debtors. Now we must be very careful with this clause so that we don’t take it to mean something that Jesus would not affirm. Jesus is decidedly not saying that we are forgiven by God because we have forgiven other people. That would make the grounds of our acceptance with God our own works and not God’s grace. Scripture is very clear that we are justified before God by faith alone, not by works of the law.
        
What Jesus is affirming in these words is that when we experience God’s forgiveness,  we are fundamentally transformed into forgiving people. We become new creatures.

 2 Corinthians 5:16-17 NIV So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

When Jesus said that we should ask God to forgive us because we have forgiven others we’ve misinterpreted what He said. God’s forgiving us has nothing to do with our forgiving others. That would make our forgiveness based on works and that contradicts

Ephesians 2:8-9 NIV  For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.

Those who truly know the forgiveness of sins, forgive others. Jesus emphasized this point a number of times throughout his ministry:
        
 Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.” (Matt. 18:21–22)
        
 Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven. (Luke 6:37)
        
 Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents,
 forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, “I repent,” you must forgive him. (Luke 17:3–4)

Jesus’ words on forgiveness are clear. Without forgiving others we will not be forgiven.
           

Again, the grounds of our forgiveness is never our own works. But forgiveness is necessary evidence that we have received forgiveness. If we do not forgive, we will not be forgiven. Hard hearts have no place in the kingdom of God. The reason, of course, is that the King himself is a forgiving king. Just as he forgives us when we rebel against him, so the citizens of God’s kingdom forgive one another.