REVIEW
FLIP CHART: SOM’S KEY VERSE, GOAL, MOTTO
“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness ….” (Mt. 6:33a).
The law sends us to Christ for justification; Christ sends us back to the law for sanctification.
FLIP CHART: Show new “Perfect Righteousness” chart explaining steps to coming to Christ (As a worm, mourning, meek, spiritual hunger/thirst with the result of legal righteousness). Explain: moral righteousness, immediate moral change at conversion, gradual change through life’s challenges and speeding up moral change via CCRC (Concentration, Choice, Reflection and Confession/Thanksgiving). Key verse, “By one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (Heb. 10:14).
FLIP CHART: John Stott’s outline of SOM.
This then is how you should pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. (Matthew 6:7-13)
REVIEW:
As partners with the Triune God in governing the world he gave us the gift of prayer so that we can affect the outcome of events. He wants us to focus on three main areas in prayer: The honoring of the person of the Triune God, the advancement of His Kingdom and the doing of His will throughout the world.
God listens to our prayers and provides day by day according to our needs because He loves for us to come to Him in prayer and ask of him.
INTRODUCTION
The fifth petition in the prayer is the first one dealing with the spiritual part of man ….and it deals with our sin problem.
Please note – This line on forgiveness is the only line / request in the prayer that Jesus expands on which he does in 6:14-15.
Forgiveness is mentioned six times in seven verses (9-15)
C.S. Lewis wrote, “Forgiveness is the Christians most unpopular virtue.”
We have a request that God will feed us and now one that He will forgive us. We need “Daily Bread” and “Daily Forgiveness.”
We will be done with the need for forgiveness when we are done with the need for daily bread, and not before then.
The forgiveness talked about here is not “judicial forgiveness.” People who pray this prayer are assumed to have received “judicial forgiveness” for they are calling God “Father.” The forgiveness focused on here is “Parental Forgiveness,” the forgiveness needed to maintain an intimate relationship between parent and child.
Yet, it is difficult to understand the thrust of these verses without first focusing on “Judicial Forgiveness” which we will do today.
OUTLINE FOR TODAY:
1. Sin as Debt
2. Our Sin Debt Produces Guilt
3. God is a Forgiving God
4. The Judicial Forgiveness of God
FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS
I. SIN AS DEBT
Forgive us our debts …..
WORDS USED FOR SIN IN THE NT:
Hamartia – Missing the mark. An archery term and in the NT means missing the mark of God’s standard or righteousness. Ill: Shooting and arrow at a target and the arrow falls short. You try to do what is right but come up short. (Romans 3:23)
Paraptoma – translated “trespass” and is the sin of slipping or falling, and results more from carelessness than from intentional disobedience. Ill: You slip and fall. Nothing intentional. The passion of the moment, e.g. a sharp retort. (Eph. 2:1)
Parabasis – translated “transgression.” Stepping across the line, deliberately going beyond the limits prescribed by God. Ill: You see the sign “Keep off the grass” but pay no attention to it. (James 2:9)
Anomia – translated “lawlessness.” An intentional and flagrant sin, open rebellion against God and His ways. I know it is wrong but who cares. I am going to do what I want to do. E.g., Seeing an x-rated movie, committing adultery, robbing a store, telling a flagrant lie. (I John 3:4)
“Ship me somewhere east of Suez, where the best is like the worst, Where there aren’t no Ten Commandments, an’ a man can raise a thirst.” (Kipling in Mandalay)
Opheilema – translated “debt.” Sin is a moral and spiritual to God that must be paid. It means a failure to pay that which is due.
Luke uses the term harmartia in his version of the Disciple’s Prayer in Luke 11:4. Matthew uses opheilema because the idea of moral and spiritual debt was the way the Jewish people of his day perceived sin.
THE SINFULNESS OF MANKIND
There’s nobody living right, not even one, nobody who knows the score, nobody alert for God. They’ve all taken the wrong turn; they’ve all wandered down blind alleys. No one’s living right; I can’t find a single one. Their throats are gaping graves, their tongues slick as mudslides. Every word they speak is tinged with poison. They open their mouths and pollute the air. They race for the honor of sinner-of-the-year, litter the land with heartbreak and ruin, don’t know the first thing about living with others. They never give God the time of day. . . . its clear enough, isn’t it, that we’re sinners, every one of us, in the same sinking boat with everybody else? (Romans 3:10-23, The Message, Abbreviated)
Sin is the first lord of the soul, that accursed thing compared to the venom of a snake, and the stench of death. It is compared to darkness and dominates the will. It is the stain on our lives that never goes away.
Arthur Pink: “As it is contrary to the holiness of God, sin is a defilement, a dishonor and a reproach to us as it is a violation of His law it is a crime and as to the guilt which we contact thereby it is a debt, as creatures we owe a debt of obedience unto our maker and governor and through failure to render the same on account of our rank disobedience we have incurred a debt of punishment and it is for this that we implore a divine pardon.”
WHY CALL SIN “DEBT”?
Ophileema — debt in its verb form is used for moral debt 25 times in the NT but only two times as a noun. Remember that Matthew was also a former tax collector / bean-counter and understood the “debt” concept.
The idea is that every sin we commit is a debt and that as we sin the debt keeps increasing in size.
ILL: What is the concept behind the idea that sin is debt?
“This people have I formed for myself. They shall show forth my praise” (Isa. 43:21). “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works ….” (Eph. 2:10). We are His offspring … He himself gives all men life and breath” (Acts 17:24-28). He purchased us with His own blood (Acts 20:28, Rev. 5:9). We are redeemed by the blood of Christ, bought with a price, therefore we are not our own (I Cor. 7:23, I Peter 1:18)
Or didn’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body. (The Message, I Cor. 6:19-20)
We are created by the Triune God, sustained by Him and everything we are and have is held in trust.
The Jewish culture equated sin with debt. The idea of debt reflects the Jewish concept that all our lives are on loan from God. … every thing we have is given to us by our Creator, so every time we act in a way that violates our Creator’s principles for how to live, every time we break His loving laws through our actions or inactions thoughts, words or deeds, every time we “spend” His gifts to us in ways that are contrary to His will there is a very real sense in which it puts us in debt to Him. (Taken from a sermon found on the web).
ILL: I work for a social services agency and am entrusted with a car. All damage done on this car will become a debt against my wages. It is my responsibility. If the upholstery is torn, the windshield wiper broken, the tire punctured, the fender dented, the paint job scratched etc. all are added to my debt. This is incurred debt. Then the car is to be used for serving other, taking the sick to the doctor, kids to school. When it is not used purely for service of others debt is incurred or if it was used for my own special needs, debt is incurred. Or if I just parked it debt is also incurred for it was not being used as intended. So the care is a problem because everyday it is increasing my debt.
We all know how much “sin debt” we add every day – Use our tongues to say the wrong words, our minds to think wrong thoughts, our ears to hear the wrong things, our strength to do wrong things. All harsh words, impatient actions, racist jokes, unkind thoughts, lazy attitudes add to the pile of debt. These are what are called SINS OF COMMISSION …. or debts of commission.
But then there are SINS OF OMMISSION. We are to love the Lord with all our heart, soul and mind and neighbors as ourselves. Every time we fail to do that we add more debt. We are “debtaholics” with a credit card that we use continually and the sin debt on that credit card just grows and grows.
ILL: All Debtors Rise!!!! In Durham County, North Carolina, bankruptcy court begins everyday in rather a charming way. A bailiff walks in, he surveys the room full of ruined lives and then he says, “All debtors, rise.” Whether you are a CEO of a failed corporation or just a poor person who can’t pay his bills, you stand together and you realize your true situation in life. And we ought to begin World Community Class with not “Would everyone stand!” but “All debtors rise.”
II. OUR SIN DEBT PRODUCES GUILT & FEAR
“My conscience has a thousand several tongues and every tongue its several tales and every tale condemns me” (Shakespeare).
Dealing with our conscience, our guilty conscience and our sin, the sin debt we owe, is our deepest need.
ILL: We all have experienced feelings of guilt. They can be quite compelling. Some people have difficult functioning with these feelings. I heard of one person so guilty over his income taxes that he wrote a letter to the IRS. It read, Gentlemen: Enclosed you will find a check for $150. I cheated on my income tax return last year and have not been able to sleep since. If I still have trouble sleeping I will send you the rest. Sincerely, A Tax Payer.
ILL: We appease our guilty feelings by whatever means possible. Some time ago a new product appeared called “Disposable Guilt Bags.” Just ten ordinary brown bags with the following instructions: Place the bag securely over your mouth, take a deep breath and blow all your guilt out, then dispose of the bag immediately. The AP reported that 2,500 kits were sold at $2.50 per kit.
One psychiatrist according to John Stott said, “I could dismiss half of my patients tomorrow if they could be assured of forgiveness.”
The fact is we need “Daily Bread” and “Daily Forgiveness”!!!
In our world we know the facts of life – “You owe, you pay!” And there is always the fear that we won’t be able to pay and thus lose our car, home, retirement etc.
Our guilty conscience also tells us that “You owe, you pay” for our sin debt. This generates fear in our hearts. Sometimes the fear is so upfront that it causes us to be neurotic. Other times we hide our guilt.
III. GOD IS A FORGIVING GOD
We pray “Forgive us our debts …” as if this were the easiest thing in the world for God to do. And He does because He is a forgiving God. The best parable that teaches the forgiveness of God is “The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant” (Mt. 18:23-35. We will just focus on the first part of this parable today, verses 23-27.
READ: Mt. 18:23-27
The servant is someone like a satrap in the time of Daniel, e.g. a governor or ruler of a province.
There are various estimates of what a debt of 10,000 talents looked like. Some say $12,000,000 or 150,000 days of labor. Another said it would take 164,000 years to earn 10,000 talents. Another person put the debt at $25,000,000. We do know that all of the taxes raised in Judea and Samaria in one year were 600 talents or 1/17th of 10,000 talents. In present day terms the US raises 3 trillion a year in taxes so 17 x 3 trillion would be 50 trillion, which as more than the total world GDP in 2004.
The fact is that it was so much that it would be totally impossible for the debtor to repay the king.
The best the king could do would be to take the man’s wife, children and all that he had be sold to pay the debt. This was a very common way to deal with debt in the ancient world.
Yet the debtor promised to repay the debt. The king would have laughed when the unemployed slave promised to repay this debt.
The king forgave the debt. He did not say: (1) You must repay so do the best you can; (2) You must repay so I will give you more time; (3) You must repay but I will postpone foreclosure on your property.
Someone had to pay the debt. The servant could not. The king took the loss himself and completely forgave the debtor.
The king is an excellent portrayal of our forgiving God: Thou art a God of forgiveness, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, and abounding in loving kindness. (Neh. 9:17)
ILL: A captive was once brought before King James II of England. The King reprimanded the prisoner: “Don’t you know that it is my power to pardon you?” The scared, shaking prisoner replied, “Yes, I know it is in your power to pardon me, but it is not in your nature.” The good news is that our God both has the power and nature to forgive.
ILL/ READING: Jaime Cardinal Sin, the Catholic archbishop of Manila who played a key role in the People Power revolution there, liked to tell the story of a women who attended his weekly audience to inform him she had a message from God. He brushed her off several times, but she kept coming back. Finally he said, “We Catholics have strict rules governing visions and messages from God. I need to test your authenticity. I want you to go back and ask God about a particular sin I recently confessed in private. If you ask God and he tells you the answers, I’ll know your vision is genuine.” The next week she returned and he quizzed her, a bit nervously, “Well, did you ask God about my sin?” “I did.” “And did God answer?” “Yes.” “What did He say?” “God said that he couldn’t remember.” (Prayer, P. Yancey, pg. 270-271)
IV. THE JUDICIAL FORGIVENESS OF GOD
We said earlier, there is “Judicial Forgiveness” that God provides for all. Once we have accepted “Judicial Forgiveness” we become a member of the family of God but due to our sin nature live continually in need of “Parental Forgiveness.” We need to understand “Judicial Forgiveness” if we are to understand “Parental Forgiveness.”
“Judicial Forgiveness” depends fully on the mercy and pity of God. Forgiveness is God passing by our sin. It is God wiping our sin off the record. It is God setting us free from punishment and guilt. It is essentially bound up in what Micah 7:18 and 19 says “Who is a God like Thee who pardons iniquity? And passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession? He doesn’t retain His anger forever, He delights in unchanging love. Yet He will again have compassion on us, He will tread our iniquities underfoot, yes thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.” The Old Testament says, “He remembers our sins no more.” He passes by our sins. . . . Forgiveness is taking away our sin, covering our sin, blotting out our sin and forgetting our sin. Taking away our sin, why? Isaiah 53:6, “He has taken the iniquity of us all and laid it on Him.” He’s taken away our sin, and then it means He’s covered our sin. Psalm 85:2 “Thou hast covered all their sin.” And He blotted out our sin. Isaiah 43:25, I love this verse, “I am He that blots out thy transgressions.” And then He forgets our sins. He remembers no more. God literally eliminates our sin.
“Therefore, since we have been justified [Justified is a Greek legal term which means to be made right with
someone] through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1).
. . . “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus …” (Rom. 8:1) . . .
“Who will bring any charge against God whom God has chosen? It is god who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died ….” (Rom 8:33, 34)
. . . .“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Eph. 1:7).
When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God. God brought you alive—right along with Christ! Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ’s cross. (Col. 2:13-14, The Message)
ILL: Back in 1935, Fiorello La Guardia, Mayor of New York, visited a night court in the poorest ward of the city. He relieved the judge for the evening and took the bench himself. A case came up where a grandmother had been arrested for stealing bread to feed her grandchildren. La Guardia said, ‘You are guilty, and I have got to punish you. Ten dollars or ten days in jail.’ And then LaGuardia himself pulled out a 10 dollar bill out of his pocket and threw it in his hat. And then he fined everybody in the courtroom for living in a city where grandmothers have to steal bread to feed their grandchildren. They passed the hat and that woman left the courthouse that evening. She left not only with her fine totally paid, but with 47 dollars and 50 cents in her pocket.
DEPTH OF MERCY
ACTIVITY: Study the hymn / poem “Depth of Mercy” and answer four questions: (1) What stanzas deal with sin, the depth of sin?; (2) Where does the plea for forgiveness start and what stanzas talk about this plea?; (3) What stanza represents the turning point in the hymn? Why? (4) What stanzas talk about the great blessings of forgiveness?
DEPTH OF MERCY
1. Depth of mercy! Can there be
Mercy still reserved for me?
Can my God His wrath forbear,
Me, the chief of sinners, spare?
2. I have long withstood His grace,
Long provoked Him to His face,
Would not hearken to His calls,
Grieved Him by a thousand falls.
3. I have spilt His precious blood,
Trampled on the Son of God,
Filled with pangs unspeakable,
I, who yet am not in hell!
4. I my Master have denied,
I afresh have crucified,
Oft’ profaned His hallowed Name,
Put Him to an open shame.
5. Pity from Thine eye let fall,
By a look my soul recall;
Now the stone to flesh convert,
Cast a look, and break my heart.
6. Now incline me to repent,
Let me now my sins lament,
Now my foul revolt deplore,
Weep, believe, and sin no more.
7. Jesus, answer from above,
Is not all Thy nature love?
Wilt Thou not the wrong forget,
Permit me to kiss Thy feet?
8. If I rightly read Thy heart,
If Thou all compassion art,
Bow Thine ear, in mercy bow,
Pardon and accept me now.
9. Jesus speaks, and pleads His blood!
He disarms the wrath of God;
Now my Father’s mercies move,
Justice lingers into love.
10. Kindled His relentings are,
Me He now delights to spare,
Cries, “How shall I give thee up?”
Lets the lifted thunder drop.
11. Lo! I still walk on the ground:
Lo! an Advocate is found:
“Hasten not to cut Him down,
Leave this barren soul alone.”
12. Whence to me this waste of love?
Ask my Advocate above!
See the cause in Jesus’ face,
Now before the throne of grace.
13. There for me the Savior stands,
Shows His wounds and spreads His hands.
God is love! I know, I feel;
Jesus weeps and loves me still.
(Charles Wesley)
SO WHAT???
1. We are owned by our Creator. We are his and all that He gives us is given on loan as a trust. The misuse or lack of use of all or any of our facilities engenders moral debt.
2. Our sins, both sins of commission and omission, are a great accumulation of moral debt that is absolutely impossible for us to pay down.
3. God is a forgiving God but the debt of sin must be paid. In order to remain just while forgiving us our debt of sin, Christ bore our sin-debt on the cross.
4. We must be very careful and thoughtful when asking God to forgive us our sins. The privilege of us praying that prayer came at a great cost to the Triune God. Just being able to say, “God forgave me” should cause a deep sense of gratitude and awe to arise in our hearts.