WEDNESDAY
Christianese If You Please
Our Christianese for this week are phrases that Christians say after they’ve heard a good sermon.
- That sermon wrecked me
- He brought the Word
Nobody has ever said one of these to me after Sunday service. So I trust you are all saying this to one another on your way out the door or in the car on the way home 😊
In the famous Lord’s Prayer Jesus teaches us how to pray. This prayer is to be our bread and butter for prayer. In this model prayer Jesus teaches us that we should petition God for our forgiveness and we should declare that we forgive others.
Matthew 6:9–15 9 “This, then, is how you should pray: “ ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’ 14 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
So Jesus teaches us that when we pray we should petition God to forgive our sins. We know that all of our sins have been forgiven in Christ when we believe in him, but this daily, hourly, prayer reminds us of God’s great grace in forgiving us. As we saw last week in 1 John, God is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness when we confess our sins.
Jesus here also teaches us that we should declare our forgiveness of others when we pray. Then in vv. 14-15 he elaborates on the importance of this practice. Jesus teaches the same thing that we saw yesterday in Matthew 18. We should not presume upon God’s forgiveness if we are unwilling to forgive. This passage can be easily misunderstood to apply a work (forgiveness) to earn our forgiveness. I think this is better taken as a test. If we are unwilling to forgive others perhaps we haven’t really experienced God’s forgiveness. People who have experienced God’s forgiveness will forgive others. On this topic Keller writes:
“Again we should remember that this cannot mean that God’s forgiveness is merited by ours. Rather, it means that to be unforgiving reveals that you have failed to understand and accept God’s unmerited grace yourself.”
Keller, Timothy. Forgive (p. 104). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Again, in this passage from Jesus, we find that forgiveness of others is no small matter. Unforgiveness is not to be trifled with. If we are unwilling to forgive it calls into question God’s forgiveness of us.
Additional Content
“By not forgiving, I chain myself to a desire to get even, thereby losing my freedom. A forgiven person forgives. This is what we proclaim when we pray ‘and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.’ This lifelong struggle lies at the heart of the Christian life.” - Henri Nouwen
Reflection
Spend some time praying through the Lord’s prayer and focus on the lines we highlighted here. Confess your sins to God. Declare to him your gratitude for his forgiveness of your sins.
Generally declare that you will forgive anyone who sins against you. Resolve to, as John Maxwell has said, die with no enemies. Preemptively grant forgiveness to anyone who sins against you. Be the type of person who freely and readily forgives.