The Lord's Prayer, Part Three

In the last two messages we’ve spent with the Lord’s prayer, we’ve looked at the phrases: “Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed by Your name,” and “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Today we will move forward to the next phrases: “Give is this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts and we also have forgiven our debtors.”

For context, here, again, is the entire prayer: Jesus told them: “Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. ‘Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. ‘Give us this day our daily bread. ‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. ‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’ For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.” (Matthew 6:7-15)

Now let’s continue through the prayer. The Lord teaches us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Let’s unpeel this request for a moment. For what are we asking – and WHY are we asking it? To answer those two questions, I want us to look for a moment at Deuteronomy 8. The context of this passage is the Lord reminding His people about their lives in Egypt, and how He rescued them from their bitter slavery. They lived without hope. They lived without freedom.

But now that He has rescued them, now that they are about to enter the land flowing with milk and honey – God warns them to beware of their impending prosperity. And I believe that is the same message for you and for me when we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread. We ought to be ever reminding ourselves that it is the Lord ALONE who not only RESCUED us from slavery to sin, death, and the devil, but the Lord also gives us each day our daily bread, and safety, and clothing, and protection, health, and all else that we need and that is in accordance with His perfect love and will for each of us. And just as God gave THEM manna each day and just as their clothing did not wear out for the 40 years they traversed the wilderness – so too God provides us our daily food, clothing, and so forth God's as we have need of His provision.

Listen to what God said to His people: 11 “Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes which I am commanding you today;  otherwise, when you have eaten and are satisfied, and have built good houses and lived in them, and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies,  then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. He led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water; He brought water for you out of the rock of flint.  In the wilderness He fed you manna which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do good for you in the end. Otherwise, you may say in your heart, ‘My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.’ 18 But you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day. (Deuteronomy 8:11-18)

I hope you caught that ominous warning – a warning ignored by multiple millions of men and women in the pews and outside the church –that when things go well with them, they believe things have gone well because of their own efforts and skills and talents. And if they DO give credit to God, it is only credit in passing: “Oh, yeah. God blessed me. Pass the biscuits please.”

I am reminded of the Lord Jesus’ warning to His disciples, “How hard it will be for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!” The disciples were amazed at His words. But Jesus answered again and said to them, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” (Mark 10:23-25)

Of course, the Lord is not suggesting here that those who are rich cannot make it into heaven. That would not fit with the context of the rest of Scripture. But the danger the rich face is to presume that because of their wealth, they can get anything they want or need. The unspoken attitude is one of, “So, who needs God?”

It is no accident that the writer of Proverbs 30 penned this prayer: “Give me neither poverty nor riches; Feed me with the food that is my portion, 9 That I not be full and deny You and say, “Who is the Lord?” Or that I not be in want and steal, and profane the name of my God.” (Proverbs 30:8-9)

Think a moment about King Solomon. God gave him riches beyond his most vivid imaginations. But what happened to the richest man of his day? What happened to the wisest of men in his day? Read 1 Kings 11 and you will discover he apostatized himself, even building altars for pagan deities such as Molech, the pagan god who required human sacrifices. And sadly, you will also notice his name is conspicuously absent in the list of the heroes of faith cited in Hebrews 11.

Who is it who gives people health that they might go to work every day and earn a living? Who gives them wisdom to invest their earnings in profitable business ventures? Who gives them talents and skills and education that they might parlay those blessings from God into a good income?

When we recite this section of the Lord’s prayer – and when we THINK about what we are saying – for we all know we can easily place our mouths on autopilot and recite well-memorized words without thinking at all about what we’re saying – when we recite this section of the Lord’s prayer we are, first, acknowledging to God that we Know our food, clothing, health, and all else in our lives – they are come from His storehouse. 

And second, when we pray those words, we are reminding OURSELVES that all we have – everything we have – ultimately comes from our Father’s hands. And so we should be most grateful to Him who gives to us all good things.

Now to the next clause: ‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. Another translation renders the text: “Forgive our sins, just as we have forgiven those who did wrong to us.”

This is not a text to overlook. God is very, very serious about our forgiving others when they offend us. Two verses later in this prayer the Lord says: “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.” (Matthew 6:14-15)

And then there is this parable Jesus spoke to His followers: (Matthew 18:23ff)

“For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he had begun to settle them, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. But since he did not have the means to repay, his lord commanded him to be sold, along with his wife and children and all that he had, and repayment to be made. So the slave fell to the ground and prostrated himself before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will repay you everything.’ And the lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and forgave him the debt.

As an aside for a moment, a talent was worth more than 15 YEARS of wages. Fifteen years. That means this slave owed 150 thousand YEARS of wages.  Something he could never, ever hope to repay.

The point of this enormous number is clearly the Lord’s way of telling His listeners – you and me – that we owed God a debt we could never, ever repay. Like the song many of you might remember:

I owed a debt I could not pay. He paid a debt He did not owe. I needed someone to take my sins away.

Now, back to the parable:

But that slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii –(equivalent to 3.5 months wages); and he seized him and began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay back what you owe.’ So his fellow slave fell to the ground and began to plead with him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will repay you.’ But he was unwilling and went and threw him in prison until he should pay back what was owed. So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their lord all that had happened.

Then summoning him, his lord said to him, ‘You wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, in the same way that I had mercy on you?’ And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him. My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.”

And so the point of the parable: We owed a debt we could never pay back. Not in a hundred thousand lifetimes. But the most merciful King

forgave the entire amount.

The entire amount.

But then the one forgiven that unpayable debt was unwilling to forgive his fellow slave of a debt not even worth mentioning by comparison to his own.

And so this parable, like all the Lord’s parables, unveils humanity’s problem, which is this: Most of us – even in the Church – do not consider our debt of sin against the King of the universe as any big deal. Yeah, we’ve done some wrong things. Maybe even a few REALLY wrong things. But in balance, we are not all that bad. So when someone does US wrong – we find little difficulty in throttling their neck and tossing them under the bus – so to speak.

When we begin to understand how Jesus’ words apply to every one of us, when we begin to comprehend how much every one of us in this room really owed AND owe our King, then we begin to understand the King’s warning about forgiving – or not forgiving – our fellow slaves.

During Lent, several years ago, our pastor told us of an incident that occurred in a church in India. Members of the congregation had donated funds to purchase and install the Stations of the Cross around the sanctuary. For those unfamiliar with the 14 Stations, the paintings or sculptures depict the story of the final hours of Jesus’ life. The Stations include His trial, when He is stripped of His clothing, when He is nailed to the Cross, and so forth.

Anyway, every day during Lent, the pastor of the church in India noticed an elderly gentleman walking the Stations that hung on the walls around the sanctuary. The man stopped at each Station to meditate before moving on to the next one. He did this at each Station – except for one. Day after day he walked the Stations, meditated at each one – except for one.

Curious, the pastor asked him why he bypassed that one particular station. The man answered, “I hate the person who donated that Station. I don’t want to be reminded of him, and so I ignore it and move on to the next one. 

There is a lesson for all of us in that man’s attitude – isn’t there? As God warns us through the book of Hebrews: “Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.”  Hebrews 12:14-15 NIV

We can be so ‘religious’ and yet completely miss Christ in the process. We can be so ‘pious’ and ‘devout’ and yet be a stench in the nostrils of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.

God is serious about our forgiveness. He commands it. And we all need to practice forgiveness. Some need more practice than others, but it is certainly true of me – and maybe also of you – it just ain’t easy to forgive some people for what they have done to us. But no matter. God commands us to forgive if WE hope that He – God – will forgive us.

When I researched the effects of nurturing a spirit of unforgiveness, I made an interesting discovery. Medical science is abundantly clear on this issue of forgiveness: A spirit of unforgiveness in one’s heart is a poisonous root that will result in their disease, injury, a dark attitude, and even an early death. The science behind this truth is undeniable.

Now, let me be quick to add for clarification about forgiveness. Forgiveness is not the same as trust. Forgiveness does not mean, nor does it require a person to remain in a dangerous or chronically unfaithful or emotionally or physically harmful situation. Forgiveness simply means, as the Mayo Clinic tells it, we make a conscious decision “to let go of resentment and thoughts of revenge. The act that hurt or offended you might always remain a part of your life, but forgiveness can lessen its grip on you and help you focus on other, positive parts of your life. Forgiveness doesn't mean that you deny the other person's responsibility for hurting you, and it doesn't minimize or justify the wrong. You can forgive the person without excusing the act. Forgiveness brings a kind of peace that helps you go on with life.”

And one more time – we MUST forgive because God commands that we forgive. Otherwise, He tells us, He will not forgive our debts against Him.

For the past three weeks we have spent time briefly examining the Lord’s Prayer. We looked at what the phrase, “Our Father’ can mean to the believer. We looked at what “hallowed be thy Name” should mean to those who pray the prayer, and what we’re praying when we talk about His coming Kingdom and His will being done on earth AND in our lives. Today we examined what it means to trust God for our daily sustenance and health and protection. And then we looked at what it means to forgive others and WHY we should do so.

The Lord’s prayer is not something we should every say by rote, mouthing words without a focused attentiveness to what we are saying. May the Holy Spirit always help us to LISTEN to the words coming out of our mouth – and to really mean what we say, and say what we mean.

Amen.

We will conclude this mini-series on the Lord’s prayer next week.