Dan Osborn (00:01)
To say that we are living in a divisive period of time would be a gross understatement. It honestly feels as if we're actively seeking ways to create enemies. Our culture has become remarkably skilled at creating caricatures of other people without ever really knowing them. And the distance that technology affords us allows those caricatures to develop, grow, and eventually produce the ugly fruit of hatred towards one another.
One comment, one social media post, one statement that carries the perceived weight of some hidden agenda. Suddenly we find ourselves at irrepar and suddenly we find ourselves at odds. I've heard numerous stories of friendships ended and families separated over comments made that seem to carry the language of the other side. Perhaps you've experienced something similar yourself. And frankly,
It's an ugly reality of the time in which we live. But conflict, grudges, hatred, and wrongdoing are not new to humanity. They show up almost immediately in the biblical story. It isn't long after the create It isn't long after the creation narrative that we encounter two brothers at odds with one another. It isn't long after the creation narrative that we encounter two brothers at odds with one another.
And that conflict ends with one brother taking the life of the other. I thought quite a bit about Cain's hatred toward Abel. And I wonder if, at its core, Cain's problem wasn't so much that he hated Abel, but that he loved himself far too much. Cain was so consumed with justifying himself, with elevating himself, that his brother became a threat to the very thing he loved most.
And so he eliminated the threat. That's a sobering picture of the human heart, isn't it? And ever since, humanity has been at odds with one another because others represent a threat to the king and kingdom that we love the most, our own.
We have wronged others, and we have in turn been wronged by others. And into this ugly reality of humanity, into this world of hatred, bitterness, grudges, and broken relationships comes Jesus Christ, God incarnate, with words directed right into the hearts of both those who have done wrong and those who have been wronged. And into this ugly reality of humanity, into the world of hatred,
Bitterness, grudges, and broken relationships comes Jesus Christ, God incarnate, with words directed right into the hearts of both those who have done wrong and those who have been wronged. And those words are the focus of our course correction for today. Matthew chapter 6, verse 12. Right in the middle of the Lord's Prayer, Jesus instructs us right in the middle of the Lord's Prayer.
Jesus instructs his disciples to pray, forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. I remember memorizing the Lord's Prayer as a young child and thinking this particular line referred to actual monetary debts. And I could totally get behind the idea of the debts that I owed being forgiven. But man, I really wanted my friend Kyriakos to pay me back for the milk money from yesterday's lunch.
Isn't that how forgiveness tends to work with us? We love the idea of being forgiven, but forgiving someone else, well, that's another matter entirely. Because when someone wrongs us, it really does feel as though they owe us something. There's a debt. And we become remarkably good at keeping records of those debts. We remember the words that were spoken, the betrayal that occurred.
The injustice that was done, and we hold on to them. But Jesus invites us into an entirely different way of living. Let's consider the first part of this prayer. Forgive us our debts. These four words take us right to the very heart of Christianity. All of humanity's wrongdoing, all our pride, selfishness, hatred, and rebellion is ultimately sin against the good and holy character of God.
When we live as though we are king and he is not, we offend his holiness. And the problem is that our debt, the debt of our sin, is too great for us to ever attempt to repay. There's no amount of good behavior, religious activity, or moral improvements that can somehow undo our rebellion against the holy God. We need forgiveness. And when Jesus instructs his disciples to pray,
Forgive us our debts. He knows full well the means by which that forgiveness will be accomplished. He himself will bear the cost.
The Holy Son of God will take upon himself the judgment our sins deserve. The Apostle Paul captures this extraordinary reality in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 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. In theological circles, this is often called the great exchange. Our sin.
Laid upon Christ, Christ's righteousness credited to us. Christ's righteousness credited to us. The debt we could never repay is dealt the debt we could never repay is dealt with through the sacrifice of the sinless Son of God. And as Jesus hangs upon the cross, John nineteen thirty records his final declaration, it is finished.
The Greek word is tetelesti, but it was also a word used to simply say it is paid. And so when we come before the Holy God, confessing our sins and praying, forgive us our debts, we do so trusting in the finished work of Jesus Christ to pay those debts. Four words that change everything because forgiveness is at the very center of Christianity.
At least it should change everything. But Jesus doesn't stop with those four words. He continues, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And this is where we find ourselves at odds with the instructions given us in the Lord's Prayer. Because while we're more than happy to receive forgiveness from God, we can be remarkably reluctant to extend that same forgiveness to others.
In fact, sometimes we actually enjoy holding on to the debts of those who have wronged us. We rehearse their offenses, we tell others about their failures, we find ways to remind ourselves that we are the injured party and they're the guilty one. And occasionally, when something unfortunate happens to that person, there's even a little satisfaction that rises within us. Why? Because somewhere deep within our sinful hearts,
We feel as though they're finally getting what they deserve. That their debt is being paid little by little in where keeping score. Jesus tells a remarkable parable in Matthew 18 that exposes the absurdity of this kind of unforgiveness. It's the parable of the unforgiving servant. A servant owes his king an astronomical sum of money, 10,000 talents. Now
A talent was an enormous unit unit of value. Now, a talent was an enormous unit of value, often estimated at roughly 20 years of wages for an ordinary laborer. Now, a talent was an enormous unit of value, estimated at roughly 20 years worth of wages for a laborer. And when we do the math, it means that 10,000 talents represents something like
200,000 years of labor. In other words, this servant owes a debt that he could possibly never repay. And when the king demands payment, the servant falls to his knees and begs for patience. But instead of merely giving him more time, the king forgives the entire debt. The original hearers of this parable would have been utterly shocked by this move.
Move of the king. The original hearers of this parable would have been utterly shocked by this move of the king. It was so countercultural, a debt so enormous that it could never be repaid, and in a moment it is canceled. Now, what would you expect the servant to do in response? You'd expect him to leave the king's presence overwhelmed by gratitude, wouldn't you? You'd expect him to leave the king's presence overwhelmed by gratitude, wouldn't you?
You'd expect him to become the most gracious, merciful, forgiving man in the entire kingdom. But that's not what happens. Matthew 18 tells us that this same servant goes out and immediately finds a fellow servant who owes him a hundred denarii, about a hundred days' wages. Now that's not an insignificant amount of money, but compared to the debt that he had just been forgiven, it's practically nothing.
And what does he do? He grabs the man by the throat and he demands pay what you owe.
It's almost an unbelievable scene. A man who had just received extraordinary mercy refuses to extend even a fraction of that mercy to someone else. And when the king hears about it, he calls the servant back and confronts him, and he calls him wicked. Why? Because the mercy that had been extended to him had produced absolutely no corresponding mercy toward others.
He had experienced forgiveness, but his heart remained unchanged. And Jesus concludes the parable with a sobering warning about the necessity of forgiving others from the heart. Now, we need to be careful here. Jesus is not teaching that we somehow earn God's forgiveness by forgiving other people. We are saved by grace through faith, not by our works. But he is teaching that.
That a heart genuinely transformed by God's forgiveness will increasingly become a forgiving heart. Forgiveness received should produce forgiveness extended. And that's the point of this prayer. Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. Forgiveness is not something we receive when we first come to Christ, it's something that begins to shape the way we live every single day.
Forgiveness is not simply not only something we receive when we first come to Christ. It is something that begins to shape the way we live every single day. We are forgiven people who are called to become forgiving people. Now that's very easy to say, but considerably more difficult to live, especially when the wrong done to us is significant. Especially when the person who wronged us.
Has never acknowledged it, and especially when that pain is still very, very real. So, how do we grow in forgiveness? I believe it begins by dwelling upon the magnificence of the grace of God toward us. The more deeply we understand the mercy that we have received, the more that mercy begins to reshape our hearts. C.S. Lewis offers a wonderful picture of this kind of transformation.
He compares redemption to the difference between teaching a horse to jump higher and transforming that horse into a winged creature. The goal isn't simply to make the horse better at jumping fences, the goal is to give the horse an entirely new capacity. Wings. And Lewis acknowledged that the process of growing those wings might initially look very awkward. There may be a season where the wings are beginning to develop, but the horse hasn't yet learned to fly.
But the creature is being transformed. And I think that's a wonderful picture of what God is doing in the Christian life. He's not merely teaching us to behave a little better, he's transforming us into people who increasingly reflect the character of Jesus Christ. And one of the clearest evidences of that transformation is our growing willingness to forgive. That illustration from Lewis reminds me of one of the great stories of redemption in literature, Victor Hugo's Le Miserable.
And at the center of the story is a man named Jean Valjean. Valjean has spent 19 years in prison initially for stealing bread and then repeated attempts to escape. At the center of the story is a man named Jean Valjean. Valjean has spent 19 years in prison initially for stealing bread and then for repeated attempts to escape. And when he's finally released, he's bitter, he's hardened, and he's rejected by society.
No one wants to help him. Until one evening, a bishop welcomes him into his home. And the bishop feeds him, gives him a place to sleep, and treats him with dignity. And how does Vajan respond to the extraordinary kindness? He steals the bishop's silverware and runs away. He's quickly apprehended by the authorities and he's brought back to the bishop. And Vajan fooly expects to be condemned.
But something remarkable happens. Rather than demanding justice, the bishop tells the authorities that the silverware was a gift. And then he turns to Valjean and he tells him that he forgot to take the candlesticks as well. Think about that. The man who had every right to demand repayment instead extended mercy. The man who had every right to demand repayment instead extended mercy. The man who had been wronged.
chose to absorb the loss himself rather than demand that the wrongdoer pay. And that act of undeserved grace becomes the turning point in Valjean's life. He begins to become a different man. And later in the story, Valjean finds himself with the opportunity to kill Inspector Javert, the man who had relent relentlessly pursued him for years. And later in the story, Valjean finds himself with the opportunity to kill the inspector
The man who had relentlessly pursued him for years. A man who had caused him enormous suffering. A man who has been determined to bring him back into captivity. And now Vajan has the opportunity to settle the score. And now Vajhan has the opportunity to settle the score. But he doesn't. He releases Javer and he allows him to go free.
The man who had received extraordinary mercy was now extending extraordinary mercy to the very man who had wronged him. Do you see it? The wings were growing. The grace that Valjean had received wasn't merely something he remembered, it was something that had begun to transform the way he lived. And friends, isn't that precisely the kind of transformation that Jesus is calling us toward? We have been forgiven an insurmountable debt against the holy God.
A debt that we could never begin to repay, and through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has provided the way for that debt to be forgiven. So how can we, who have received such extraordinary forgiveness, continue to cling so tightly to the debts of those who have wronged us?
Now, forgiveness doesn't mean pretending the wrong never happened. It doesn't mean that trust is automatically restored. And it most certainly doesn't mean that the pain of being wrong simply disappears. But it does mean that we begin to surrender our desire to make others pay for what they've done to us. And that transformation begins as we return again and again to the magnificent grace of God.
We dwell upon His mercy. We meditate upon His forgiveness. We remember the debt that has been canceled through Jesus Christ, and as we do, the Holy Spirit continues his transforming work within us. The wings begin to grow.
So here's my course correction for us today. Whose debt are you still holding on to?
Who is the person whose wrongdoing you've rehearsed in your head again and again? Whose offense you've carefully recorded, whose debt you're still waiting to see repaid?
And what might it look like for you to begin extending to that person the kind of forgiveness God has so graciously extended to you? Friends, forgiveness is not simply something we receive from God. Forgiveness is a way of life for those who have been redeemed by God. Friends, forgiveness is not simply something we receive from God. Forgiveness is a way of life for those who have been redeemed by God.
So may we be men and women who were so overwhelmed by the grace that we have received that we increasingly extend that same grace to others. Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. May those not simply be words that we pray, may they increasingly describe the lives that we live, and may the wings continue to grow.
To say that we are living in a divisive period of time would be a gross understatement. It honestly feels as if we're actively seeking ways to create enemies. Our culture has become remarkably skilled at creating caricatures of other people without ever really knowing them. And the distance that technology affords us allows those caricatures to develop, grow, and eventually produce the ugly fruit of hatred towards one another.
One comment, one social media post, one statement that carries the perceived weight of some hidden agenda. Suddenly we find ourselves at irrepar and suddenly we find ourselves at odds. I've heard numerous stories of friendships ended and families separated over comments made that seem to carry the language of the other side. Perhaps you've experienced something similar yourself. And frankly,
It's an ugly reality of the time in which we live. But conflict, grudges, hatred, and wrongdoing are not new to humanity. They show up almost immediately in the biblical story. It isn't long after the create It isn't long after the creation narrative that we encounter two brothers at odds with one another. It isn't long after the creation narrative that we encounter two brothers at odds with one another.
And that conflict ends with one brother taking the life of the other. I thought quite a bit about Cain's hatred toward Abel. And I wonder if, at its core, Cain's problem wasn't so much that he hated Abel, but that he loved himself far too much. Cain was so consumed with justifying himself, with elevating himself, that his brother became a threat to the very thing he loved most.
And so he eliminated the threat. That's a sobering picture of the human heart, isn't it? And ever since, humanity has been at odds with one another because others represent a threat to the king and kingdom that we love the most, our own.
We have wronged others, and we have in turn been wronged by others. And into this ugly reality of humanity, into this world of hatred, bitterness, grudges, and broken relationships comes Jesus Christ, God incarnate, with words directed right into the hearts of both those who have done wrong and those who have been wronged. And into this ugly reality of humanity, into the world of hatred,
Bitterness, grudges, and broken relationships comes Jesus Christ, God incarnate, with words directed right into the hearts of both those who have done wrong and those who have been wronged. And those words are the focus of our course correction for today. Matthew chapter 6, verse 12. Right in the middle of the Lord's Prayer, Jesus instructs us right in the middle of the Lord's Prayer.
Jesus instructs his disciples to pray, forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. I remember memorizing the Lord's Prayer as a young child and thinking this particular line referred to actual monetary debts. And I could totally get behind the idea of the debts that I owed being forgiven. But man, I really wanted my friend Kyriakos to pay me back for the milk money from yesterday's lunch.
Isn't that how forgiveness tends to work with us? We love the idea of being forgiven, but forgiving someone else, well, that's another matter entirely. Because when someone wrongs us, it really does feel as though they owe us something. There's a debt. And we become remarkably good at keeping records of those debts. We remember the words that were spoken, the betrayal that occurred.
The injustice that was done, and we hold on to them. But Jesus invites us into an entirely different way of living. Let's consider the first part of this prayer. Forgive us our debts. These four words take us right to the very heart of Christianity. All of humanity's wrongdoing, all our pride, selfishness, hatred, and rebellion is ultimately sin against the good and holy character of God.
When we live as though we are king and he is not, we offend his holiness. And the problem is that our debt, the debt of our sin, is too great for us to ever attempt to repay. There's no amount of good behavior, religious activity, or moral improvements that can somehow undo our rebellion against the holy God. We need forgiveness. And when Jesus instructs his disciples to pray,
Forgive us our debts. He knows full well the means by which that forgiveness will be accomplished. He himself will bear the cost.
The Holy Son of God will take upon himself the judgment our sins deserve. The Apostle Paul captures this extraordinary reality in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 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. In theological circles, this is often called the great exchange. Our sin.
Laid upon Christ, Christ's righteousness credited to us. Christ's righteousness credited to us. The debt we could never repay is dealt the debt we could never repay is dealt with through the sacrifice of the sinless Son of God. And as Jesus hangs upon the cross, John nineteen thirty records his final declaration, it is finished.
The Greek word is tetelesti, but it was also a word used to simply say it is paid. And so when we come before the Holy God, confessing our sins and praying, forgive us our debts, we do so trusting in the finished work of Jesus Christ to pay those debts. Four words that change everything because forgiveness is at the very center of Christianity.
At least it should change everything. But Jesus doesn't stop with those four words. He continues, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And this is where we find ourselves at odds with the instructions given us in the Lord's Prayer. Because while we're more than happy to receive forgiveness from God, we can be remarkably reluctant to extend that same forgiveness to others.
In fact, sometimes we actually enjoy holding on to the debts of those who have wronged us. We rehearse their offenses, we tell others about their failures, we find ways to remind ourselves that we are the injured party and they're the guilty one. And occasionally, when something unfortunate happens to that person, there's even a little satisfaction that rises within us. Why? Because somewhere deep within our sinful hearts,
We feel as though they're finally getting what they deserve. That their debt is being paid little by little in where keeping score. Jesus tells a remarkable parable in Matthew 18 that exposes the absurdity of this kind of unforgiveness. It's the parable of the unforgiving servant. A servant owes his king an astronomical sum of money, 10,000 talents. Now
A talent was an enormous unit unit of value. Now, a talent was an enormous unit of value, often estimated at roughly 20 years of wages for an ordinary laborer. Now, a talent was an enormous unit of value, estimated at roughly 20 years worth of wages for a laborer. And when we do the math, it means that 10,000 talents represents something like
200,000 years of labor. In other words, this servant owes a debt that he could possibly never repay. And when the king demands payment, the servant falls to his knees and begs for patience. But instead of merely giving him more time, the king forgives the entire debt. The original hearers of this parable would have been utterly shocked by this move.
Move of the king. The original hearers of this parable would have been utterly shocked by this move of the king. It was so countercultural, a debt so enormous that it could never be repaid, and in a moment it is canceled. Now, what would you expect the servant to do in response? You'd expect him to leave the king's presence overwhelmed by gratitude, wouldn't you? You'd expect him to leave the king's presence overwhelmed by gratitude, wouldn't you?
You'd expect him to become the most gracious, merciful, forgiving man in the entire kingdom. But that's not what happens. Matthew 18 tells us that this same servant goes out and immediately finds a fellow servant who owes him a hundred denarii, about a hundred days' wages. Now that's not an insignificant amount of money, but compared to the debt that he had just been forgiven, it's practically nothing.
And what does he do? He grabs the man by the throat and he demands pay what you owe.
It's almost an unbelievable scene. A man who had just received extraordinary mercy refuses to extend even a fraction of that mercy to someone else. And when the king hears about it, he calls the servant back and confronts him, and he calls him wicked. Why? Because the mercy that had been extended to him had produced absolutely no corresponding mercy toward others.
He had experienced forgiveness, but his heart remained unchanged. And Jesus concludes the parable with a sobering warning about the necessity of forgiving others from the heart. Now, we need to be careful here. Jesus is not teaching that we somehow earn God's forgiveness by forgiving other people. We are saved by grace through faith, not by our works. But he is teaching that.
That a heart genuinely transformed by God's forgiveness will increasingly become a forgiving heart. Forgiveness received should produce forgiveness extended. And that's the point of this prayer. Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. Forgiveness is not something we receive when we first come to Christ, it's something that begins to shape the way we live every single day.
Forgiveness is not simply not only something we receive when we first come to Christ. It is something that begins to shape the way we live every single day. We are forgiven people who are called to become forgiving people. Now that's very easy to say, but considerably more difficult to live, especially when the wrong done to us is significant. Especially when the person who wronged us.
Has never acknowledged it, and especially when that pain is still very, very real. So, how do we grow in forgiveness? I believe it begins by dwelling upon the magnificence of the grace of God toward us. The more deeply we understand the mercy that we have received, the more that mercy begins to reshape our hearts. C.S. Lewis offers a wonderful picture of this kind of transformation.
He compares redemption to the difference between teaching a horse to jump higher and transforming that horse into a winged creature. The goal isn't simply to make the horse better at jumping fences, the goal is to give the horse an entirely new capacity. Wings. And Lewis acknowledged that the process of growing those wings might initially look very awkward. There may be a season where the wings are beginning to develop, but the horse hasn't yet learned to fly.
But the creature is being transformed. And I think that's a wonderful picture of what God is doing in the Christian life. He's not merely teaching us to behave a little better, he's transforming us into people who increasingly reflect the character of Jesus Christ. And one of the clearest evidences of that transformation is our growing willingness to forgive. That illustration from Lewis reminds me of one of the great stories of redemption in literature, Victor Hugo's Le Miserable.
And at the center of the story is a man named Jean Valjean. Valjean has spent 19 years in prison initially for stealing bread and then repeated attempts to escape. At the center of the story is a man named Jean Valjean. Valjean has spent 19 years in prison initially for stealing bread and then for repeated attempts to escape. And when he's finally released, he's bitter, he's hardened, and he's rejected by society.
No one wants to help him. Until one evening, a bishop welcomes him into his home. And the bishop feeds him, gives him a place to sleep, and treats him with dignity. And how does Vajan respond to the extraordinary kindness? He steals the bishop's silverware and runs away. He's quickly apprehended by the authorities and he's brought back to the bishop. And Vajan fooly expects to be condemned.
But something remarkable happens. Rather than demanding justice, the bishop tells the authorities that the silverware was a gift. And then he turns to Valjean and he tells him that he forgot to take the candlesticks as well. Think about that. The man who had every right to demand repayment instead extended mercy. The man who had every right to demand repayment instead extended mercy. The man who had been wronged.
chose to absorb the loss himself rather than demand that the wrongdoer pay. And that act of undeserved grace becomes the turning point in Valjean's life. He begins to become a different man. And later in the story, Valjean finds himself with the opportunity to kill Inspector Javert, the man who had relent relentlessly pursued him for years. And later in the story, Valjean finds himself with the opportunity to kill the inspector
The man who had relentlessly pursued him for years. A man who had caused him enormous suffering. A man who has been determined to bring him back into captivity. And now Vajan has the opportunity to settle the score. And now Vajhan has the opportunity to settle the score. But he doesn't. He releases Javer and he allows him to go free.
The man who had received extraordinary mercy was now extending extraordinary mercy to the very man who had wronged him. Do you see it? The wings were growing. The grace that Valjean had received wasn't merely something he remembered, it was something that had begun to transform the way he lived. And friends, isn't that precisely the kind of transformation that Jesus is calling us toward? We have been forgiven an insurmountable debt against the holy God.
A debt that we could never begin to repay, and through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has provided the way for that debt to be forgiven. So how can we, who have received such extraordinary forgiveness, continue to cling so tightly to the debts of those who have wronged us?
Now, forgiveness doesn't mean pretending the wrong never happened. It doesn't mean that trust is automatically restored. And it most certainly doesn't mean that the pain of being wrong simply disappears. But it does mean that we begin to surrender our desire to make others pay for what they've done to us. And that transformation begins as we return again and again to the magnificent grace of God.
We dwell upon His mercy. We meditate upon His forgiveness. We remember the debt that has been canceled through Jesus Christ, and as we do, the Holy Spirit continues his transforming work within us. The wings begin to grow.
So here's my course correction for us today. Whose debt are you still holding on to?
Who is the person whose wrongdoing you've rehearsed in your head again and again? Whose offense you've carefully recorded, whose debt you're still waiting to see repaid?
And what might it look like for you to begin extending to that person the kind of forgiveness God has so graciously extended to you? Friends, forgiveness is not simply something we receive from God. Forgiveness is a way of life for those who have been redeemed by God. Friends, forgiveness is not simply something we receive from God. Forgiveness is a way of life for those who have been redeemed by God.
So may we be men and women who were so overwhelmed by the grace that we have received that we increasingly extend that same grace to others. Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. May those not simply be words that we pray, may they increasingly describe the lives that we live, and may the wings continue to grow.
