Seeds for 06/12/2023 - Matthew 6:14-15
Scripture: 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.
Observation: Jesus is serious about forgiveness.
What puzzles me is the stark condition Jesus asserts here. If we forgive others, we’ll be forgiven. If we do not forgive others, God will not forgive ours. Can this be? What’s going on here?
The first thing that helps us understand these verses is the context of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is addressing His disciples, not the crowds (5:1-2). In other words, He’s preaching to those already converted. Not converted in the same sense as after the Resurrection, but converted nonetheless. They have responded to Jesus’ preaching and calling to repent and follow Him. It isn’t a condition for beginning to follow Jesus, but is about being a faithful follower of Jesus.
Next, we observe that this comment on the importance of forgiveness comes on the heels of Jesus’ teaching on prayer. The prayer that Jesus teaches includes a petition about forgiveness that rhymes with what He says here: “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” This reinforces the notion that the followers of Jesus will practice a dynamic interplay between forgiving and being forgiven.
Finally, we broaden out to the book of Matthew as a whole. In Matthew 18:21-35, Jesus tells a parable about a king who is settling accounts with his servants when one pleads for the king’s patience, promising to pay him back the entirety of the large debt he owes. The king is moved, cancels the debt, and sends him away. Notice that canceling the debt means that the king absorbs the cost himself.
As the servant is leaving, he encounters a fellow servant who owes him a small sum. Angered when the man asks for mercy and time, he has him thrown into prison. When the king hears of this, he is outraged, revokes the servants’ pardon, and makes him pay it back after all: “Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you? … This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” (18:33, 35)
This message is clearly congruent with Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. Forgiveness is a distinguishing mark of the disciples of Jesus. God’s forgiveness is not only for the pardoning of our debt, but also for the transforming of our hearts. If the heart transformation isn’t there, it’s a rejection of God’s gift of forgiveness and of the forgiving heart of God Himself. How can we be forgiven when we refuse the heart transformation that is made manifest when we forgive others as we have been forgiven?
Application:
On a scale of 1 to 5, how are you doing for heart transformation in the area of forgiving others? What’s the next level that God is calling you to?
What else might the Holy Spirit be speaking with you about in the text today?
Prayer: Lord, transform my heart of stone to a heart of flesh. Keep me forgiving others as I have been forgiven. Amen.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
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This is so challenging, but critical for our spiritual health and growth.