Give us today the food we need. Forgive us the wrongs we have done, as we forgive the wrongs that others have done to us. Do not bring us to hard testing, but keep us safe from the Evil One.' "If you forgive others the wrongs they have done to you, your Father in heaven will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive the wrongs you have done.
(Mat 6:11-15)
Last week, for those of you who weren’t here, we started discussing the Lord’s Prayer. We covered a lot, but let me highlight the main points:
-First, in this passage Jesus is giving us guidance on how to pray by giving us a prayer which can both serve as a model for our own prayers, but which also is intended to be repeated as given, with the understanding that different sections of it remind us to pray for things we would otherwise forget or not realize.
-Second, we touched on the fact that prayer is something which can be done both publicly and privately, but we ought to be aware of our intentions in public- prayer is not meant to be something which we do for others to see. It’s not meant to be a public display of how holy we are. In discussing this, we discussed repentance, which we will cover in more detail tonight. We noted that having a saving relationship with Jesus, like the marriage analogy I’ve used over the past few weeks, does not amount to making a few oaths, then you’re set and never have to worry about Jesus again. You can’t just go back to living your life. Jesus wants all of you, not just your sins, and He wants to give everything of Himself, not just His forgiveness.
-Third, we noted that we don’t have to “sway God over to our side,” in our prayers. He knows what we need before we ask for it, but He does still want us to ask. This is, in part, because prayer doesn’t just produce an action on God’s part, but affects us. The ways in which prayer changes us is a large part of its benefit.
-Fourth, we wrapped things up by discussing how our acknowledging the holiness of God (i.e. “hallowed be your name”) and our submission to His will (i.e. your kingdom come, your will be done) are acts which ought to be done especially when we don’t want to do them. By doing so, in a sense, our hearts follow our actions, rather than vice-versa. You see, we often act on the basis of wear our heart is leading, but by acknowledging these truths about God when we don’t want to, eventually our hearts will change.
This week we’re moving into discussing the rest of the prayer. Last week focused on the truths we acknowledge about God in the prayer, this week we are focusing on the things we ask for in this prayer, and what we really mean when we ask for them. So, starting at verse 11…
Give us today the food we need.
(Mat 6:11)
[Q’s: What are some of the things you need every day? Why are these things important? Does God care if we get these things every day?]
What are we really saying when we ask that God “give us today the food we need,” or as other translations have it, “give us this day our daily bread”?
We have a lot of needs as humans. We have our basic physical needs, like food, shelter, clothing, et cetera; we have emotional needs, like the need to feel loved; and we have spiritual needs, like the need to be forgiven, the need for the strength to face certain challenges, and so on.
When it comes to our basic physical needs, food, clothing, and shelter, there are certain things which we can control, certain ways in which we play an important role in meeting our own needs. But there are also a lot of things which we can’t control, a lot of our circumstances are outside our ability to control them; and the things that we can control often depend in some sense on the things we can’t control, and we often don’t even realize it. We take things for granted.
Take, for example, ordinary everyday events. Like, if I told you that today I got in my car, started the engine, pulled out onto the street, and drove towards the grocery store. I stopped at two stop signs on the way but no traffic lights. I went into the store, bought a loaf of bread, and then got back into my car. I drove back towards home, stopped at one stop sign, got home, turned the car off, and then went inside. How boring? I’ve just told you the most predictable story ever. Everything in the story seems to be under my control and my needs, the need for a loaf of bread, was met.
However, what if, 20 seconds after I pulled into the parking lot, a driver who was fiddling with their ipod instead of paying attention to their driving swerved only momentarily over the center line. No one was hurt, but if I had been there 20 seconds earlier, I would’ve been, and so would they, and there wouldn’t have been anything I could’ve done about it. Or maybe, my slightly balding tires came within inches of some broken glass I didn’t see on the road, and those few inches spared me a blown tire. Or even maybe, because I bought a loaf of bread to make a sandwich instead of a pre-made salad, I avoided eating the meat in the salad that was tainted with salmonella before someone realized it and the salads were recalled.
Now, though my story is still relatively boring, it’s obvious that the aspects of the story which I controlled, the driving, the buying, et cetera, were all dependent upon the cards being stacked in my favor at that moment. The same is true of big things too. For example, say someone gets a promotion at work. Now, they’re in control of doing the best job they can do in order to get the promotion, they submitted their application, they presented themselves well at the interview. But, they couldn’t control whether or not the person who used to hold that position resigned or not, or whether or not the person doing the interview liked their personality, and a hundred other things that all played a factor in them getting that promotion. Again, the cards were stacked in their favor.
I watched a movie the other day, and I won’t name it, but the opening premise of the story was about a farmer who was working hard, but couldn’t make ends meet because the weather was so harsh where they were living. He was talking to his wife about some of the decisions he had made about where they spent their money, and one of the things he told her was “we can’t make it rain together.”
Jesus tells us in Matthew 5:45 that God sends rain to both the righteous and the unrighteous. Now, I had a professor in college and his first thought whenever he heard that passage when he was younger was of the old children’s song “rain, rain go away, come on back another day.” He thought it meant that God sent unpleasant things to both good people and bad people. But, as he would later point out, back in Jesus’ time, back when most people’s livelihood depended on enough rain to produce good crops, the idea of rain being sent was a blessing.
The point I’m trying to make is that all the good things we have in life, even the ones that we think we’re responsible for, depend upon all those things which aren’t under our control, but under God’s. Not only that, but when we receive those blessings, not only are they dependent upon unpredictable things like the weather and our surroundings, but upon God working through those people who produce the things we consume.
So, on a basic level, when we ask God to “give us this day our daily bread,” we are showing that we trust Him to provide for our needs, because those needs are always dependent upon Him. Beyond that, we’re also trusting in His goodwill towards us. The Bible makes a point of telling us over and over again that God cares about us the way a perfect Father cares about His children. He wants to give us everything we need, everything we truly need, even when sometimes it seems certain needs aren’t being met.
Sometimes you’ll feel like you’re not getting enough food to make it through the day; sometimes people do starve; and eventually, everybody dies. If you remember, way back when we were working our way through the first two chapters of Luke, one of the ways the devil tempted Jesus was by suggesting that He turn the surrounding stones into bread because Jesus was fasting at the time and would’ve been very hungry. But how does Jesus respond? He says “man cannot live by bread alone, but by every Word from God.” Sometimes, if we receive certain blessings, they’ll stand in the way of our hearing from God.
So, when we ask for our daily bread, while we’re asking God to meet our basic needs and we trust Him to do so, we also must be aware that God ultimately will provide for all the things we truly need. And now that we’ve discussed this on the basic physical level, let’s look briefly at how this applies on the level of our spiritual needs. In the Gospel according to John, Jesus tells us that He is the true bread, come down from Heaven, and that whoever eats of this bread will not die but have everlasting life. So, in a spiritual sense, when we ask God to give us the bread we need each day, we’re asking Him to give us life in Jesus.
Now, the next thing we’re told to ask is that God forgive us just as we forgive others…
Forgive us the wrongs we have done, as we forgive the wrongs that others have done to us.
(Mat 6:12)
[Q: Have you ever been forgiven by someone for doing something really wrong? How did that feel? Have you ever had to forgive someone else for something they did? Why did you forgive them?]
Different translations of the Bible translate that word, “wrongs,” differently. Some say “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us,” others say “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,” and still others say “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
Wrongs, sins, debts, and trespasses, what do they all mean? Do they all mean the same thing? Well, in this case, essentially they do, but they’re each conveying a different sense of the thing itself. “Wrong” is easy enough. A wrong is anything you did that you shouldn’t have done. Like, say it’s raining outside, and someone asks you what the weather is like. You could say it’s pouring, you could say it’s sprinkling, you could say it’s a soaking rain, you could say it’s a misting rain. Or, you could just say it’s raining. That’s kind of like saying “wrongs,” it’s not specific, just kind of covers everything. So, if we say “forgive us our wrongs as we forgive the wrongs others have done against us,” we’re acknowledging that there are some things which someone else may do, even unknowingly, that just rub us the wrong way, and we need to forgive those actions.
However, the other translations which use sins, debts, and trespasses, all focus not on forgiving the “wrongs,” but the wrongdoer. It’s kind of like, if you’ve ever heard the saying, “God hates the sin, but loves the sinner.” The idea is not that we’re saying that whatever that person did is ok, but that we forgive the person who did it anyway. In the same way, we don’t want God to say that whatever thing it was that we did that was wrong is really ok, we want Him to say that we’re ok, that we are forgiven as a person.
Now, the word “sin,” we’ve covered before; it has more to do with our attitude towards God , our inward bent to do wrong things, than the individual things themselves which we’ve done wrong. But when applied to specific instances of sin, it also means those times when we knew that we weren’t supposed to do something and we did it anyway; or when we knew we were supposed to do something and we refused to do it.
“Debts” brings a different understanding of the situation into light. When you’re in debt, you owe someone something. The idea here is that we have a duty, an obligation, to do good things and avoid evil things, we owe it to God. So, when we don’t live up to that duty, we are in “debt.” We owe something that we’ll never be able to pay back because the opportunity to do what we were supposed to do has already passed. Similarly, in a certain sense, people owe certain behaviors to other people, like respect, and kindness. And so, when someone violates that obligation, when someone is disrespectful, unkind, or even evil towards you, in a sense they too owe a debt, and just as God has forgiven you your debt to Him, you must forgive them their debt to you.
Lastly, “trespasses” brings in another different shade of understanding to the situation. Of course, when you trespass, you cross a line you’re not supposed to cross. There are certain lines that we’re not supposed to cross when it comes to our interaction with God and with other people. When we do cross them, we need to ask God to forgive us for it, because we have violated the boundaries He set out for us. Likewise, sometimes other people cross boundaries with us that they ought not cross, and we need to forgive them for doing so just as God has forgiven us.
Now, this business of “forgiving as we have been forgiving” raises a question which I myself have struggled with over the years. Presumably, in order for us to be forgiven we have to ask, or at least want to be forgiven. If we don’t want to be forgiven, it’s assumed that we aren’t. How are we supposed to deal with people who have wronged us when they don’t want to be forgiven? That’s a tough question, and I’m not sure I quite have the answer figured out all the way. But, I would assume that you want to be forgiven for the wrongs you’ve done, even the ones you don’t know you’ve done. So first, it’s a safe bet that we ought to be forgiving of people even when they don’t know they’ve done anything wrong.
But, what about the people who know they’ve done something wrong or hurtful towards us, but still don’t want to be forgiven? Well, once again, we ought to look at the way that God deals with us. The Bible tells us that even if we hated God at one point, while we still considered Him and enemy and acted as His enemies, God loved us and sent Christ to die for even us. In the same way, we are supposed to love our enemies, as it says “bless those who curse you and pray for those who despise you.” So, even if a person isn’t technically forgiven for what they’ve done, we ought to show them love and kindness, because that is still our obligation, even if they aren’t fulfilling theirs.
Now, does this mean that we act like nothing ever happened? No, not by any means. If a person beat you up and they’ve made it clear their not sorry about it, it’s probably best to avoid that person as best you can. If a person has stolen something from you and again made it clear their not sorry, it’s probably best to still keep a close eye on them when their around your stuff. Even if you have forgiven them, it doesn’t mean that you have to immediately trust them as if nothing ever happened. I’ve got a friend who has someone in his family who used to be a child abuser. Now this abuser has never asked for forgiveness, but by their actions it seems they’ve tried to show they’re sorry. But this friend of mine is still never going to leave their kid alone with this guy, he doesn’t need to trust them just because he’s forgiven them.
Do not bring us to hard testing, but keep us safe from the Evil One.'
(Mat 6:13)
[Q: Are tests good things are bad things? Why? What does it mean for God to keep us safe from the “Evil One?”]
Now, this is one of the points where I hate this particular translation. I normally don’t prefer the King James Translation, but this is one of the points where it seems to be clearly superior, at least when compared to the translation we’re using. It puts it this way: “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” The translation we’re using’s replacement of “temptation” with “hard testing” is very misleading. There will be times when we are “tested,” times when we will have to suffer a bit as Christians, and we need those times. As Paul tells us in Romans 5: “troubles produce patience, and patience produces experience, and experience produces hope.” So, if anything then, we ought to ask that God give us the strength to bear those tests, or not to test us beyond what we can bear.
Instead, though, what we are asking is that God doesn’t lead us into actual temptations, times where we are tempted either by our human weakness, our sinful nature, or by the devil, to sin against Him. While there isn’t anything wrong with asking God to keep us from tough situations, and no one ought to go out of their way to suffer, what we’re really asking, I think, is for God to keep us away from those situations in which our sin would almost inevitably increase. Like the remainder of the verse says, we are asking Him to deliver us from evil, even from its power in our own lives. Like I’ve said before, we are asking God to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. While we must try our hardest to fight our own sins, apart from the divine intervention of God our hearts cannot be changed and our situation is helpless. We can only have the strength and change of heart necessary to be free if He gives them to us, if He Himself frees us.
"If you forgive others the wrongs they have done to you, your Father in heaven will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive the wrongs you have done.
(Mat 6:14-15)
[Q: Why do think Jesus cares if we forgive other people? What can happen if we don’t forgive other people?]
Having finished giving the disciples the model prayer, Jesus gives us a short explanation of one section of the prayer, the section on forgiveness. And, to be honest, these two verses were, for me, two of the most difficult verses in the Bible to understand for a long time. I know we’ve just covered it in some detail a moment ago, but let’s look at that passage again: forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. And Jesus tells us, if you forgive, God will forgive you, but if you don’t forgive, God won’t forgive you.
Really, Jesus? Forgive us as we forgive others? I mean, who really wants to do that? I mean, I’m willing to try to forgive a guy every now and again, put the past behind me and so on, but do I really want to be forgiven in the same way that I forgive others? Is there a sliding scale, like if I forgive someone a little bit, is God only going to forgive me a little bit? Do I have to forgive completely to be completely forgiven? Cause really, when I think about it, I’m not all that good at forgiving I think.
But I don’t think that’s what Jesus is really driving at here. I don’t think Jesus is laying out a punishment scheme for us, a sort of cosmic “do this or I’m gonna whoop you” sort of deal. Like we’ve seen in other passages, no matter how hard we try, our “good behavior” can’t get us into Heaven; that’s why we need forgiveness in the first place. In fact, if you think about it, if you start going around trying to perfectly forgive others just so you can avoid Hell yourself, then you’re not really forgiving people, you’re just trying to avoid punishment, you’d be doomed from the start.
Instead, I think it’s, again, like that marriage analogy I’ve used a couple times before. If you’re getting married, you don’t just go to the altar, say the vows, and then walk of and never see the person again. That’s not a marriage. You see, in order to come to Christ, one of the necessary elements is repentance. You have to admit your sins, seek forgiveness, and try to do better. You have to desire to heal your life, or have your life healed. If you’re happy with how things are, you just want Jesus to be your “fire insurance,” then you’re not really turning to Him, giving yourself to Him, trusting Him.
You see, in any relationship, there are certain things that can become a wedge between you and that other person, something that drives you apart. And now, in your new life in Christ, sin, rather than being this wall that legally separates you from God because of your guilt, is now, instead, something which pulls you away from God. It drives a wedge. You have to regularly repent of it as you recognize it, otherwise you’ll eventually cease to care about it, and about God. Martin Luther once said “The Christian life is one of constant repentance.” We’re constantly recognizing the wrongs we do and asking God to forgive us, as well as to take them from us and give us the strength to stay away from them. We’re asking to be “delivered” from evil.
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