Awakened to Grace

Chad Roberts: Welcome to Awakened to Grace. I’m Chad Roberts and I’m so glad you’re joining us today. I believe God has connected us for a great purpose. Today you’re going to hear a powerful sermon. But before we get to the sermon, I want to encourage you to check out my new book. It’s called Blind Faith: Seeing God Through Darkness. It’s published by our partners at Lifeway.

The reason I wrote this book is because I am 100 percent blind. And as I’ve walked this path of blindness, this path of suffering, I want to teach you how Christians can suffer well. I say that today my job as a blind pastor is to help people trust a God they cannot see. You can order the book right now anywhere that books are sold in any format. Even if you’re not much of a book reader, you can even get it in audio where you can listen to it.

I hope you’ll go right now to the official website which is blindfaith.life. Again, that’s blindfaith.life and I hope you’ll not only get a copy for you, I hope you’ll pick one up for someone who needs encouragement in their faith today. Matthew chapter six, we are in a series called Kingdom Come. This is a study through the Lord’s Prayer. Let me just recap for a moment so we’re all on the same page this morning.

We began a few weeks ago, this is week four, and a few weeks ago we began looking at the first phrase of the Lord’s Prayer where Jesus taught us, remember this is the model prayer, He’s teaching us how we ought to pray. One of the number one things that you need to know about the Lord’s Prayer is that there is a divine order, there is a sequence to it. And so the divine order of prayer is number one, Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Your name.

In other words, the divine order is to reverence, it is to acknowledge, it is to worship the name of God. This is so important because so many of us, we jump the gun and we bring our needs before God and that’s it. And we jump right into the needs of our life. Whereas the right order is to reverence God. The right order is to worship God. The right order is to say God, above all of my needs, above all of my trials, above all of my temptations, above all my weakness, God, Your name is above it all.

You know what happens when you get that divine perspective? Then the things going on in your life take the right perspective. And instead of those things looking so big, then God begins looking so big, amen? So we reverence the name of God. We called week one, the person of the prayer. We talked about the fatherhood of God and how God is not like earthly fathers who have the ability, who have the potential to let us down. No, God is our heavenly Father and He will never fail. That was week one, the person of the prayer.

Week two was the priority of the prayer. Again, rather than praying for our needs immediately, then what’s the next of the divine order? Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. When we get the priority straight in our own lives, when we begin to live for the glory of God, we begin to live for the name and for the renown of God, when we begin to live that God’s kingdom would come on earth as it is in heaven. And how did we define that? Remember we said in heaven, there is absolutely no resistance to the will of God, think about that.

There’s no rebellion to the will of God, there is no sin to the will of God. And you know what happens when you live such a surrendered, such a humble, such an obedient and a righteous life to the Lord Jesus Christ? You know what happens as you yield yourself and you humble yourself and you submit yourself to the will of God and when there is no resistance in you, when there’s no rebellion in you, when you are submitted to the will of God, you know what that is? That’s the kingdom of God being exercised in your life. That is God’s kingdom coming on the earth. That’s His will being done on the earth as it is in heaven. What a beautiful thing.

Last week in week three, we talked about the provision of the prayer. What’s the provision? Give us this day our daily bread. And oh, how I enjoyed preaching last week. What a great journey, amen? Today, today we’re going to talk about the pardon of the prayer. Forgive us our debts, as we forgive those who sin against us or trespass against us or as we forgive our debtors. Let’s explore this today. I have such a deep appreciation for this line of the Lord’s Prayer.

And I appreciate so much that Jesus does not shy away from the reality. The reality is that each and every one of us have sinned against God. And the reality is for each and every one of us, someone has sinned against us. The reality is sin creates pain. And there are many of you listening today, whether you’re in the building or watching online, there are many, many of you who love the Lord Jesus Christ. You love His word and you love God, but there’s a roadblock.

For many, there is a barrier to you going your next steps with God. There is a barrier to spiritual maturity and it’s pain. I want to explain to you today how you can get past the pain. I’m going to explain to you today the remedy that God gives and I’m telling you my friend, this is a remedy straight from the throne of God. God has a remedy for not only the sin that we commit against God but for the sins that are committed against us. America is a nation of debt, are we not?

Currently, our national debt is 28 trillion dollars. And they’re not done. Our debt is growing exponentially. Our debt is a scary matter. We are a nation of debt, but let me explain to you, debt today is not what debt was in Jesus' day. Debt does not mean today what it meant to this audience that Jesus is teaching to. For us today, debt usually means a whole lot of stress. Debt can mean tension in our home and in our marriage.

Debt can create ulcers and headaches and all kinds of health issues. Debt can even bring embarrassment. But see, the people that Jesus was speaking to, do you know what debt meant? Debt meant prison. Debt was a prison sentence. They would imprison those with debt in hopes that it would put pressure on the family to pay the debt. And see, when we think prison, we think of those who have been criminals. Well, in Jesus' day, you didn’t go to prison and serve out a prison term for being a criminal. You were executed.

Remember who Jesus died between? Two criminals, two thieves. Debt back then, listen, jails were not filled with criminals. Debt jail was filled with debtors. And so they knew well the ramifications when Jesus said, they understood the consequences when Jesus used the word debt. The Greek word for debt literally means to owe something. And today I want to ask the question, have you ever considered the debt that you owe to God? And what do you do with the debt that other people owe to you?

There’s a biblical answer for both. The purpose of this prayer is to teach us that we have committed offense, that we have sinned against God and it’s also to tell us what to do when others sin against us. This prayer is the foundation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s the very foundation. Because notice what this prayer does not say. It does not say forgive us our debts because we forgive our debtors. It doesn't say that, does it? It says forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

This prayer for many Christians is the most difficult prayer of the entire Lord’s model for praying. Is this a difficult passage for you? It very well may be. See, this prayer teaches us, this line in the prayer, this is what it teaches us. There’s a response that is created in us when we sin against God and there’s a response created in us when people sin against us. When we sin against God, and if you’re taking notes, I want you to note this. When we sin against God, the response that we feel as humans is guilt.

We feel the weight of the guilt of our sin. When people sin against us, the response that as humans we tend to feel is bitterness. Both are highly toxic for a Christian. Both is poison to our soul. And what I so much appreciate about the Lord’s Prayer, now again, I remind you precious friends, the order. We reverence the name of God, hallowed be Your name. We appeal to our Father and see, the more sensitive we, listen, the closer we grow to the Father, the more sensitive, the more aware we are of sin. Does that make sense to you?

And the divine order is that as we call, as we appeal to our Father, we begin to worship the name of God. Then the priority comes His kingdom and then His will. And see what happens is, it’s not God’s will for you to carry guilt today. It’s not God’s will for you to have bitterness in you today. And so it brings us to a crossroads that as we grow in our sincerity of our worship to God, it causes us to deal with our sin and the sins that others have committed against us.

If I’m going to have the will of God functioning in my life, if I’m going to have the will of God at work in me, can I allow the poison of guilt? Can I allow the toxicity of bitterness? No, I have to deal with those things. And then I so much appreciate this. You know, if I asked you which was more important, your physical needs or your spiritual needs? Most of us would say spiritual. But you know Jesus doesn’t see it as either/or. He sees it as both. Isn’t it fascinating that God does not overlook the physical needs we have?

As a matter of fact, He ranked them above the spiritual. Isn’t that fascinating? You know why? Because God knows everything it takes to live in this body. God knows everything it takes to live in this world. Remember what we said last week? Give us this day our daily bread. That’s not Sara Lee. It’s not a loaf of bread. He’s talking about the essentials to life. And isn’t it something that the same God, say amen if you’re listening right now, amen. Isn’t it something that the same God who well understands our greatest physical needs are met by His generosity?

Isn’t it interesting that the same God knows and understands our greatest spiritual need? He understands the need of your soul and hear me, my dear friends. Listen, if God knows that bread is our greatest physical need, He knows that forgiveness is our greatest soul need. And there’s some of you that are wrestling right now. There’s some of you that are trying to process pain, and pain must be processed. But what we must understand is in the processing of pain, here’s what we must understand. Sin creates pain.

The remedy that God gives, the remedy that God shares with us, the remedy to sin, the remedy to pain, the remedy to guilt, the remedy to bitterness, is forgiveness. And this is why you can offer forgiveness to anyone in your past. This is why you can offer forgiveness to anyone in your future. This is why you can offer forgiveness to anyone in the present. It is because once you recognize your debt to God and the grace you’ve received, that’s when you can extend the same grace out.

Is it easy? No. But is it possible? Yes. So number one, forgive us our debt. What is a debt? It’s what we owe to God. Do you and I owe anything to God? Absolutely. We owe obedience. We owe faithfulness. We owe our life. And yet all of us have failed God. We have failed God. But you know what the Bible says? The Bible says that when you and I sin, and how many of you are sinners? Raise your hand. Oh, don’t raise your hand. You got a blind pastor.

You’re talking about the blind leading the blind. Everybody just raises their hand. We’re sinners, aren’t we? Amen. Oh let me do it a better way. How many of you are married to a sinner? We’ll do marriage counseling later, it’s fine. We’re sinners. And see, the Bible says that all that sin that accumulates in our life is called debt. But let me tell you the gospel news. Let me tell you why this is the foundation of the gospel. One of the scriptures that you ought to memorize is Colossians 2 verses 14 and 15.

Colossians 2:14 and 15 says that Jesus took the debt that we owed and listen to what it says, with all its legal demands. And this He set aside, nailing it to the cross. Do you know what happened when the very hands and the very feet of the Lord Jesus Christ was nailed to Calvary’s cross? Your debt and my debt and all of its legal demands were nailed with it, amen? And God pardoned us. He forgave us. In other words, He let us off the hook.

We did not have to pay for all of that sin debt that we owed. Jesus paid it all, amen. You and I owed a debt that we could have never repaid and Jesus Christ paid a debt that He never owed. The Bible says it like this, He who knew no sin became sin that we might become the righteousness of God, amen. So what has Jesus done with our debt? Friends, He paid it. He let us off the hook. He paid it in full.

You and I no longer owe our enormous debt of sin to God Almighty because of the finished atoning work of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. Now number two, as we forgive our debtors. What do we do with the debt people owe to us? In Matthew chapter 18 verses 23 to 35, Jesus tells a stunning parable. Jesus tells us that there was a man who owed an enormous debt to a king. As a matter of fact, in today’s dollars, his debt would have been nearly a billion dollars. Could you imagine owing a billion dollars?

It was a debt that he could not have paid with his entire lifetime. He could have never repaid it. And yet the king in all of his grace, in all of his generosity, in all of his mercy, the king forgave the man’s debt, isn’t that something? And then Jesus says that as the man left the king’s presence, he was humbled. He was overjoyed. He was so thankful. But as he left the king’s presence, he ran into another man, a friend who owed him a debt.

And do you know how much Jesus said the man owed? A hundred denarii. Now how much is a hundred denarii? In the Bible days, a denarius was equivalent to one day’s wage. In other words, this man owed one hundred days' wages compared to a billion dollars. And rather than showing the man the same grace, the same mercy, the same gratitude, the same generosity, rather than showing him what he had just received, Jesus said he took the man and threatened him and said pay me what you owe or I will cast you into the debtor’s prison.

Remember what we said? It’s easy for us to see that man’s sin, isn’t it? It’s easy for us to see that man’s failure. But could it be that some of us have the same attitude? Could it be we have the same actions? That here we have received the richest grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, but yet we’ve not extended the same grace. What does it mean to truly forgive? You know, it takes minimum grace to forgive someone when they say I’m sorry. But doesn’t it take maximum grace when someone’s not sorry?

Can you forgive someone who’s not sorry? Can you forgive someone who truly doesn’t deserve to be forgiven? See, sometimes we focus on the wrong things. See, the gospel does not ask the question, do I deserve forgiveness? Because do you know what the Bible answer would be? No. Rather than asking do I deserve forgiveness, know what the gospel asks? Is God gracious enough to forgive? And the answer’s yes. You should ask yourself the same question.

Don’t ask yourself is that person deserving of forgiveness? Because they may very well not be. But see, the real question, the real question is will you offer the grace that God offered you and forgive them? Friends, this is the remedy to bitterness. It’s the remedy to guilt. Today, I want to share with you, if you’re someone that you’re carrying a heavy load today, if you’re someone that within your heart you carry the weight of guilt, if you’re someone that you carry the weight of bitterness.

If you’re someone that you carry that heavy weight of revenge, if you’re someone that you carry the heavy weight of anguish, I’m telling you the remedy today is the gospel of Jesus in your heart and it’s forgiveness in action. That is the remedy that God offers today.

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