SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Well, here we are at day 13, not quite halfway through our 30 days of prayer, but it has been so good so far. And listen, if you've been able to stay with this for 13 days, you're doing awesome. And we're continuing to hope that this is a catalyst for you to just establish that rhythm of prayer and getting in the Word. We want it to be a healthy rhythm that we all experience coming out of this. Because it's more than just about the 30 days. It is about us all finding that regular rhythm of prayer and being in the Word. Well, today, Eric is with us once again.

SPEAKER_01: 0:43

Hey, guys. Glad to be back.

SPEAKER_00: 0:47

And he'll be breaking down the Word for us today. So if you have already had a chance to look at the devotional, hopefully this is a good follow-up to that, or maybe this is how you're starting the process off today, and Eric will be giving you some thoughts as you spend some time in the Word yourself and spend some time in prayer. But Eric, take us in, help us dive into the Word as part of the Lord's Prayer and unpack it a little bit.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11

Yeah, this one, this is, I believe, one of those that people would rather edit out of the lord's prayer and it's when we talk about being forgiven that's easy topic man it's it feels good to be forgiven have our debts paid and then he says that as we also have forgiven our debtors and It may be easy just to read over that quickly and say, you know what, I'm going to get 90% of the Lord's Prayer right. We'll call that a win. But then they doubled down. In verse 14, for if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive you. The author, Matthew, is dead set on helping us know that that's important. And obviously Jesus is saying that forgiving others is an understanding of what has been done for you. One of my favorite stories in Scripture, it comes down a couple, about 12 chapters later in 8 It's the parable of the unmerciful servant. And that is the best illustration I believe we have in what it means to forgive others. I think there's others that helped us see what us being forgiven looks like, but then when it says to forgive others, this is the best example that we've got. And it talks about, just a recap, it talks about a king, about a master who is settling up debts with his servants. He calls one of them in, and what I love about Scripture is that they're exaggerating. It's almost like him saying, you owe me one million bajillion dollars, and the servant has no way of paying that. There is no possible way, and he knows his life is going to be wrecked. He knows his life is pretty much over at that point because he's gonna have to go into slavery he's gonna have to go into uh having to work that off that he'll never be able to do that so his life is in essence over and he begs for mercy and the and the master shows compassion shows mercy on him and forgives the debt he did not have to but he chose to forgive the debt you don't owe me anything I would imagine that would be life changing to know to walk out of that place, knowing that your life has been spared, that you can go on back with your family. You can go back on with a lot of things, everything that you had had planned. And while his life may have been changed for a moment, I think his memory was short sighted. that he finds someone almost on the way out, another somebody that owes him money. And again, Scripture is contrasting. He's saying that this guy owes is pennies on the dollar. to what he owed the master. So he owed an exorbitant amount to the master, and this guy owes him very little, and he's saying, you need to pay up right now or I'm going to throw you in jail. So he does. He follows through. He has him thrown in jail because he can't pay up. And other people, they knew what just happened, how his life had been changed, report back to the master. The master's like, you wicked, unmerciful, and ends up throwing him into jail because he couldn't extend the same grace and mercy that he had given this servant. And when we look at the scripture, when something is done to us, when harm has been committed to a person, there's something that's taken. There is a debt. There is something, there's a void, which is why we get the saying, you owe me an apology or you owe me. And I think there's a lot of people carrying around the burdens, the hurts of something that was done to them. And they're saying, you owe me a, an apology. You owe me an explanation. You owe me the last 10 years of my life. You owe me my, whatever that might be. Because when that harm is caused, that void is, enters and we want somebody to pay for that and so then we start taking it out on them and we start treating somebody that person like garbage because we feel like that's going to fill that void we feel like that's going to pay the debt and ends up being worse and the way that we are taught through scripture is that when we cancel the debt when we forgive that person for what they've done then we we are saying you don't owe me anymore there whatever that void whatever what was taken whatever it is that is missing in my life you don't owe me that anymore and you stop holding those that ill will for that person doesn't ever make it right what happened

SPEAKER_00: 5:59

right

SPEAKER_01: 6:00

but it is saying you don't owe me that back anymore i'm not going to hold that against you i'm not going to hold that note and understanding god's grace and mercy this is one of those tough ones because there have been some not some there have been a lot of horrific things that have happened to people people that are listening right now to this podcast they can they can they probably got a ledger of the things that have happened to them and they if you only knew what that person did to me and i i don't want to take anything away from that and god asks us to forgive that person of those things, to look at that ledger and say, you know what? You don't owe me that anymore. You don't owe me this anymore. You don't owe me that anymore. In the light of what God has done for us, a perfect, holy, loving God, and when our sin against him is astronomically more than what any person will ever do against us, we forgive that debt. We are extending that same grace that we have been offered from God. This is not an easy one because some people are probably listening thinking there's no way. I can't. I won't. They don't deserve it. And you're right. They probably don't deserve it if we look at it on our own terms. But that's where the supernatural gift that God gives us to walk alongside of us, to help us in that, to be able to forgive someone will actually be more freeing for you you will ever realize because you will be able to heal from that you'll be able to move on from that you'll be able to live fully into what god has for you because you're not holding grudges or ill feelings toward someone else again i want to just i want to double back when our anytime our kids did something at home to each other we would have them sit down and we would never allow them to use the words it's okay because it's not okay you know you you pushed somebody you threw something you broke something of someone else's you did on purpose or accident doesn't matter it's never okay and so we would we would start teaching our kids from an early age just to say more of i forgive you because forgiving somebody is canceling the debt of being owed back saying it's okay justifies the action that's never that's never okay

SPEAKER_00: 8:22

right

SPEAKER_01: 8:22

So we want to teach to forgive the debt. And as the Lord's Prayer teaches us, just as he has forgiven us, as he has canceled that debt, that we are to cancel other people's debts.

SPEAKER_00: 8:37

I wonder how many of us miss out on that freedom. You're right. I mean, this is one of the hardest elements of this prayer. And then even when I feel like when you take the steps to follow through and to like you said, you know, you no longer owe me. Somehow that's got to go from my prayers to God helping me get there. Then maybe it's going to come out of my lips at an intellectual level until it finally gets to my heart. And then I wonder if that's when you can see some wounds start to heal. Because people's hurt leaves some pretty deep wounds.

SPEAKER_01: 9:16

Some big voids. Some things that are missing. Some things that were taken. And And what are we doing to try to fill that back in? What are we trying to do to make us whole again? And until we just learn to cancel that debt, because nothing, nothing we're going to do is going to fill that back in. Maybe partial, maybe it may even make it worse. I do have two. I won't share the stories here, but I do have two people in my life that have explained to me their forgiveness journey. and two pretty radical things that happened. And they talk about the freedom they felt when they offered forgiveness, when they were able to talk about not being owed back what was taken, that that freedom gave them a new path, a new outlook, a new relationship with Jesus and with other people that they would never have had. Not just letting it go, but forgiving that debt.

SPEAKER_00: 10:23

I feel like this is one of those days.

SPEAKER_01: 10:26

It's

SPEAKER_00: 10:26

heavy. It's very heavy. It's a heavy one, yeah. And as some of you unpack it and think through your own life, man, are you longing for that freedom? Because some of you are thinking, as Eric was talking, you're thinking through a scenario in your own life right now. And it got heavier for you. We're just sitting here in a studio and we're going, man, this is heavy. And you have a tangible example that you're feeling right now in your gut. We want you to find that freedom. I think it does start with your conversations with Jesus and praying about this and praying about it and praying about it and praying about it. But it could also be... We talk about the counseling center here all the time. This may be one of those things where it's good to go sit down with somebody professionally trained who's a believer and say... I need you to help me unpack these things so that I can reach that level of freedom. And just would encourage you, if you've been hesitant about making a phone call like that, maybe that's part of your prayer today too. God, give me the courage to do that.

SPEAKER_01: 11:28

So I preached on this several years ago, and we used an example at the end where we were literally canceling the debt. And so maybe if you're listening to this and thinking, you're not quite sure what to do. And maybe you've never thought of it in terms of that debt. We wrote on pieces of paper, that ledger, you know, what are the things you feel like you're owed? Write it down and shred it, throw it away, whatever you got to do. And having that visualization, maybe you just need to get it out of your head on the paper and say, here's the things I feel like I'm owed from being hurt. Take that, pray over it, and then throw that in a shredder and allow God to work through that to say, that person has been forgiven and that debt has been canceled. They don't owe you anymore.

SPEAKER_00: 12:14

I think that would be a great practice for maybe somebody to put into practice right now. As you hear our voices fade from the podcast today, just want to, man, if it works out with your schedule, maybe it's something you got to do later in the day. Give yourself some space to just be in some silence, talk to Jesus, maybe pull out a piece of paper and work through a ledger, but... Take some time, pursue that freedom, and know that the one who loved you enough to forgive you is the one who's going to empower you and be with you on the journey of forgiving others. Thanks for being with us today. We'll see you tomorrow.