"If You Forgive" Matthew 6:14-15

"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 your sins."

At the end of this prayer that Jesus modeled for us, He comes back to the forgiveness issue. This is a thread that runs through much of Jesus' teaching. It is worth digging into a bit and trying to understand.

First, let's back up and review who Christians believe Jesus is. What we believe about Jesus matters a whole lot. I don't just mean in terms of to whom we look for salvation -that part is obviously important and quite clear to those who are followers of Jesus. Rather, I mean that what we believe about Jesus matters a whole lot in terms of how we interact with and interpret Scripture.

Jesus lived here in our world, walking and talking and teaching. He lived among real people who wrote down what He did and said. What we believe about Him, must influence how we read and interpret not only what He did and said, but also how we interpret other writers of Scripture who came after Him, and even before.

So, according to Scriptures, we believe that Jesus is the Son part of the Three-In-One God. We (Christians) believe that He was with the Father in eternity. We believe that Jesus was and is the Creator, and that He willingly chose to lay His deity aside as He took on flesh and blood and came to His creation. He left eternity and stepped into time and space and lived among us. We believe He lived a perfect human life and died for our sins, clearing the way for us to have a right relationship with God. We believe Jesus rose again from the dead and returned to God the Father. I’m hoping that all of us are on the same page with this –this is basic Christianity.

Now, if Jesus came from the Father and returned to the Father and is, in fact, part of the Godhead -if He is, as Scriptures clearly teach, God –then I think it is safe to assume that what Jesus taught, and what He focused on, and what He modeled for us is incredibly important. If anybody in the history of the earth had His priorities straight and understood how things really are, it has to be Jesus. I know that the Old Testament is Scripture. And I know that the writings of Paul and Peter and John and the rest of the New Testament are Scripture. But if God became man and made His dwelling among us and explained to us how things really are, that has to become the lens through which we interpret the rest of Scripture.

Some people mistakenly insist that since all Scripture is God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16), all Scripture is equal for all things. I believe that all Scripture is important, and useful for it's intended purpose. Some Scriptures are intended for encouragement, some for teaching, some for correcting, some for training. Some Scriptures lay the foundations of theology, and some give us historical framework. But, clearly, not all Scriptures are to be used equally for these different intended purposes. It is our job to discern which Scriptures are to be used for what. This includes discerning which Scriptures are theologically foundational Scriptures through which other Scripture is interpreted.

It seems obvious that for we who call ourselves followers of Jesus, the actual teachings of Jesus, who was and is God, must be the key to unlocking the rest of Scripture. We can’t do it the other way around. We can’t take the writings of Paul and interpret Jesus. We can’t take the prophets and interpret Jesus. We must use Jesus to interpret everything else –because Jesus is God.

The reason I am making such a big deal about this is because in today's passage from Matthew 6:14-15. Jesus is telling us that if we refuse to forgive others, the Father will not forgive us. This is serious, and either Jesus knows what He is talking about or He doesn't. Either Jesus is correct in saying that our forgiveness is related to our willingness to forgive, or He is mistaken. What we believe about Jesus is going to have a great deal of influence on how we interpret this. I choose to take it at face value and not try to explain it away for the simple reason that Jesus is God, and I am His follower.

What this means, at the least, is that for we who are followers of Jesus, forgiveness is not optional. We cannot actually be followers of Jesus and refuse to forgive others when they wrong us. We will talk more about the "how to" of forgiveness when we get to Matthew chapter 18 (read ahead if you want).

For today, though, let's commit to the desire. Because I love Jesus and I am His disciple, I choose to forgive -I am willing, with His help to forgive those who have harmed me.