Forgiving is a spiritual discipline...Matthew 6:9-15...Another 2 kinds

 

I title this photo:  "A little man in a big world!"

Maybe I could have titled it also, "Where's Waldo?"  Below is a zoomed in version so you can see Timber Lake in the background as I stand at the gap on Jack Straw Mountain.  The mountain peak in the above photo in the top left is Mount Ida where we had just come from.  It was a long but glorious day.

I am climbing mountains as I am preaching Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.  I have had the privilege to scale a 10,000, 11,000 and 12,000 peak (Shadow Mountain, Jack Straw Mountain, and Mount Ida).  As glorious as it is to do this, it doesn't compare to the insights the Holy Spirit gives me from studying God's word.

Embedded in the Lord's Prayer is the spiritual discipline of forgiving one another.  We have covered the spiritual disciplines of giving and praying and next week will be fasting.  Each has a corporate element and a private element.  The passage is dealing with the private element of these spiritual disciplines.  It made me dig deep to see the difference I need to make between God's forgiveness to man and man's forgiveness to each other.

I also laid the whole of the prayer over the 10 commandments of the Old Testament and the 2 greatest commands given by Jesus.  As I pray this prayer it covers these foundational requirements to God and to man.  I believe it is a great template to pattern our prayers after but it is also a great gift from Jesus, like the Lord's Supper, for Christians to say together at times.  

This sermon made me create a chart after the sermon to better explain the difference between God's eternal forgiveness of our sins past, present and future and man's temporal forgiveness that is repeatable with our fellow man.  

God’s Forgiveness - God to man	Man’s Forgiveness - man to man
Complete - past, present, future	Repeatable - present situation
For eternity - for salvation	For now - for sanctification (growth)
Released from God’s wrath	Released from this sin’s hold
God honoring Jesus’ action - cross	God honoring man’s action - obedience
God forgiving as only God can - effect	God forgiving as man does - effect
Heavenly forgiveness	Earthly forgiveness

To put this in the context of the whole of the passage starting at verse 1 of chapter 6 of Matthew.

• Two ways to give - corporately and privately and the passage deals with the privately. (Consider the poor)

• Two ways to pray - corporately and privately and the passage deals with the privately. (Storage closet and shut the door)

• Two ways to fast - corporately and privately and the passage deals with the privately. (Anoint head and wash face)

• Two ways to forgive - corporately (fully) that God provides for man through Jesus and privately that happens between man to man and the passage deals with this type of private forgiveness. (Forgiving of man by man) 

This is definitely something I am going to keep thinking about as I try to explain the marrying of God's eternal and complete forgiveness and man's forgiveness or un-forgiveness that receives either God's blessings (v.14) because we are released from the consequences of holding onto un-forgiveness or either God's discipline (v.15) because we have yet to follow His example.  

Adam