“12 Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors... 14 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
”
The story of Willie Earl Greene is, “the story of a man who seems to have more forgiveness in his heart for someone who has done him a grievous wrong than God is said to have for those who are said to have done Him wrong.” Let me read that again. The story of Willie Earl Greene is, “the story of a man who seems to have more forgiveness in his heart for someone who has done him a grievous wrong than God is said to have for those who are said to have done Him wrong.”
Is Willie Earl Greene more forgiving than the God of the Bible? Author Neale Walsch thinks so. After learning about Willie Earl Greene, he wrote an article entitled Man is More Forgiving than God. You’ve just heard an excerpt from it.
Willie Earl Greene certainly is a forgiving man. He was sentenced to prison for 33 years to life for the murder of a woman in Los Angeles. He was convicted largely on the testimony of the victim’s boyfriend, Willie Finley. Finley placed Greene at the scene of the crime. Finley identified Greene as the murderer. His testimony put Greene in prison. His testimony was also a complete fabrication. In 2004, Finley’s admitted that he was high on cocaine at the time of the shooting and hadn’t gotten a good look at the shooter. Given this new evidence, Willie Earl Greene’s conviction was overturned and he was released.
The reporters who spoke with him after his release were amazed by Greene’s attitude. He wasn’t bitter against the justice system. “The system that put me in here was the same system that got me out,” he said. “It’s not perfect, but it’s the best system in the world.” He wasn’t even bitter against the man whose lies put him in prison. “I don’t hate anybody,” Greene said. “I don’t hate Willie Finley for doing what he did. I forgive him, too.”
This is a remarkable story of choosing forgiveness. We can all agree on that. Greene spent 24 years behind bars because one man lied. Rather than choosing hatred and vengeance, Greene chose to forgive. That’s beautiful but does that make Greene more forgiving than the God of the Bible? Neale Walsch thinks so. The story of Willie Earl Greene is, “the story of a man who seems to have more forgiveness in his heart for someone who has done him a grievous wrong than God is said to have for those who are said to have done Him wrong.”
A lot of people agree with Neale Walsch. They think the God of the Bible is judgmental, and we humans are merciful. They think that God of Israel is quick to condemn, and we humans are quick to see the good in others. They think you can find more mercy from your fellow man than you can from the Father of Jesus. They think you can find more mercy in a self-help book than you can in Scripture.
Jesus disagrees. In this prayer, he trains us to ask for His Father’s forgiveness and to offer forgiveness. He doesn’t think the forgiveness we offer is greater than the forgiveness we need. He knows us and He knows his Father too well for that. Jesus thinks that God’s forgiveness outstrips ours in every way. That’s the claim of this sermon: God’s forgiveness outstrips ours in every way.
We will see this in two points. First, we will study the debts that must be forgiven by God and by us. Second, we will see the need to forgive. First: forgiving debts. Second: the need to forgive.
First, forgiving debts. Jesus trains us to pray, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” We have two forgivers here—the Father and ourselves. Who is quicker to forgive? Is Neale Walsch right? Is man more forgiving than God? Is this objection valid? Is God more judgmental than we are? Is God less merciful than we are?
We can’t compare until we have a proper understanding of forgiveness. Forgiveness has two components—judgment and mercy. Let’s look at judgment. To forgive someone, you must determine that this person has sinned against you. It is debts, it is sins that must be forgiven. Only sin can be forgiven and the only way to deal with sin is by forgiveness.
Before Willie Earl Greene could forgive Finley for his lies, he first needed to acknowledge that what Finley did to him was sin. You don’t forgive mistakes. You forgive the inexcusable as C.S. Lewis put it. You can’t forgive someone until you acknowledge that what they did was wrong.
In this sanctuary, there are most likely people who are not forgiving their debtors because they are not acknowledging that they have been sinned against. A wife whose husband cussed her out this morning for, ‘making us late yet again,’ cannot forgive her husband until she acknowledges that he sinned against her by cursing at her. She can’t do anything with that sin until she identifies it for what it is.
It is sin that must be forgiven and only God understands the full horror of sin. Only He recognizes how inexcusable it is. He understands the horror of sin because He is holy.
You have never recognized the full depravity of any sin you have committed because you are not holy. You are a sinner and therefore you can’t see the depth of your sin. Trusting you to understand the depth of your sin would be like putting a defendant in charge of his own trial. You can’t be trusted to see the ugliness and offensiveness of your sin because you are used to sinning. I can’t be trusted to see the ugliness and offensiveness of my sin because I have grown accustomed to sinning. We humans are like the proverbial frog who can’t tell he is being boiled alive because he has grown accustomed to the water. God is outside the pot and only He can see sin for what it is.
God understands the depths of sin. He also understands the width of sin. So much of what requires forgiveness simply doesn’t register as sin to mankind. Our sin detectors are faulty. We need to be told by God when we sin. That’s how bad we are at detecting it.
Our culture boasts that it isn’t judgmental, but that is just because it doesn’t judge rightly. It doesn’t judge sin as sin. It excuses and often celebrates sin rather than forgiving.
God recognizes the horror of sin. He doesn’t celebrate a young man’s sexual conquest of the most desirable girl is school. He sees it for what it is. It is sin. He recognizes how it degrades both the man and the woman. He recognizes the cost that they will pay in future years. He made them to be sexual creatures and He knows the beauty of that gift and the sorrow that comes when it is abused. He sees the gravity of the situation. The culture doesn’t. The culture isn’t forgiving. God is.
God forgives. He first judges sin to be what it is—sin. He then gives mercy. That’s the second component of forgiveness—mercy. God recognizes the horror of sin and in His mercy He takes that horror upon Himself. The cross was grotesque and ugly and humiliating for a reason. This is what sin deserves. The world papers over sin. ‘It’s not so bad.’ The world celebrates sin as freedom. God sees it for what it is and takes it on Himself so that we might become lovely. That’s mercy. God’s forgiveness outstrips ours in every way.
God understands the depth and the width of sin. He is also affected by sin. The godless man thinks he is compassionate because he overlooks other people’s sins that don’t affect him. Neale Walsch again, “How is it that Willie Earl Green has more compassion for the man who wrongly placed him behind bars for years and years [than] the God [of the Bible] who condemns men and women to everlasting torture routinely, simply for being Jewish? Or Muslim? Or Hindu? Or Buddhist? Or Mormon? Or anything besides Christian?”
A Muslim woman’s rejection of Jesus has no impact on Neale Walsch and so it doesn’t bother him. He overlooks it. He thinks God should do the same.
It’s pretty easy for me to overlook sins that have nothing to do with me, but that’s not forgiveness. Forgiveness forgives offenses against the forgiver. “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”
Your sin against the Father is more offensive than anything you could do to any other human because you’ve received more from God than from any human. The closest analogy would be a son grievously betraying his father. He received love, support, encouragement, assistance, and ten thousand times more from the man and then he emptied his retirement count. That’s a small picture of what your sin affects God.
Yet, God gives mercy. God is the father in the parable of the prodigal son who showed mercy to the child who betrayed him. The Father affected as He is by your sin, gives mercy. He says, “Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” Don’t expect that sort of celebration from humans. od’s forgiveness outstrips ours in every way.
God’s forgiveness is also consistent. We humans pick and choose what we think is worthy of forgiveness. There are some sins we would forgive, and there are some we aren’t sure we could forgive. ‘What if my husband cheated on me? Could I forgive him?’ We wonder what would be too inexcusable to forgive. We find ourselves fearful of forgiving too often. We ask with Peter, “how many times do I need to forgive my brother?”
God’s forgiveness is consistent. He will always both willing and able to forgive. Psalm 103 tells us about God’s ways. This is what God is like. “He made known his ways to Moses.” What are God’s ways? What is He like? “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will He harbor His anger forever; He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”
If you have ever wondered what God is like, that is your answer, “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.” That is His consistent character. God never encounters a sin He can’t bring Himself to forgive. He forgives the inexcusable. God’s forgiveness outstrips ours in every way.
God also doesn’t need to forgive and yet He does. We humans need to forgive and yet we often don’t. We see that in our second point: the need to forgive.
God doesn’t need to forgive. There is no one and nothing that could require God to forgive. It is very easy to imagine a God who would not forgive sins. Perhaps that is the sort of God you imagine. Perhaps that is the sort of God you fear. The good news is that God is not like that. He has decided to forgive sins simply because He chooses to forgive sins.
If God needed to forgive sins, there wouldn’t be any grace in that. Grace is glorious because it is unnecessary. God was within His rights to turn His back on Adam and Eve in the Garden, but He chose not to. God was within His rights to leave you in the wrath your sins deserve, but He chose not to. It could have been otherwise. When you think of God’s forgiveness, remember it could have been otherwise.
God doesn’t need to forgive and that makes His forgiveness glorious. We need to forgive. If you are forgiven by God, you need to forgive. Jesus makes that very clear in verse 14-15, “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.”
If you are forgiven by God, you must forgive. If you don’t forgive others, you will not be forgiven by God. The godless man thinks this makes his own forgiveness superior to God. ‘You see,’ he says, ‘God can’t wait to withhold forgiveness. God can’t wait to find something wrong with us. He says He’s forgiving but His forgiveness isn’t unconditional. “If you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” That’s conditional forgiveness. I offer unconditional forgiveness.’
Is God’s forgiveness less glorious because of this condition? I would argue it makes God’s forgiveness more glorious. It is true that God’s forgiveness isn’t unconditional. It is far better than that. It is transformative.
The Father’s forgiveness transforms the men, women, and children who receive it. Forgiven men forgive. Forgiven women forgive. Forgiven children forgive. The Father’s condition, “if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins,” is not about earning forgiveness. This condition tells us that forgiven people will forgive and that if you will not forgive, that is a sign you haven’t accepted God’s forgiveness.
Jesus put it this way in a parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him twenty years worth of wages was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. At this the servant fell on his knees before him. “Be patient with me,” he begged, “and I will pay back everything.” The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him one day’s wage. He grabbed him and began to choke him. “Pay back what you owe me!” he demanded. His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, “Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.” But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened. Then the master called the [first] servant in. “You wicked servant. I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?”
If the Father has forgiven you, your million-dollar debt is forgiven. That round number comes from using a salary of $50,000 a year. Twenty years of $50,000 a year is one million dollars. Any debt that you must forgive is $137 by comparison – one day’s wage. Whatever you must forgive is dwarfed by the immensity of what you have been forgiven. Do you believe that? Do you believe that whatever you must forgive is almost nothing compared with what you’ve been forgiven? If you grasp the Father’s forgiveness, you realize that you must forgive. If you won’t forgive, you haven’t grasped the Father’s forgiveness.
If you are refusing to forgive someone, I want you to bring that sin against you to mind. No matter how horrible that sin was, no matter how unforgivable it may seem to you, that sin is dwarfed by what God has forgiven you. The sin that you’ve been forgiven is far worse than the sin you need to forgive. If you identify yourself as a follower of Jesus and refuse to forgive someone’s sin, I want you to hear these words as a warning. I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” You must forgive as you’ve been forgiven. You must forgive the inexcusable because you’ve been forgiven what is far more inexcusable to paraphrase C.S. Lewis.
Do you believe you’ve been forgiven more than you need to forgive? God judges the sin that He forgave you as worthy of death. You see that on the cross. “My sin oh the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin not in part but the whole is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more.” Do you judge the sin that you refuse to forgive to be worthy of death? Could you take your offender to court and expect a federal judge to sentence this man or woman to death for the wrong you suffered?
But let’s take the worst-case scenario. Let’s say that someone has done something to you that would merit the death penalty in our justice system. You have still been forgiven more than you must forgive unless you are ready to argue that you could justly send your offender to hell for what they did. But you have no authority to do that. You have no authority to judge someone that way and yet that is what your sin deserved, and you’ve been forgiven. You have been forgiven of far more than you need to forgive.
Your offender’s sin does deserve death in God’s eyes. He has every right to cast your offender out of His sight forever, but He offers your offender forgiveness. The Father’s forgiveness is as available to your offender as it is to you.
The Father knows that you and your offender are in the same boat. You are both in need of forgiveness. You must forgive because you are a forgiven sinner. You are a forgiven sinner called to forgive a fellow sinner. The Father is holy. He has never needed forgiveness. It is astounding that He offers it. You have needed forgiveness and you do need forgiveness from God. He is astounded when you refuse to give as you’ve received. God’s forgiveness really is greater than man’s.
Here is one final way that God’s forgiveness outstrips ours and it has to do with this need to forgive. Next time, we are going to see how forgiveness relates to reconciliation and how to forgive someone who doesn’t ask for forgiveness. Forgiving those who won’t ask is where we see the ultimate glory of God’s forgiveness.
Without God’s help, none of us would ask God for forgiveness. We have a hard time forgiving people who don’t ask for forgiveness. The only type of people God forgives are those who would never ask for it. Scripture is clear that none of us would ever ask for forgiveness unless God acted first. “Because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.” God didn’t wait for you to say you were sorry before He showed mercy. You were dead in your sin and God made you alive so you could see how much you needed mercy. That’s predestination. “Because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions-it is by grace you have been saved.” You needed to ask for forgiveness, but you never would have asked unless God showed you how much you needed it. He had to bring you to life before you could repent.
That’s Amazing Grace, “ ‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved; how precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed.” Your forgiveness is a gift from God and the fact that you even recognized that you needed forgiveness at all is also a gift from God.
It is possible that you are here this morning and you are just starting to see your need for forgiveness. You are just starting to see your sin for what it is and God’s forgiveness for what it is. This forgiveness is far better than anything any man or woman could offer. It deals with the depths of your sins and with the width of all your sins. It comes from the holy God and if the God you’ve offended has forgiven you, then who can condemn you?
This forgiveness will change you. You will be forgiven and then you will forgive. You will stand in awe the Father who forgave you and then, miracle of miracles, you will become like Him. You will forgive as He’s forgiven you and that is far better than what Willie Earl Greene could offer. You will scoff at this nonsense that man is more forgiving than God because you will experience the power and beauty God’s forgiveness, and you will know that you can’t help but give you’ve received.
You are not beyond this forgiveness. You are not beyond this transformative power. Jesus wouldn’t have taught you this prayer otherwise. Amen.