A
humble, though essential, room in
any great house is the boot room, a
room full of pegs and racks, hats
and coats, boots and shoes of every
kind and size. Although the great
doors will be opened and the carpet
rolled out on occasion, this humble
boot room is the essential way in
for family members.
Near-by will be found a wash room.
It may be outside in the courtyard
or in the house conveniently placed
near the boot room. Together these
practical rooms make it possible for
household members to be made
acceptable in the house.
You
enter the house not across velvet
lawns, but across real lawns with
worm casts and mud. You enter from
the mess of the stables or the mud
of the estate and these humble rooms
are the way in. Here you wash and
leave behind your soiled boots and
your outer clothing, garb totally
unacceptable within the house. It is
simply not acceptable to sit at
table, on a beautifully embroidered
seat, unwashed, in dirty boots,
muddy overtrousers and anorak!
Our
heavenly Father, too, has made
provision for those soiled by the
real world in which we live. The
rooms are rooms of forgiveness,
cleansing and mercy and all true
members of the household must pass
this way and do so often.
'Forgive us our trespasses as we
forgive those who trespass against
us.' The forgiveness of little
things and the forgiveness of very
great things; our Father's
forgiveness of us and our
forgiveness of others.
In this chapter we look at the first
part of the petition; God's
forgiveness of us, 'Forgive us our
sins, our trespasses.' Such a prayer
is basic to our spiritual well-being
and standing before God. We must
first come to our heavenly Father,
as our Lord has taught us, and
simply pray, 'Forgive us our
trespasses.' What does that actually
mean? For the meaning is slightly
hidden by the word 'trespasses'.
'Write off and set us free from our
total debt', is closer to the Greek.
But, even so, what is our debt to
God our heavenly Father? What debt
do we owe to the One in whose hand
is our very breath and to whom we
owe our very existence?
- We
owe him love. He brought us into
being for his pleasure, to give him
glory in our lives and to enjoy him
for ever. We owe him a debt of love,
practically expressed in doing what
pleases him.
- We
owe him a willingness to refrain
from all that would pollute us
before him; to steer clear of all
that we know to be active
disobedience or rebellion against
him. But, by nature we tend to
ignore what God requires, doing what
we want and failing to do his will.
- Our
heavenly Father has commanded us to
love him with all our heart, with
all our mind, and with all our
strength. But who among us has truly
so loved him? Religious words slip
easily from our lips, but what of
the basic self-centredness of our
day by day living?
When King David prayed his great
prayer of confession in Psalm 32, he
did not say, 'Blessed is the man who
has not sinned, who has no need of
forgiveness,' but rather, 'Blessed
is the one whose sin is forgiven,
whose debt is paid.'
Where, then, does forgiveness begin?
Paul the apostle speaks of the
disciples at Corinth as having been
taken from a very grubby world,
washed and set apart for God by the
cross of our Lord. The apostle's
list of the goings-on in that port
city of Corinth are as ancient as
they are modern. Greed, theft,
drunkenness, violence, perversion
and vice are all there. The church
at Corinth was composed of men and
women taken from such a background
and yet now, wonderfully, forgiven,
adopted and made members of God's
holy family.
The
apostle Paul uses the picture of
washing as he describes how they
were made clean, made acceptable
before our heavenly Father. So here,
in the great house, are these very
practical rooms, wash rooms and
bathrooms. We may need to first
begin in an outside wash-house, for
some of us are as well soiled as a
dog that has rolled and besmirched
itself in some canine delight that
brings no delight to its owner and
indeed makes it totally unacceptable
in the house. 'A stench in the
nostrils of God,' is exactly how
sin, how godless ways are described
in the Old Testament.
We
may never have so deliberately
soiled ourselves, and yet no matter
how privileged, how well brought-up,
how respectable we may be, when our
eyes are opened, each one of us will
find ourselves soiled and
unacceptable before God. Isaiah, the
Old Testament prophet, was both
noble and godly and yet, when face
to face with the glory and holiness
of God, he found himself totally
unacceptable, ruined and undone. The
memorial stone of the godly and
respected local Squire in Victorian
times does not recount his many
philanthropic acts of charity, but
simply begins with the verse: 'God
have mercy upon me a sinner.' Words
that reflect his own plea before God
and leave a signpost and an
encouragement for those who read
them today.
Why
do we need forgiveness? What makes
even the most privileged and refined
of us totally unacceptable before
God? Why are 'all our
righteousnesses only as filthy
rags'?
Our
need of forgiveness is hard for us
to see for a number of reasons. For
one, if we are not guilty of
specific acts like murder, theft or
adultery we assume we must be fine.
Then again, we are so ready and
eager to forgive ourselves that we
cover over or make a very small
matter of any 'slight indiscretion'
before God. Why, it was hardly worth
noticing and we can always provide a
thousand reasons why we really could
not help it or why it was not our
fault! The fact is that we stand
accused by precisely these
deep-seated, self-centred habits of
mind and body to which we are, by
nature, totally blind. At rock
bottom, we need forgiveness because
we live in God's world as if there
were no God. Perhaps not in the
great crises of life or when we
desperately needed something, but by
and large we ignore the God in whose
hand is our breath. In the words of
the Lord's Prayer, we have failed to
honour him, failed to seek first his
kingdom and right ways, failed to do
his will, much preferring to do our
own will. We have also failed to
love those around us in the way in
which we love ourselves. These are
the selfish, God-ignoring ways that
the Bible calls sin, a stench, and
that cause us to be totally
unacceptable before him and so in
desperate need of mercy and
forgiveness.
The
true sons and daughters of God are
like street children taken from the
filth, violence and vice of the city
and adopted into a royal household.
The first step is a complete wash
and change of clothes. Here is
mercy; here is the forgiveness of
God, here we are given a fresh new
start. Thereafter begins the very
gradual, faltering process of a
total change in the basis of our
thinking and acting. We slowly learn
to love the Lord who made us
acceptable and adopted us into his
family. We begin to long to please
him; to put God, rather than
ourselves, at the centre.
God
our heavenly Father has made it
wonderfully possible for us, modern
disciples, to be made acceptable
before him. No matter how soiled,
we, too, may be made sons and
daughters of the living God on the
basis of mercy and forgiveness. Our
Father is more willing to forgive
than we are willing either to admit
our need of forgiveness and humbly
ask for it or to accept it when it
is freely given.
'Heavenly Father, forgive us our
trespasses, have mercy on us, write
off our debts once and for all, put
us right with yourself. May we, like
the ancient Corinthian Christians,
be washed and made acceptable before
you.'
This is the first, great and primary
application of these words. We will
often need to return to confess and
wash away the grime of real,
everyday living in this world as a
child of God, but never again for
the radical treatment that first
brought us into the household.
Ongoing, day by day forgiveness
As adopted members of our Father's
family, we shall want to leave each
day's mud behind as we enter the
house. Both boot room and washroom
are rooms of repentance and
confession, rooms of cleansing and
forgiveness. They give us a moment
to reflect on the day: 'Father these
are the opportunities that I missed
to serve you, to honour you, to
speak for you, to love my neighbour.
These are the things I have failed
to do. These are the things that I
did in haste, anger . . . or in
foolishness.' Scripture urges us not
to hide or cover them over, not to
belittle them as being of very minor
importance, but to come openly to
our heavenly Father. Such prayers
are no longer in terms of our
acceptability before him, our place
in the family of God, but rather in
terms of our walking with him at
ease and in the joy of a right
relationship.
If we pray it aright, the
wonder of the Lord's Prayer - and,
indeed, the wonder of all true
Christian living - is that it will
reform us, it will change us.
Sadly, there is a lot of
religious activity about which does
not change us at all. We go and do
certain things in a compartment of
our lives we call 'worship'; it may
be with colour and candles and
beautiful, traditional music, or it
may be with stirring, modern music,
shining faces and uplifted arms. We
enjoy it, it moves us at the time
but it does not change us, does not
touch the rest of our lives. We go
on living exactly as we had done
before. But, for example, if we
really pray the Lord's Prayer from
the heart it will change us. We will
find forgiveness in Christ. We will
find that as we bring our trespasses
day by day before God, our
conscience will be awakened and
sharpened. We will be more aware of
our Father giving us opportunities
to serve him and also of the
opportunities we miss. We will begin
to be aware of those things that do
not bring honour to his name, even
before we do them. We will begin to
long not to do them. By the grace of
God and the prompting of his Holy
Spirit, we will be changed. This
gradual changing is the purpose of
God for each disciple; that we might
be more Christ-like. Hence this
prayer, 'Forgive us our sins, our
trespasses,' will need to be often
on our lips if we are to grow as
disciples.
Our
communal failings
Like all these petitions, the prayer
for forgiveness is set in the Lord's
Prayer in the plural. Although our
heavenly Father chooses to deal with
us one by one, we are set in
communities. Like a stone thrown
into a pond, we begin with personal
confession, but the ripples move out
to affect the whole surface. As we
really begin to pray we will look
beyond our own personal standing and
walk before God. We will begin to
see and acknowledge our collective
responsibilities and failings before
our heavenly Father.
For example:
- We
live in a land that has been so
blessed of God. He has had such
patience with us and yet, as a
people, we are turning away from
him, ignoring him at every level. We
cling to our materialistic lifestyle
and forget the God in whose hand is
our very existence . . . 'Father
forgive our wilful forgetfulness of
your goodness and turn us again, as
a people, to godly ways.'
- We live in a land that has been
the centre of an empire. We need to
look afresh at our national pride
and arrogance, at our deeply held
community attitudes to those of
other races and cultures and at our
collective 'blind eye' to the
commercial exploitation of those who
produce the goods we buy so cheaply
. . .
- We are part of a society that has
become greedy and unconcerned in its
use and abuse of the environment . .
. 'Father forgive . . .'
- God has given the historic
churches of our land very great
privileges and very great spiritual
responsibilities. By and large we
have enjoyed the privileges and
failed in our great responsibility
to uphold godly ways and win the
people of our land for the Lord . .
. 'Father forgive the coldness,
formality and absorbing
self-interest of our churches and
kindle afresh courage, love and
vision.'
- Finally, and so significantly, we
live in a society in which so many
people now place the bringing up of
children, and particularly their
spiritual welfare, well down the
list of priorities, well below the
pursuit of their own career or of
personal happiness. But before God
the family has a far greater
priority.
Our
families are the basic building
blocks of community living and of a
godly society; the seedbed of love
and stability. They are given to be
the royal nursery of the rising
generation. They can also be the
guest rooms for godly hospitality.
Our homes are the setting where
godly love can be shown to our
neighbour and where justice,
compassion, forgiveness and
faithfulness can be learned and
practised by parents and children
together.
In
our pursuit of wealth and personal
happiness, we so easily forget that
our heavenly Father's priority is
the raising of godly offspring. The
debt we owe is to use our homes for
the Lord; especially to do all in
our power to faithfully bring up the
youngsters he has entrusted to us to
know and honour the Lord . . .
'Father, forgive us . . .'
As a land, as a church, as a
society and as individuals we have
fallen so far short.
'Father have mercy, forgive us
our neglect, our failure, our
trespasses.'
References
'To love him with all our heart' -
e.g. Mark 12:28-31
Corinthians 'washed' - 1 Corinthians
6:9-11
Isaiah unacceptable before God -
Isaiah 6:1-5
'God have mercy' - Luke 18:13
'Filthy rags' - Isaiah 64:6
Open confession before God - 1 John
1:5-10
Godly offspring and family
priorities - Malachi 2:14-16
Bringing up youngsters - Ephesians
6:1-4
Questions
1 Where do we stand, if even the
noble and godly Isaiah found himself
totally unacceptable before the
holiness of the Lord?
2 How natural is it to excuse, cover
over or make a very small matter of
our own failures before our heavenly
Father?
3 'Failed to honour . . . failed to
seek first his kingdom . . . failed
to do his will' - to what extent is
the Lord's Prayer itself a mirror in
which we can see our own need of
forgiveness?
4 'A fresh new start - like street
children taken, washed and adopted
into the family.' How well does this
describe the beginnings of
discipleship?
5 What distinction is drawn between
our first becoming disciples and our
day by day need of forgiveness as
members of the family?
6 In what ways can admitting our
need of forgiveness each day enable
us to grow as disciples?
7 In what particular ways is our
church and our whole society in need
of repentance, a turning away from
wrong thinking and wrong doing, and
of the forgiveness of our heavenly
Father?
8 To what extent are our homes 'the
royal nurseries of the rising
generation'? What are our priorities
in home life? Are they as
God-centred as they should be?
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