Forgive Us Our Sins

This post is a continuation of the series “Meditations on the Lord’s Prayer.” You can find all of the posts here.

“We pray in this petition that our Father in heaven would not look upon our sins or because of them deny our prayers; for we are worthy of none of the things for which we ask, neither have we deserved them, but we ask that he would give them all to us by grace; for we daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but punishment. So we too will forgive from the heart and gladly do good to those who sin against us.” (Luther’s Catechism, Northwestern Publishing House: Milwaukee, 2017, p. 273)

Do you recall Jesus’ parable about the unmerciful servant?

The servant owed a great debt—vast and unpayable—to his master. He knew he could never repay that incredible sum; he knew he deserved wrath and punishment for not being able to do so. But the servant threw himself at his master’s feet and pleaded for mercy, though he knew he didn’t deserve it.

And what happened?

In a shocking twist, his master canceled his debt. He didn’t just knock a few zeroes off the end of the bill, saying, “Pay me the rest later,” — no, he wiped the slate clean. The servant was completely forgiven and was understandably overjoyed.

Do you remember what happened next?

That servant, of whom much had been forgiven, went out, found a fellow servant who owed him a considerably smaller sum of money, and proceeded to choke him out—demanding that he pay him back in full.

When the fellow servant begged for mercy—not even to cancel the debt, but to give him more time to repay it—the unmerciful servant refused and had the man thrown in prison until he could pay back what he owed, which . . . would never happen because he was in jail. There’s more to that parable—the master found out, became enraged, and threw the unmerciful servant in jail—but what strikes me is that the unmerciful servant lost sight of something important.

He lost sight of his joy.

The servant had been forgiven by his master—set free. If he had just focused on the undeserved forgiveness he had been shown, might he have acted differently? Might he have forgiven his fellow servant? Might his story have had a better ending?

“Forgive us our sins.” That’s the first part of our plea in the Fifth Petition.

We know we don’t deserve God’s love and forgiveness for our sins—ours is an insurmountable debt we could never hope to repay. We deserve only wrath and punishment in the jail cells of hell for all eternity.

Yet we throw ourselves at God’s feet and plead for his undeserved mercy and forgiveness.

And what happens?

In a shocking twist, God tells us that he has forgiven us. Not because we deserve it—not even because we’ve asked him—but all because of Jesus. That forgiveness didn’t come cheaply. The Son of God won forgiveness for us with the terrible price of shedding his blood and dying on the cross. But he paid that price gladly because he loves us.

We’ve been completely set free from our sins—our debt is paid; the slate wiped clean.

Dear Christian, God’s forgiveness is the joy we live in every day. Don’t lose sight of it.

It’s so easy for us to turn and hold on to pain, bitterness, and anger instead. To bear grudges. To refuse to forgive. Because forgiving others . . . well, that can be incredibly hard. Our sinful nature would much prefer us to be unmerciful and unforgiving—especially to those who’ve hurt us.

We’re sinful. We can’t forgive perfectly. Not as our heavenly Father forgives us.

Forgive us our sins, Lord. Help us forgive others as you have forgiven us! When we struggle to forgive, fix our eyes on you and what you have done for us—the forgiveness you’ve won for us.

Let us think of nothing but the undeserved grace you’ve shown us. We live in that grace every day. Let it be all we know. Then help us forgive and show love to others—because you are the only way we can.

Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.

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