“Forgive us our trespasses…”
By Dayle K. Barrett
Sunday, October 5, 2025
Reading: Matthew 6:9-15
One of the interesting things about preparing for a sermon is that if you're interacting with your congregation, you get a bit of an insight into what people are thinking about before you get to a Sunday. We have Bible studies on Tuesdays where we exchange ideas about the passage. You guys get an email blast, so you know what's coming. And sometimes we hear a bit of feedback about what people are thinking about the passage.
I don't think I've ever felt so strongly the meaningfulness of a topic as I have this Sunday. I had several conversations this week with people who said, “Dayle, forgiveness, that's a really tough one for me.” Because the fact is all of us are hurting a little bit, aren't we?
You don't make it very far in life before somebody has done you seriously wrong. Maybe it's a parent or a spouse or a sibling, a friend, an enemy, a stranger, a nation state.
A little bit earlier in this week on Tuesday, we recognized National Truth and Reconciliation Day. Our Indigenous neighbours and we are grappling with how to deal with the settler history of Canada.
Some black communities wrestle with the generational trauma of slavery and systematic racism. Some other communities wrestle with discrimination because of orientation or identity. Some because of gender. Some because of disability. People carry trauma for all sorts of reasons. And yet here in this text, it’s not just suggested, we’re not just advised, but commanded to forgive. Jesus says, if you forgive people their trespasses, that you will be forgiven. And if you don't, you won't. And when we take that text seriously, some of us give a hard gulp, don't we?
“All right, God!”, we’ll say, “I forgive everyone… except that one person.” You might be thinking, “Is that really what God expects of me?” You might ask, “Dayle, does God really expect me to forgive that person, that one who did that to me?”
And if you want to save yourself 20 minutes of listening to me talk, the short answer is, “Yes.” But I don't think that's really what you're asking. I don't think you want to know if you should forgive. I think you know you should. I think what you really want to know is, how do I forgive? Why should I forgive? What does forgiveness even mean to somebody who's hurt me so badly? Is it even possible? And will everything be okay in the end?
So, I'm hoping today we can wrestle with some of these questions. But first we have to understand what forgiveness is by understanding what forgiveness isn't. Because if you're dealing with a lot of pain today, the reason why you might be allergic to the word forgiveness is because you've been sold this unrealistic, sanctimonious idea of what forgiveness should look like. You've been told slogans like, “just forgive and forget”, “just leave it behind you”, “just move on and everything will be fine.” And yet when you think about what's happened in your life, you realize not only does that seem like an impossible task, but it seems a rather foolish one, doesn't it? After all, how are you supposed to learn from your experiences if you forget about them every time they happen?
So, you'd be happy to know that the words forgive and forget don't appear anywhere in the scriptures. God doesn't ask you to forget what's happened to you. Forgiveness isn't about pretending that everything's okay or excusing evil, because to do so would be unnatural. To do so would be against the very nature of God. God reveals his nature to Moses in the Book of Exodus, Chapter 34, where he says, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty…”
Wait a minute. Doesn't that sound like an opposite? God is merciful and gracious and patient. He abounds in goodness and truth. He forgives iniquity and transgression and sin, but God doesn't clear the guilty?
What does that mean? It means that forgiveness is different from excuse. It means even in God's nature, God does not excuse sin. God does not excuse evil. God forgives sin and abolishes evil. And that, my friend, is a completely different thing. You see, forgiving and forgetting, letting it go and moving on sounds like a great idea if you catch someone's hand in your cookie jar one day. But what about the person who stole your innocence? What about the person who tore your family apart? What about the people who failed to protect you when you were vulnerable? What about the one who tried to ruin your reputation? What about the person who tried to take everything from you that mattered? Forgive and forget? Move on? Pretend it didn't happen? God doesn't ask us to do that, but He does command us to forgive.
So, what then is biblical forgiveness and where could it possibly come from?
When Jesus commands us to forgive in order to be forgiven, He doesn't just stop there. In the book of Matthew, He tells a great story to illustrate the point. We find it in Matthew Chapter 18, beginning of verse 21, if you're taking notes.
Then Peter came to Him and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?
Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.’ Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And when he began to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made. The servant fell down before him saying, ‘Master, have patience with me and I will pay you all.’ Then the master was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave the debt.
But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’ So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will pay you all.’ And he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he could pay the debt. So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done. Then his master called him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you? His master was angry and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due him.
So my heavenly Father will also do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.
What's Jesus saying here?
He's saying the reason we must forgive the sins of others is because we have been forgiven a far greater debt. When you're looking back in your mind at the person who hurt you, I wonder if you can put in perspective what it was that they did.
Did they sell you for 50 pieces of silver to the authorities of your day? Did they accuse you of crimes you didn't commit so that you'd be arrested and beaten and spat on? Did they weave a crown of thorns and place it on your head till blood dripped down your face? Did they tie you to a pole and beat you with a cat of nine tails until your body was unrecognizable? Did they place a heavy wooden cross on your back and force you to walk kilometres with it to the place where you would die? Did they drive nails to your hands and feet and hang you up until your life slowly ebbed away? Did they do all that because you tried to save them? Because even the one who suffered all that cried out and said, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
So where does forgiveness come from? This story tells us that God is the primary agent of forgiveness. It doesn't come from your heart. It comes from the heart of the Father who saw every thought, every word, and every deed that you expressed in your whole entire life and offered to wipe it all clean - to take all of your sin and place it upon His Son.
When the master of this story forgives the debt of the servant, the debt doesn't just disappear. What happens is the master assumes the cost of the debt. The money that was owed by the servant, the cost is transferred from the servant to the master. That's exactly what Jesus did when he paid for our sins. He said, you who owe me your lives, you who could never do right, you who could never deserve the love and grace that flows from God's throne, I will give it to you freely if you only believe.
When Jesus hung on the cross that day, your sin hung there upon him. Not just your sin and not just my sin, but the sin of those who hurt you, the sin of those who hurt me, the sin of those who have broken this world were all born by the master as he assumed the cost for our debts.
You see, sometimes we think that forgiving is so difficult because it's an act of love that we don't have enough of. We think, if I was just a nicer person, if I could just be the bigger person, I could let this go, right? But forgiveness isn't about love. If it was, then it wouldn't be true that the person you're finding it hardest to forgive is the one you love the most.
That's why it hurts so much when they hurt you, right? But don't hear it from me. Hear it from David in Psalm 55. He says:
For it is not an enemy who reproaches me. Then I could bear it. Nor is it one who hates me, who has exalted himself against me. Then I could hide from him. But it was you, a man my equal. My companion and my acquaintance, we took sweet counsel together and walked to the house of God in the throng.
David is in pain, crying out before God for justice because the person who hurt him was somebody he loved, somebody he expected better from. And it wasn't a lack of love that was making forgiveness difficult for David. It's not a lack of love that makes forgiveness difficult for us. Forgiveness isn't born out of love, my friends. Forgiveness is born out of faith.
You see, when we hear that story from Jesus, we learn that all of the forgiveness comes from the King. The King at the beginning of the story decides he's going to settle all of the accounts. And that's sometimes hard for us to believe, isn't it? That the one who rules and reigns over all creation is taking account of every thought, of every word, of every deed. And in his justice, in his holiness, in his righteousness, he is making all things right. He's balancing the books of all creation.
That's faith.
And so, when Jesus teaches his disciples in Luke 17 about forgiveness, this is what happens.
Luke 17 and verse three. “Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times and seven times comes to you in repentance, you shall forgive him.”
And when the disciples reply, they don't reply, “Jesus, please make me a bigger person!”
They don't reply, “Jesus, please make me more loving!” They don't reply, “Jesus, please make me kinder!” They say, “Lord, increase my faith!”
That's where forgiveness comes from. It comes from knowing that the person who wronged you is going to be dealt with. It comes from knowing that everything that's wrong with the world will one day be made right, not by you, but by the King who is balancing all the books.
Forgiveness starts with God, and it's God's righteous response to repentance. And it's really important that we understand this word repentance because we often get it confused with another word called apology. They're not the same thing. Apology comes from a Greek word, apologia, which means a speech made in one's defense.
If you do something wrong to someone and say, “sorry”, you're not repairing anything. You want them to not be mad at you anymore. Repentance is different. Repentance comes from word, which means to have a change of heart - to turn around. God's forgiveness to us is a righteous response to us being like the servant and saying: Forgive me, let me go and I will pay you all I owe. I decide I'm going to act differently after this moment. I'm going to do all I can to make it right. Forgiveness does not require you, my friends, to ignore people's bad behavior. Nor does it require you to stay in cycles of abuse and shame while you put up with somebody who's trying to actively destroy you. Because that's not repentance. That's apology.
God responds to repentance. We see this in the book of Second Chronicles, Chapter Seven. He says, “If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land.”
God forgives in a response not just to apology, but to repentance. So, if you're struggling to let go of the hurt, if you're trying to figure out what does this relationship look like with this person who keeps hurting me, it's okay to have boundaries until you see repentance. What we need to avoid is holding on to resentment.
A wise person once said that resentment is like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die. When we hold resentment, what we're showing is a lack of faith. We're saying, “God, I don't trust you to balance the books. God, I don't think you've got all of this in control. I'm sure you've got enough grace for me, but I'm not sure if you have enough grace for them.”
Forgiveness as an act of faith isn't forgetting everything. It's placing it all in God's hands. It's saying, “God, I know you're balancing the books. I know you saw the wrong that this person has done me. I know you see the pain in my heart, and I trust you to make it right.” It is letting go, but it's not letting it go into thin air. It's letting it go into the hands of a God who sees and knows and is healing all creation.
Paul tells us this in Romans Chapter 12. “Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord.
You see, we don't have to forgive and think it all goes away. We know it doesn't. But what we can do is put the responsibility for judgment, put the responsibility for setting right the world on the only one who can. We place it in God's hands and say, God, you judge the wicked. You handle the unrighteous. You heal my heart. And if we read the stories of the gospels, we'll know that God already did all of that. Because just like the master, he came to earth, he lived a sinless life. He walked among those who were the most indebted to him. And then he took all those debts upon himself and died on an old rugged cross.
If you know anything about creditors, you'll know what happens to debts when they've passed their due. If you owe a company money, they'll spend some time trying to get it back from you. They'll call you; they'll email you, they'll send you letters. Then once they've figured out that they've spent too much energy and hours on this, they'll hand it over to a collection agency. (I know none of you have ever experienced this. You're all better people than me.) They'll hand it over to a collection agency, and the collection agency makes a deal like this. They go to the company and say, “I will buy the debt from you for pennies on the dollar. And then it's no longer your debt, it's our debt. We will deal with the person who owes the money.”
I sometimes think that our relationship with Christ is very much the same thing. We, like the servant in the story, owe God a debt that we cannot pay. We can't make right what happened to Jesus because of our sin. We can't fix all of the things that we've done wrong over the course of our lives. We owe God more than we can ever give him. But Jesus came and bought the debt, not for pennies on the dollar, but with his own body and with his own blood. And he wants you to know today, friends, that that pain you've been holding for years, that thing that you're struggling so hard to get over, he wants to take it from you today.
He says, come and join me at the table and I'll buy that debt from you. I'll give you my body that was broken for you. I'll give you my blood that was shed for you. And I want you to give me your tears in return, your pain, and your sleepless nights in return. Give me that resentment you're holding. Let it go and let me handle it. For I bore it all upon the cross of Calvary.
If today you're finding that news a little bit difficult to swallow, if you're not sure if you'll really find that much at the table when you get here, then I ask you to join me in the prayer the disciples prayed that day. Say it with me, say, “Lord, increase my faith.” I didn't hear you, say, “Lord, increase my faith.” One more time, say, “Lord, increase my faith.”
Do it, Jesus. Give us the faith to forgive and the faith to accept your forgiveness that we might meet you here at this table and be healed as you heal all creation. Thanks be to God.