Eric Olson from Springfield, Missouri writes in, "Pastor John, does the popularized pay-it-forward concept nullify grace? I just read a segment of your book, Future Grace, and I think it clarified why I've been discontented with all of this paying it forward. It seems too easily to fall into the camp of human obedience to match past grace or the idea of giving to get.

Can you show a scripture that might reveal our motives in the pay-it-forward phenomenon that we see today?" Let me give a little background first because my guess is some of our listeners are not familiar with this at all. I certainly was not aware of the phenomenon he's talking about, so I had to do a little poking around.

So pay it forward is an expression for describing the beneficiary of a good deed, repaying it to others instead of the one who did the good deed to him. So the concept is very old, but the phrase may have been coined, according to Wikipedia, by Lily Hardy Hammond in 1916 in her book, The Garden of Delight.

There was a movie in 2000 called Pay It Forward, and the lead line in the movie was, "When someone does you a good deed, don't pay it back, pay it forward." That's the idea. There's a pay-it-forward foundation, there's a pay-it-forward novel, there's a pay-it-forward day, April 30th, maybe that's why the question came recently.

Benjamin Franklin loaned a man in need some money one time, and he said, "I do not pretend to give such a deed. I only lend it to you. When you meet with another honest man in similar distress as you, you must pay me by lending this sum to him." That's the meaning of pay it forward.

So the gist of it then, pretty plain, and I would say in advance of my biblical reflection, that on the horizontal level, as a way of thinking about spreading kindness, it seems pretty harmless to me and could do much good. But we're Christians, and we don't live merely on the horizontal level ever.

We're always dealing with two directions, the horizontal and the vertical. We live before the face of God. So what does this mean in Scripture? What does the Scripture have to say about this approach towards ethics? Discharging a debt from one person toward giving back not to that person, but giving forward to another person.

What does the Bible say about that? And I think the best way to handle this is to just get a big picture of the biblical view of debt or obligation in its various forms. One of them is a pay it forward in the Bible, but others are not. So here's my definition of debt.

Debt is an obligation or a sense of ought in me to do some good for someone which is created, the debt is created by someone doing a good for me. Okay, I said it very generally because that way it's going to cut across all kinds of lines and I've got what, I think five or four.

Yeah, see, I think I have five ways that we legitimately come into debt. So number one, someone loans you something or invest something with you, you are indebted to pay them back. So parable of the talents, Jesus said, Matthew 25, to the fellow who didn't do anything with his talent that the master had loaned him, "Then you ought to have invested the money with bankers and at my coming I should have received back that which I gave you with interest." So that man was indebted to the investor.

He gives you money to handle for his sake, it's his money. You owe him that money with interest or some kind of payoff because he gave it to you to handle. That's number one. Number two, you put in a day's work, your employer owes you a wage. First Timothy 5, 18, "Do not muzzle an ox when it's treading out the grain.

The laborer deserves his wages." So it's right if you're an employer to feel indebted to pay a wage to your employees. Number three, we are debtors to others if they have given us spiritual blessings. Romans 15, 26, "Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor, the saints in Jerusalem, for they were pleased to do it and indeed they owe," there's the key word, "they owe it to them." Or if they, the Gentiles, the Macedonian Gentiles, have come to share in the spiritual blessings that came from Jerusalem, they ought also to be of service to them in material blessings.

They ought, you hear the word "ought"? So they owe it to them, they ought. So when spiritual blessings come to you from someone, there is a sense of oughtness that you should participate in meeting any needs they have, even physically. First Corinthians 9, 11, "If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you?" No, if we've sown, we should reap from you.

Or Galatians 6, 6, "Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches." So teachers should be supported by the ones they're teaching. So there's that kind of oughtness created by the sharing of spiritual things. Number four, "We are debtors to all people." Here's the pay-forward part.

"We are debtors to all people if God has given us a gift which he is willing to give to all who call upon him through you." So here's Paul in Romans 1, 14, "I am a debtor to Greeks and barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish." In other words, I'm a debtor to everybody.

"So I am eager to preach the gospel also to you who were in Rome." So what he means by that is, God has given me, has entrusted me with this spectacular treasure of the gospel, and therefore I am a debtor to everyone because the gospel is meant for everyone and I have it.

Here's a picture of this. Back in 1975, Dan Fuller preached at my ordination, and he did it from this text, and he made this point. The text is 2 Kings 7, "The Syrians have surrounded Jerusalem. The embargo is such that they are starving in Jerusalem. Nobody can get any food.

They're about to all perish from starvation, and God steps in and chases the Syrians away by causing them to hear something. There are four lepers standing at the gate who decide, 'Look, we're going to die anyway. Let's go ask for mercy from the Syrians.' So they go out to the Syrian camp, and it's empty, filled with food.

This is like the gospel. This is like finding the gospel, the treasure hidden in a field. And what do they do? Well, they start eating, they pounce upon it and eat it and amass it, and then they stop and in verse 9 it says, "They said to one another, 'We're not doing right.'" In other words, we have a debt here.

We have a debt. We're not doing right. This day is a day of good news. If we are silent and wait until morning, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore, come, let us go and tell the king's household. And within a day, everybody's need was met in Jerusalem. So the point there is, when you are made the beneficiary from God of something that is meant to benefit everyone, you are the debtor to everyone.

That's biblical paying it forward. And the last one is, and this is the one he picked up on in "Future Grace," and it's really crucial, so we need to end on this. We have a debt to God for all his goodness to us. Yes, we do. We owe God.

But this debt is absolutely unique. It can never be repaid. It should never be repaid. Any attempt to repay it is a contradiction of grace. We will go deeper and deeper into debt forever. We will never come out of debt to God, and grace means that. Grace would not be grace if you could pay it back.

God would not be all-sufficient if his gift to us reduced his resources so that they needed replenishing by payback. They're not reduced. That's what it means to be infinite. That's what it means to be God. When God gives, he is the no less for it. When we give, we are the less for it in some way.

He's not. We dishonor God by trying to pay God back for his good towards us. So when Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15.10, "By the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them.

It was not I, but the grace of God that was with me." What that verse means is any attempt we make, that is any good deed we perform, is performed by the grace of God so that our good deeds can never be a means of paying back for grace because they are expressions of grace and therefore take us in deeper into grace.

So a person is profoundly confused if they think that good deeds, inobedience to God is a payback to God when Paul says those good deeds are a very work of grace, not the payback for grace. And the last thing would be Psalm 116.12, "What shall I render to the Lord for all of his benefits to me?" Okay, there is the key payback question in relation to God.

What shall I render to the Lord for all of his benefits to me? And his answer is in verse 13, Psalm 116, "I will lift up the cup of salvation." Now at that point you wonder, "What does that mean? Is this a cup that is full and he's toasting God?" Like it's a toast, I lift it up and toast him, or is it a cup that is empty and he's asking for more?

And the next phrase answers the question. "I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord." So the answer of payback to God is ask for more. If you want to honor God for yesterday's grace, ask him for today's grace. Because in doing that, you're showing your desperate need and you're showing God's infinite resourcefulness.

So if you pay forward the way Paul pays forward in Romans 1.14, know this, you are not paying God back by paying forward to others. You are drawing down more and more and more grace and laying up more and more treasure in heaven. Amen. Thank you, Pastor John. And you may have caught on that this episode is built off of Pastor John's book, Future Grace.

And for more information about this title and for all of our titles, most of which you can download for free, go to DesiringGod.org/books. While it's time for us to break for the weekend, for everything you need to know about this podcast or to send Pastor John a question, go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

I'm your host Tony Reinke. Have a wonderful weekend. 1.30 Page 2 of 9 1.30 Page 2 of 9 1.30 Page 2 of 9