Lord's Prayer - Part 4b - Forgive Us Series

Dr. Bradford Reaves

Crossway Christian Fellowship

Hagerstown, MD

www.mycrossway.org

This morning we’re in Part 2 of Part 4 of the Lord’s Prayer regarding “Forgiving Our Debts as we forgive our debtors.” This is the 20th message in our series, The Sermon on the Mount. The basis of this petition to God is the fact that He is our Heavenly Father, and we are his children, through our adoption in Jesus Christ. It is the moving from being dead in our sins to becoming alive in Jesus Christ. All of that is incumbent upon the forgiveness of our sins given to us through our faith in Jesus Christ.

The Lord’s Prayer - or Disciple’s Prayer - focuses on the Preeminence of God’s power. Without the intervention of God, our Heavenly Father, and His son Jesus Christ, there is no daily bread; there is no forgiveness, there is no leading us.

Now as we pray to our Heavenly Father, part of our petition for Him to forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors. This is a petition for believers. I know some people think that once you become a Christian, you no longer need to confess your sin, nor do you need to seek God’s cleansing and forgiveness. This just isn’t the case.

“Forgive us implies that we have done something for which we need forgiveness.  Debt, in verse 12, implies a sin.  Trespass, in verses 14 and 15, equally implies sin.  The problem here is sin.  Sin [remains] a reality in the life of a Christian.  When you become a Christian, you don’t suddenly stop sinning.  You don’t all of a sudden lose your sensitivity to sin.  The truth is that when you become a believer, you become more sensitive to sin.  And as you mature as a Christian, and in your maturing experience, there is a decreasing frequency of sin and a decreasing frequency of sin, which is an increasing sensitivity to it when it does occur.” (MacArthur)

The difference is how sin affects the believer’s life. It’s not an issue of salvation; it is a relational issue. Therefore, we must take Jesus’ words to heart that the Christian life continually stands before the throne of grace, asking for forgiveness. But you say, “Wait a minute, I thought all my sins were forgiven. So if my account is settled under the blood of Jesus Christ, why do I have to go back and pray for more forgiveness? And the point is all of your sins are forgiven. Legally and judicially, you are forgiven from the penalty and power of sin in your life. We call that Judicial Forgiveness.

There is, however, a second kind of forgiveness, and that is called “Relational Forgiveness,” I’ve heard others use the term “Parental Forgiveness” based on the fact that the Lord’s Prayer begins with the phrase, “Our Father who is in Heaven.” So we are no longer dealing with God as a righteous judge for a debt we cannot pay, but instead, we are coming to God as our loving Heavenly Father.

Even though we have been legally forgiven in God’s court, we still sin. And when we sin, our relationship with God doesn’t end, but there is a loss of intimacy or closeness due to our sin in our Christian life. The relationship doesn’t end, but something exists between us until things are made right.

The relationship between a parent and child (hence the name Parental Forgiveness) is a good way to look at it. I try not to use Noah as an example in my sermons too much, but this is a perfect example. How many of you love your children, no matter what is going on in their lives? How many of you have disowned your child because they messed up? If my child does wrong or breaks the rules, I don’t throw him out of the family. There are usually consequences, and there is forgiveness.

Noah not only messes up, but like all children, he will sometimes say or do things that hurt me as a parent, sometimes out of anger or rebellion against my authority as a dad and sometimes out of ignorance. When he does, I don’t cease being his dad. In fact, a certain amount of grace automatically exists because of our relationship as father and son. However, a level of intimacy is lost because of disobedience. There is something that happens, something that is restored, when Noah says to me, “Daddy, I’m sorry; please forgive me.”

This is not an issue of heaven and hell. I’ve heard preachers say that if you sin and then die before you confess that sin, you are going to hell. That is not biblical. Daniel Doriani, in his commentary on this, said, “That would make God’s mercy—and salvation itself—a reward for our prior act (our “work”) of showing mercy to others. ...Jesus’ point is that God forgives the penitent. That is, if we understand how precious it is to be forgiven and know how much it costs God to forgive, we will forgive others. The forgiven have motives to forgive.”