The Lord's Prayer -Part 4c- Forgive Us Series

Dr. Bradford Reaves

Crossway Christian Fellowship

Hagerstown, MD

www.mycrossway.org

This is our third and final week in the installment of the Lord’s Prayer, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Before we wrap up this glorious petition of prayer, let us all stand and read together the entire passage

“Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. 10 ‘Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. 11 ‘Give us this day our daily bread. 12 ‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 ‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. [For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’] 14 “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 “But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions. (Matthew 6:9–15 LSB)

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve presented to you the case that there is no greater need in man than the need for God’s forgiveness. Within that context, I presented two types of forgiveness we receive from God. The first is what is known as “Judiciary Forgiveness” or “Positional Forgiveness.” It is the forgiveness that God provides to the unregenerate or spiritually dead, who is lost in the debt of sin that they can never repay to God. Without God’s forgiveness of this debt, we are destined to eternal damnation, but with God’s judiciary forgiveness, our sins (or debts) are forgiven.

The other type of forgiveness is known as Relational Forgiveness or Parental Forgiveness. This is the forgiveness that is continually provided to the believer, as we live in a sinful world in these bodies that are in battle with sin. Obviously, we still struggle with sin; our desire now, with the love and grace of God in our lives, is to turn away from sin, yet in our carnal state, we falter and fail. Even though we live under the grace of God, sin’s consequences can distance us from God. With that, our Heavenly Father doesn’t just kick us out of the family, but as a Good Father who loves His children, He forgives us as we confess our sins to Him, just as a child will find forgiveness when he disobeys his parents.

All of this is provided because of the Cross. Jesus paid the penalty for your sins, past, present, and future, and because of that, God takes away the power of sin, covers our sins, blots out our sins, and forgets our sins. As the Psalmist writes in Psalm 103:12, “As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.” Therefore in Christ, we are saved from the penalty of sin, we are saved from the power of sin, and in the future, we will be saved from the very presence of sin.

Yet there is another aspect of forgiveness that is in the petition in the Lord’s prayer and we have not fully covered, and that is the forgiveness that is to exist between each other, for the petition says, Matthew 6:12 “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” and then after the prayer Jesus includes a footnote, Matthew 6:14-15 “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 “But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.”

You will remember, as we covered earlier in the Sermon on the Mount the story of how the Amish demonstrated radical forgiveness to the family of the man involved in the West Nickle Mines school shooting. But even with that example, it seems that we in the Church do a lousy job practicing forgiveness with each other. So as we conclude this portion of the Lord’s prayer, I want to provide you with several reasons why we are to forgive each other:

It is the Character of the Saints

First of all, we are to forgive, because it is the very nature of the redeemed person in Christ to forgive.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’ 44 “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. (Matthew 5:43–45)

It is the very nature of the Saint of God to forgive. How can we withhold forgiveness when our Heavenly Father has forgiven us and continues to forgive us? Have we forgotten from where we came from and our sins that are under the blood of Christ?