Forgive Us Our Debts - Matthew 6:12 Series

Matthew 6:5-15 And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 "This, then, is how you should pray: "'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.' 14 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Introduction

When you ask God to forgive you, what exactly are you asking for? What action takes place when He answers that prayer? What is forgiveness? And how do you know when it has happened?

We have been studying verse-by-verse through the Sermon on the Mount and ever since we hit this section in Matthew 6 where Jesus teaches us how to pray we have slowed to a crawl. Instead of flying through at our normal break-neck speed we are taking it one phrase at a time because the Lord’s Prayer is not a rote prayer to be recited but rather an outline for all prayer. Each phrase shows us an entire category of prayer. And so we come this morning to verse 12 – Forgive us our debts.

Two levels of forgiveness

Forgiveness has to be one of the most precious words in any language. We use that word constantly – and yet it amazed me these past couple weeks as I studied this how little I understood about what forgiveness even is. In Matthew 12:32 Jesus spoke of two levels of forgiveness - forgiveness in this age and forgiveness in the age to come. Temporal forgiveness here and now and eternal forgiveness in the age to come.

That is one important distinction we need to understand. Another one is the difference between the forgiveness God offers to unbelievers and the forgiveness He offers to His own children. What is the difference between that initial forgiveness we receive when we first become Christians and the day-to-day forgiveness we receive after we are adopted into God’s family? It is going to take me two sermons to answer that question. This morning our focus will be on the initial forgiveness we receive the moment we come to Christ, and that will give us the foundation to understand the kind of forgiveness that Jesus is teaching us to pray for on a regular basis after we come to Christ. So I am not really going to preach on Matthew 6:12 today. Today will just be the introduction, and then next week we will have the foundation for really understanding the forgiveness of Matthew 6:12.

I have two goals I would like to accomplish with this sermon this morning (beyond just laying the foundation for next Sunday). There are two kinds of people sitting in this room right now. There are those who have received eternal forgiveness and those who have not. My first goal is for those of us who have to increase our joy and gratitude by gaining a greater understanding of the preciousness of what we have received, resulting in a greater love for God. The other goal is for those who have not received it to see how precious it is and open your heart to receiving it.

The Need for Forgiveness

To understand what forgiveness is we must first understand why it is necessary. Why do we need it? We need forgiveness because of our sin. “OK, so what is sin?” Probably the most common misunderstanding about sin is to think of it as mainly a moral issue. Sin is not mainly moral – it is mainly relational. Sin is not mainly breaking a rule or violating a standard; it is offending a Person. God is not a list of rules – He is a person. When you walk up to a person and slap him in the face, you now have a relational problem with that person. If you steal from him, insult him, lie to him, betray him – any sin against him results in the fact that now you have a problem between you and him. It is the same with God. The only thing that makes sin bad is the fact that it is an offence against God.