NOT JUST WHEN WE'RE SAVED: Asking for forgiveness is supposed to be a regular part of my walk of faith.
- Matthew 6:12a.
- Let me start by saying that we are going to handle v. 12 in two parts. This week we will look at the first half of the verse; next week the second half. I am doing this because the two halves have ideas that are important enough to need a whole sermon to unpack them. They are related ideas but I want to give each the time they deserve.
- This part of the Lord’s Prayer rejects a big idea that some Christians have today: that once you ask for forgiveness at the moment of salvation you don’t have to mess with that again.
- So the picture that some have is that when they came to the altar they got right with God and received His forgiveness, so that's all taken care of. “Jesus forgave me,” so we’re all done with that stuff.
- We will talk more about the specific ways that is a misunderstanding under the first point below but for now simply note that it is a misunderstanding.
- Asking for forgiveness is supposed to be a regular part of my walk of faith.
- Verse 12a invites us to ask God to “forgive us our debts.” Some translations use “trespasses.”
- Neither of those are words we use with regularity about our sinfulness. Because of that, I think sometimes we might read or pray the Lord’s Prayer without thinking about what exactly this means. The Greek word used for “debts” or “trespasses” means “an offense, a trespass which requires reparation.”
- To be clear, we are talking here about our debts to God - the sins we’ve committed (say, over the last day) that we are asking forgiveness for. This is the part of the Lord’s Prayer where we are asking for God the Father to forgive us.
- Confession of sin is not something that is a regular part of most Christian’s prayer life. Because of that, I want to be practical in the remainder of the sermon and walk through what it looks like to ask for forgiveness on an ongoing basis. Some of you might think that the rest of the sermon is too basic. That's ok - if you’ve already got this solid in your prayer life, then just say, “Amen” a lot the rest of the sermon and encourage me in my preaching.
For most of you who aren’t doing this on a regular basis, I want to help you to know how to actually incorporate this into your daily prayer life. Here are four key steps to making it happen.
- One final note: this information is of no value if you don’t use it. This isn’t like memorizing the 12 apostles where knowing it is all you need. This is only of value if you do it.
HOW TO ASK FOR FORGIVENESS ON AN ONGOING BASIS:
1. Understand that this is essential to becoming Christlike.
- Matthew 7:21-27.
- A good place to start is the goal of the Chrisitan life. That's a big issue, isn’t it? In any endeavor if you don’t understand what the goal is, then things are likely not going to go well.
- If you hire a high school basketball coach who endlessly emphasizes rebounding to the point where all he wants to talk about before, during, and after games is how the team is doing in rebounding, he’s not going to be coach for very long. Why? Because rebounding is certainly related to success in basketball, but the goal in basketball is not to get more rebounds that the other team but to score more points than the other team. Not knowing the goal is going to get him fired.
- Sadly, many people don’t know the goal of the Christian life. Let me be explicit in stating it. Many think the goal of the Christian life is being forgiven. “I got saved and now I’m forgiven so I can go to heaven someday.” That is all important stuff: we do want people to get saved, we do want people to be forgiven, we do want people to go to heaven someday. But the goal of the Christian life is to make you Christlike. The goal is Christlikeness. And not just someday but increasing Christlikeness in this life.
- Look with me at Matthew 7:12-27. Note how it makes the dividing line of belief and unbelief the following of Christ’s commands.
- Why is that? Because it is God’s intention through Christ to undo the sin in our lives. He knows how damaging it is - that's why He died for our opportunity to leave it behind. He doesn’t just want us to mouth words of belief and accept an empty forgiveness that leaves us mired in our sin.
- “Easy belief” sees it more as a transaction rather than a walk, so it speaks of no need for ongoing forgiveness conversations. Bonhoeffer called it “cheap grace.” That is, grabbing onto a “get out of hell free” card that envisions no change in our lives.
- This is an idea that is incredibly prevalent in America. Many people claim to be Christians because they made a “decision” back when they were at church camp or when they were a kid in church. Is there any evidence of walking with Christ in their life? No. Is there any desire to be more like Christ? No. Do they read the Bible? No. Do they go to church? No. But if you ask them if they are a Christian, they will say yes. Why? Because they “got saved” all those years ago. But they were not taught or did not understand that it’s not a one-time event but it’s a commitment to be a disciple of Jesus. A student of His, following His teaching. Not begrudgingly but joyfully. As the pearl of great price that they are thankful has come into their life.
- Unfortunately that doesn’t match up to what Jesus says to conclude the Sermon on the Mount.
- One reason for this is that many people don’t think sin is all that bad. In Romans Paul compares sin to slavery. I have used a similar analogy, comparing sin to cancer.
- If someone was in slavery and an opportunity to be free came along, they would jump at that. They would obviously want out of slavery!
- If someone had cancer and a chance to have the cancer removed came along, they would jump at that. They would obviously want to get the cancer out of their body!
- That's not how we look at our sin. We don’t have that urgency. We don’t have that strong desire. We seem to be ok with wallowing in our sin.
- That's because we don’t understand how horribly damaging sin is. We’ve figured out ways to keep our sin hidden and we’ve accepted that that's the best we can hope for.
- We also don’t have a clear picture of how incredible the way of God is, so we don’t hunger for that.
- It’s important to understand the difference between justification and sanctification when it comes to forgiveness.
- Justification is what happens at the moment of salvation. The sacrifice of Christ on the cross and the blood that was shed is applied to my life and I am forgiven by what Jesus did. I ask for Jesus’ sacrifice to be applied to my life. I am declared right before God through the forgiveness that Jesus offers. It’s important to note here that I am declared right, not that I actually am living right.
- Sanctification is what happens after that. As we begin to walk with Christ, under the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit, we begin to actually become like Christ. This obviously ties in to the goal of us being like Christ. Unlike justification being a declaration, this is putting it into practice.
- This is where a lot of people misunderstand what Christianity is all about. They think it just means receiving forgiveness from God to go to heaven someday and then for right now just going back to our old way of living in our sin. That's not it at all. The goal is for us to become like Christ. That will find its ultimate fulfillment in the life to come but it is something that God wants to start right now. And we should want that too, if we understand how damaging our sin is and how amazing Jesus is.
2. Ask God to reveal your shortcomings.
- Psalm 139:23-24; John 3:17; Romans 6:23.
- The second thing is that we should ask God to reveal where we are falling short.
- This immediately raises several objections in our minds.
a. I’m trying to hide my sin from God.
- Our general approach to our sin and God parallels the way a kid approaches the figurine he broke on the living room shelf - hide it. At some level we know that God sees everything but there is still that natural instinct to try to hide our sin. We get to where we think that if we can hide it from the people around us then somehow God doesn’t know either.
- The Christian is to approach this in a totally different way. I know God knows all my sin. I have confessed before God that I am a sinner. God has committed to helping me not only be forgiven but cleansed of my sin. We have covenanted together that Christlikeness is the goal in my life.
- So I no longer have to hide my sin from God. Instead, I bring it to Him and ask for His help in overcoming it. I do so knowing that He already knows all my sin and has already committed to helping me be victorious. This is transformative.
- An imperfect analogy would be a recovering alcoholic and his AA sponsor. The sponsor already knows I am an alcoholic so if I tell him I’m being tempted to drink, it’s no shock. The sponsor wants to see me succeed and is committed to helping me. The analogy breaks down at the point of Jesus not being a sinner Himself, although He does know what it’s like to be tempted.
b. Doesn’t that just make God hate me more for being a sinner?
- Some people will hear that and the sound of parents who were constantly trashing them and disappointed with them will ring in their ears. Here is the same thing again, right? No.
- John 3:17 is worth mentioning here. Jesus didn’t come into the world to condemn the world but to save it. His desire for your life is not condemnation but salvation.
c. That sounds like a lot of work.
- A third objection is that all this sounds like a laborious process. You know what? It is.
- This isn’t easy. It isn’t resolved in one day. No, this is a lifelong commitment to overcoming sin in our lives and increasingly being like Jesus.
- Is it worth it? To go back to our earlier analogy, would a cancer survivor say that it was worth going through some radiation to be able to live many years cancer free? Of course.
- The wages of sin is death. We want to live the life of Christ.
3. Confess your sins specifically.
- 1 John 1:9.
- Confessing our sins to God is the next step.
- Some of you might think: why do I need to confess my sins if God forgave me at the moment of salvation? Good question.
- A big part of it goes back to that distinction we discussed earlier: being declared righteous vs actually being righteous. The first of those happened when we got saved. The second is an ongoing process. The second isn’t what saves us, it’s simply what happens as a result of having been saved.
- So I need to regularly (daily?) confess my sins to God and ask for forgiveness as part of the sanctification process. It’s helping me to become more like Christ.
- One simple way to do this is when you have your daily time of Bible study and prayer to spend a moment thinking over the last 24 hours and considering whether you have sinned and how.
- Now we get to an overlooked component of this: confessing specifically.
- Some people will incorporate confession into their prayer life as a general statement. “And, Lord, forgive me of my sins.” They just kind of treat it as a safety statement: “if I happen to have done anything wrong, wipe that out, Lord.”
- That's not what confession is about.
- It’s about a practice that helps us to become more like Christ. So the goal in doing it is to actually identify where my life is off-track so that I can confess that and ask God for forgiveness but also for help in overcoming that sin.
- Confession isn’t just trying to keep my book clean with God. It’s a tool to identify and destroy the specific sins that are damaging me.
- So when you have this time, think over the last 24 hours and try to identify the specific things you did that aren’t what God would want. Confess that it was wrong and ask God for help in overcoming that sin.
4. Try to live beyond that sin.
- 1 Corinthians 10:13.
- We will always struggle with sin while we are in this life. And we will, even in the best of lives, give into sin sometimes. (Of course, there are many lives giving in to sin constantly.)
- But the salvation that Jesus has brought into our lives is powerful and effective. It gives us all the tools we need to be able to sin significantly less and to be profoundly more like Christ.
- We can sin much, much less than we are now. We will never be sinless but we should definitely sin less.
- In fact, I think that through the salvation of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, we can reach a point where we can go a significant amount of time without sinning. Not sinless, but sinning less.
- This is important to say, I think, because many Christians have a fatalistic attitude toward their sin. “What choice do I have? It’s just the way I am.” No, you are now a new creation in Christ who has been given all the resources you need to live a victorious Christian life. 1 Corinthians 10:13 tells us we never have to give in to a specific temptation.
- Knowing our true identity in Christ is important.
- Christians will say, “I’m just a sinner saved by grace.” Technically, that's not true. A Christian should say, “I was a sinner saved by grace, but now I am a new creation in Christ.”
- This is now the core of who I am: a new creation in Christ.
- Live like that!
