This morning, as we continue in our study of Luke's Gospel, I want to direct your attention to the fourth petition given by Jesus in the Lord's Prayer, as found in Luke chapter 11, verse 4, where our Lord said, and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. Now, in Matthew's longer version of this same prayer, which was spoken, I might add, by Jesus at a different time and under a different set of circumstances, we're given the same basic petition, but with a few significant differences. One difference being that this is the only petition that Jesus felt the need to clarify and to explain and to expand upon. And since Matthew's version is more detailed, it is fuller, so that it really gives us more understanding of what Jesus was actually teaching about how to pray. I've chosen to use Matthew's fuller version for our instruction this morning. So here's how Jesus put it in Matthew chapter 6, verses 12 and then 14 and 15. We're actually going to combine Luke and Matthew. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions. Now, in going through the various petitions found in this, what we call the model prayer, both in Luke and Matthew's accounts, they not only teach us how we are to pray, but they also bring conviction to our souls because they reveal various deficiencies in the way that we have been praying. And this fourth petition is perhaps the most convicting of them all because it addresses something that is so relevant and real in our lives, and that is the issue of forgiving others, forgiving those who have sinned against us. Something that if we're honest, we would have to admit we all at times struggle with. See, every believer in Christ can relate to the inner battles of an unforgiving heart, a heart that wrestles with anger, wrestles with resentment, and even bitterness towards those who have deeply hurt us. And because as God's children who have a new divine nature, we love righteousness, we desire to have close fellowship with the Lord. Because of this, we hate these wrong attitudes that we see in ourselves, the attitudes of struggling to forgive others. And we are convicted of our sin because we know that God's Word very clearly teaches us to forgive others just as the Lord has forgiven us. But it's not only conviction of sin that accompanies this fourth petition. It also carries with it, folks, an element of danger. Danger to our spiritual lives. if, as Jesus tells us, we pray for God's forgiveness, yet we are unwilling to forgive others. This is why Augustine called this petition, he referred to it as the terrible petition, because he correctly understood that if we pray this prayer with an unforgiving heart, then we are actually asking God not to forgive our sins. Charles Spurgeon also recognized the same inherent danger found in this prayer, the same thing that Augustine did. And so speaking of this petition, he said this, unless you have forgiven others, you read your own death warrants when you repeat the Lord's Prayer. And more recently, C.S. Lewis wrote these words about the Lord's Prayer and the petition for forgiveness. He said, no part of his teaching, meaning the Lord's teaching, is clear. There are no exceptions to it. He doesn't say that we are to forgive other people's sins, provided they are not too frightful, or provided there are extenuating circumstances, or anything of that sort. We are to forgive them all, however spiteful, however mean, however often they are repeated. If we don't, we shall be forgiven none of our own. And so this morning, in light of the seriousness of this petition about forgiveness, we approach the fourth petition with a bit of caution, a bit of uneasiness, because we understand that a failure to obey its truth causes and carries with it serious consequences for our own spiritual lives. Therefore we want to be extra careful in analyzing our Lord's words so that we understand precisely, precisely what Jesus taught about forgiveness and what he did not teach about forgiveness. And so to begin with, I want you to notice that a careful reading of our Lord's words about forgiveness reveals two things about this petition that are not found in any of the other previous ones. Number one, first difference is this petition has a different beginning than the first three prayer requests. As it begins with the small word, and it's easy to overlook this, but the small word end, A-N-D, as in end, forgive us. The second difference is that it not only begins differently, it actually ends differently than the other petitions, in that, as I said a moment ago, it's the only petition that Jesus took time to clarify, to explain, to expand upon, as it is presented in Matthew's longer version. Now, concerning the first of these two differences, the fact that Jesus began this petition with the word and, and forgive us our debts, or as Matthew puts it, our debts, Luke says, our sins. That's significant. I said, though a small word, it is significant. Why? Well, as we saw last week, the Lord's prayer consists of two general parts. The first part of the Lord's Prayer deals with God's interests, His name, His kingdom, His will. The second part of the prayer deals with man's interests, our daily bread, the forgiveness of our sins, and protection from the temptations that we face. Now, as you can see, the petition for forgiveness is given in the section that addresses man's interests. And that is important because having just told us to pray for our daily bread, which includes all that we need to be sustained physically, our physical lives, Jesus then deliberately moves on to the request to ask for forgiveness. But instead of starting a new petition like he did the other petitions, he connects these two petitions. He ties them together, one for daily bread and one for forgiveness, and he does it with the word and. And the reason the Lord did it this way is because He's making a very loud statement that when we pray we are not to stop with our physical needs. That's the way we would expect unbelievers to pray because all that an unbeliever is really interested in if they pray at all, would be their physical material needs, their health concerns, or the health concerns of a loved one, their finances, their need for food and housing and things of that nature. But those who know God as their Heavenly Father, remember, the Lord's prayer is directed to God's children who address Him as their Father in Heaven. Those who know God as their Heavenly Father, We not only have physical needs, we, yes, we have those, but we also are keenly aware of our sins, and therefore we have a concern for our spiritual needs. And the greatest need we have is for God to forgive us of our sins. You see, in telling us to pray for God's forgiveness. Jesus is telling us that as children of God, we are concerned about something that the world has absolutely no concern about. We long for something the people of this world just don't long for. We long to be close with the Lord. We long for the warmth of spiritual, intimate fellowship with Him. And the only way to experience this close, warm, joyful fellowship is by being forgiven of our sins. In other words, what Jesus is teaching us is that in addition to asking God to sustain our physical lives, we make sure that we also ask Him to help our spiritual lives. And to do that, we must ask Him to forgive us of our sins. So by using the small word, and, to connect the petition for daily bread and the petition for forgiveness, the Lord is saying that when we pray, We aren't only to pray for our bodily needs, but we're to go further and also pray for our soul's needs. And the greatest need of our soul is for divine forgiveness. Listen, every child of God longs for something that is just so foreign to unbelievers. They can't imagine the longing that we have for God's moment-by-moment fellowship and forgiveness, because we don't want anything hindering our relationship with Him. We want to walk closely with Him, and we just can't stand it. We can't stand it when we're out of intimate and joyful and close fellowship with Him. And so Jesus teaches us that the way to maintain our communion, the way to maintain our closeness with Him is by asking the Father to forgive us our sins just as we have forgiven the sins of others. And because this is such a critical issue, Jesus made sure that he was not misunderstood. And so, as I've already mentioned in Matthew's account of this petition, he added some words of clarification and amplification about this kind of forgiveness. Now, as I've already said, this is the only petition given by the Lord in his model prayer that he felt the need to clarify and explain. And what that tells us is that we have to be very, very careful in studying this portion of Scripture lest we misunderstand it. It is easy to misunderstand it. And there are a number of issues related to the subject of forgiveness that can easily be misinterpreted, easily be misunderstood. So this petition raises and has raised over the years a number of questions in the minds of many, such as why does a child of God have to ask God to forgive him for any sins? Didn't we receive full and complete forgiveness of our sins, past, present, future, at the moment of our salvation? And why is God's forgiveness tied to our forgiving others? Isn't our forgiveness based solely on the substitutionary atonement of Christ on the cross? Yet, verse 14 says, for if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. And then why did Jesus say, in verse 15, that if we refuse to forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions? Does this mean then that we can lose our salvation if we harbor ill feelings towards others? Now, all of these are legitimate, valid questions to ask, and they need to be answered, and they will be answered by our study this morning. And to get those questions answered, we want to unfold the meaning of these verses by looking at two key issues about forgiveness that Jesus addressed. The first key issue that he addressed about forgiveness is this. God, he tells us, forgives our sins. We break in at Luke chapter 11, the beginning of verse 4. Jesus said, and forgive us our sins. Now the Lord begins this petition by telling us that when we pray, we are to ask our Heavenly Father to forgive us of our sins. However, Matthew's version of this prayer, in that the Lord refers to our sins by another word. He calls them debts. Debts. So why did he put it this way? Well, the Lord obviously wasn't referring to financial debts, since we can see here in Luke's account that he had sins in mind, so debts and sins are used interchangeably. It would appear that the reason that the word debt is used in Matthew's Lord's Prayer is because Matthew's Gospel was written specifically with Jewish people in mind. The whole flavor of the Gospel of Matthew is Jewish. And to an observant Jewish person of that day, sin was like a debt that they owed God. It was a moral failure that resulted in being indebted to the Almighty. Unless payment for that sin was paid through divine punishment, you were indebted. See, to a Jewish person in Christ's time, the primary purpose, the primary responsibility in life was to obey God, was to obey His law. The thinking was that by virtue of who God is, we all owe Him our worship, our love, our devotion, our obedience, our service. This is things that we owe Him. And whenever we would fail, in these areas by sinning against Him, we have failed to give God what we rightfully owe Him. And as a result, we incur debts that can only be paid by punishment. Therefore, what Jesus is telling us is that since we are debtors to God, we need to ask Him to forgive us by cancelling those debts. Canceling those debts. But a major question that many who have studied this portion of the Lord's Prayer have asked is, why does a believer in Jesus Christ, one who knows God as their Heavenly Father, why do they have to ask God to forgive them for any sin? Aren't all believers already forgiven of all their sins at the moment of their salvation? And so to begin to answer this question, we need to understand something that's very important. We need to understand, note this, that the Bible teaches there are two types of divine forgiveness. Two types. is judicial or legal forgiveness, and the other is, for lack of any better term, parental or fellowship forgiveness. Now, by judicial or legal forgiveness, the Bible means that God, as the eternal judge, has declared all those who trust Christ for salvation, He has declared that they are pardoned, they are forgiven of all of their sin, Though all of us have sinned, all of us have rebelled against God by our attitudes and our actions, Christ, the God-man, by His mercy and grace, He paid for all of our sins. all of the sins of those who would believe upon Him. He paid for all that by being punished, by being judged by God the Father in our place as our substitute on the cross. See, although the Bible teaches that God's nature is to love, He is also perfectly holy. righteous and just, and His holy justice demands justice in the form of payment for sins committed. Therefore, God cannot, and note this, He cannot arbitrarily forgive and cancel our sin debts unless those sin debts are paid for, unless there has been an acceptable satisfactory punishment for those sin debts. And the good news, the good news of the gospel of Christ is that when Jesus died, he paid all the moral debts owed by everyone who would ever trust him for salvation. And this is why the Bible very clearly, very emphatically declares that the moment we trust Christ for our salvation, at that very moment, God, as judge of the universe, completely forgives us, which means that he cancels all of our debts We are judicially, we are legally forgiven of all of our sins. God's justice has been completely satisfied in the death of His Son, and therefore, He can forgive us without violating His perfect standard of justice and holiness. And this is why the Bible says that God will never hold a sin against you. If you know Christ as your Savior, there's no sin that will ever be held against you, because they have all been paid for by Jesus Christ, and God is totally satisfied with that payment. Therefore, if you have trusted Jesus for your salvation, then you are the recipient of His complete forgiveness. This is why the Apostle Paul made this glorious declaration in Romans 8, 1, where he said, Therefore, there is now no condemnation, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And Paul, in his other letters, he explained why there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ, and that's because he said all their sins are forgiven. Ephesians 1, 7. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace. And then I love Colossians 2, 13 because It tells us all of them are gone. Paul said, when you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions. Folks, all means all here. Past, present, future. Paul said, all of them have been forgiven. God will hold none of your sins against you. He forgave them all because Christ Jesus paid for them all, so they've already been judged, so that no judgment awaits you. Which means that if you are a believer in Christ, you will never lose your salvation. Because you could never be unforgiven by God. Jesus made that abundantly clear. That if you are a true follower of His, then your salvation is eternally secure. It can never be undone. In John chapter 10 verses 27 through 28. I don't know how the Lord could have made it any clearer than this. He said, My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give eternal life to them, and they'll never perish. And no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand. Listen, our Lord made it clear, you'll never perish, meaning you'll never experience God's wrath in eternal hell, because God has forgiven all of your sins. And when did this happen? It happened at the very moment of your salvation, the moment you trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior. That's when God, as Judge, pronounced you forgiven. Completely. Totally. He cancelled all of your debts. So Scripture makes it very clear then that those who have believed on Christ for salvation have already been forgiven of their sins. So then, the logical question that we have to ask in light of Jesus telling us in the Lord's Prayer to ask for God's forgiveness is why? Why do we need to ask God to forgive us if we've already been forgiven in Christ totally And completely. And the answer to this question is that the Bible teaches, as I said a moment ago, there is a second type of divine forgiveness that's reserved only for believers in Christ, only for those who've already been legally forgiven. See, in addition to this one-time legal forgiveness, believers in Christ need forgiveness in the form of God cleansing us from the sins we commit every day. Not for salvation, but so that we can maintain our joy, our close fellowship with Him, our relationship, of closeness with Him. For lack of a better term, what I said before, we would call it parental or fellowship forgiveness. You see, this is the forgiveness that comes from God as a father, not as a judge, but as a father. This is the forgiveness of a parent to a child, not a judge to a criminal. Keep in mind, in the Lord's Prayer, Jesus did not tell us to address God as our heavenly judge. He told us to address Him as our Heavenly Father. Because by faith in Christ, we have become God's children. He is our Father. And now, our Father, He has changed our status as our Father. We are no longer criminals before Him. We are His children. But as His children, our sin disrupts the warmth and the closeness and the intimacy of our relationship with Him. In other words, just as a child's rebellion against their parents breaks their closeness and fellowship, so our sin breaks our spiritual intimacy with our Heavenly Father. This is precisely the type of close fellowship and how to restore this that the Apostle John was writing about. Notice 1 John chapter 1 starting in verse 8. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and He is righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Reality is, though, that we are saved, and though we have been transformed by Christ, and though we have a divine new nature, reality is we still struggle with what the Bible calls the flesh. And as a result, we sin. And when we do, we lose not our salvation, but our joy and our intimacy with God. But when we come to God, when we come to Him, and in humility and in a spirit of repentance, we confess our sins to Him, which means what? To confess your sin. It means you agree with Him. That's what the word confession means. It means you agree with Him that what you have done is wrong. If you do that, then God has promised to forgive you. Not in a judicial, legal sense, because that already happened the moment you trusted Christ. but rather His forgiveness now is in a parental sense, which restores then the warmth of our sweet fellowship with Him. Jesus illustrated the need for this kind of parental fellowship, forgiveness, on the night that He washed the disciples' feet. I direct your attention to John chapter 13, starting at verse 5. Speaking of our Lord, then he poured water into the basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded. So he came to Simon Peter and he said to him, Lord, do you wash my feet? Jesus answered and said to him, what I do to you, you don't realize now, but you will understand hereafter. Peter said to him, never shall you wash my feet. Jesus answered him, if I don't wash you, you have no part with me. Simon Peter said to him, Lord, then wash not only my feet, but also my hands, my head. Jesus said to him, he who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean and you're clean but not all of you for he knew the one who was betraying him for this reason he said not all of you are clean now let me explain this the background of this incident of Jesus washing the disciples' feet is that at that time in history, people usually bathed early in the morning, but later in the day they still had a need to wash their feet. And that's because everyone in that era wore open sandals and roads were unpaved and rather filthy. So their feet became dirty. And since their feet were very visible when they ate a meal, because they ate by reclining on the floor, and nobody wants to see those filthy little tootsies sticking out as you're trying to enjoy your food, it was the custom to wash them. Now, Jesus used this custom of bathing in the morning and then washing feet later in the day to illustrate that in addition to the one-time judicial forgiveness at the start of our salvation that was represented by the bath that they took, they needed continual parental cleansing forgiveness from whatever new sins they committed in order to maintain their close walk of fellowship with God. In other words, he's saying that every true believer has had this one-time bath of judicial forgiveness at the moment of their salvation. Every one. He said you're all clean, except one, and that would have been Judas, who was not converted. You're all clean, but they also needed the continual cleansing of fellowship parental forgiveness because as they walk through, and this is true of us, as we walk through this evil world, we're going to pick up and collect a lot of dirt in the form of sin. Now let's think about this for a moment and let's consider how our Lord's words In his prayer about asking the Father to forgive us of our sin, how much did it impact the way that we pray? First of all, by telling us to request God's forgiveness, Jesus was certainly telling us that regular confession of sin should be the norm for every believer in Christ. Confession should be part of our daily prayer time. Just as we've learned from the Lord's Prayer that our prayer should include a time for praise as we hallow God's name, a time for praying for people to yield their lives to Christ's kingship and will and to be saved, a time to pray for our daily needs. So we should also make sure that we incorporate into our prayers a time to confess our sins. And this confession should be specific should not be vague. It should not be like, well, Lord, if I have sinned against you. That's not a confession of sin. If I have sinned against you, it should be no ifs. Lord, I've done this. I've had this horrible attitude. It has to be an honest admission of guilt and a repentant confession of it to God. And it should be excuse-free. confession without any justification, without any rationalizing it away. It should be like King David, who, as we saw earlier, prayed in Psalm 51. His confession didn't blame anybody else but himself. He took responsibility. This is what David said, Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness, according to the greatness of Your compassion. Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions. My sin is ever before me. Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You are justified when You speak, blameless when You judge. He's saying, God, it is my fault. Nobody else's fault. I'm not blaming Bathsheba for bathing without clothes on in the middle of the day. It's my fault. My fault alone. You're justified, God. That's confession of sin. That's repentance. See, what you will find as you spend time in prayer with the Lord is that He will bring to your mind all kinds of sins that need to be confessed and forsaken. And not just sins of behavior. Most of our sins are sins of the heart, attitude, pride, anger, resentment, covetousness, impatience, jealousy, foolish words, sins of the tongue, sins of selfishness, things like that. And as He brings those sins to your mind, you should respond immediately by humbling yourself before Him, confessing them. And the reason for such a response on your part to your sin is because unlike unbelievers, a true child of God is concerned about being right with Him. It deeply grieves a child of God when he sins against his heavenly Father because he knows that God, God is grieved over his sin and therefore he wants to make things right with his Father, with his Abba, so he confesses his sin. In fact, folks, confession of sin is one of the basic evidences of being a true believer. You see, although an unbeliever may at times feel bad and remorseful when they sin, it's not the same kind of reaction that a believer has. An unbeliever may feel bad about a sin for any number of reasons. Maybe he has a guilty conscience, or perhaps he feels bad and regrets what he did because he sees the terrible consequences of his sin, how his sin has caused bad things in other people's lives, or perhaps maybe he's simply embarrassed because he got caught. But a true child of God, a true child of God is grieved by a sin even if no one else knows what he's done. He's grieved simply because he knows that his sin has hurt his heavenly Father and it has disrupted their sweet fellowship. And so he is quick to confess his sin, and he'll receive at that moment God's forgiveness and the restoration of that sweet fellowship. This is why, as I said, confession of sin is one of the evidences of being saved, because a saved person longs for fellowship with God. He can't stand it when he's out of fellowship with God, not for a moment. So if you claim to know Jesus as your Savior and Lord, but your sins don't bother you, I don't bother you enough to ever repent or ever confess them quickly, regularly. Then you need to seriously consider if you've ever been converted. Because confession of sin is one of the signs of being a true believer. Second way that asking for God's forgiveness ought to impact the way we pray is that when we do confess our sins, we need to believe God's Word that He has forgiven us. We need to believe His promise that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just or righteous to forgive us all of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That is His promise. I bring this up because it has been my observation over the years. Many Christians confess their sin to God, but they don't really believe that He's forgiven them. And so they tend to continue confessing the same sin over and over and over again as if forgiveness just didn't take the first time. And if they confess it enough, they'll be forgiven. So they keep asking and asking for it. And so they tend to just beat themselves up emotionally instead of just quietly believing what God has said, thanking Him for His forgiveness, and then just moving on with your life. Listen, you don't have to wait until you feel forgiven to know that you have been forgiven. God has promised that. And you certainly don't need to fall for that unbiblical concept that's so popular these days, that of forgiving yourself. You didn't sin against yourself. You sinned against God, so you need His forgiveness, not your own. So confess your sin to Him, accept His forgiveness, and just walk by faith and thank Him for forgiving you, regardless of how you feel. However, having just stated that God will always forgive a repentant believer who confesses their sin, Jesus felt that it was important to explain what happens to those believers who hold on to their sins instead of confessing them. in particular, the sin of an unforgiving heart. And so, having opened the fourth petition on prayer by stating that God forgives sin, Jesus proceeds then to explain that although believers, yes, they normally forgive others, there is a terrible consequence when a believer does not forgive others. And that leads us then to the second key issue that Jesus addressed about forgiveness, which is this, God forgives us only as we forgive others. Continuing in verse 4 of Luke 11, we read, For we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. Now with these words, Jesus taught a very solemn truth about forgiveness. He taught that his followers, those who have been forgiven by God because of their faith in him, we are those people who do forgive others. We forgive others. One of the great truths of Christianity is that as God's children, we who have experienced the amazing mercy and grace of God in forgiving us of all of our sins, we then turn around and we are gracious and merciful to forgive those who have sinned against us. That is a basic teaching of Christianity in the New Testament. This is precisely what Jesus meant in telling us then to pray to the Father to forgive us our sins against Him just Just do this, Father, just as we do it, as we've also forgiven those who have sinned against us. Forgiving others is the norm for a believer. It's what is expected of a believer. It's what is commanded of a believer. In Ephesians chapter 4, verses 31 and 32, we are commanded, not suggested, but commanded to forgive others. Paul wrote, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Paul couldn't have said it any clearer than this. We are to forgive others simply because we have been forgiven by God. These two verses are part of a larger section in Paul's letter to the Ephesians in which the apostle is making a contrast between how we used to behave before we were converted and how we behave now. How we're supposed to behave now? And so what the Apostle is saying here is that prior to our conversion, we were malicious people. We were angry, bitter people. People who hated others. People who didn't forgive others. But we're not to behave that way anymore. We're new in Christ. Instead, we're to be kind. tender-hearted and forgiving. Why? Because God has been kind and tender-hearted towards us and forgiving. That's why. But listen, Jesus who knows everything about us, everything, knows that you and I struggle with forgiving others. And that's why in Matthew's account of this prayer, he explains something very important about forgiving others. I read it again to you, Matthew 6, 14 and 15. For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions. Now notice that Jesus very clearly makes God's parental fellowship forgiveness of us, he makes it, folks, conditional. He says that if you, as one of his followers, if you forgive someone who has sinned against you, then he, as your heavenly Father, he'll also forgive you. But if you, as one of his followers, does not forgive someone who has sinned against you, then although you are a believer, although he is your Father, he will not forgive your sins. Now obviously this is quite serious. And it's the reason that Augustine called this fourth petition, the terrible petition. So what does our Lord mean by these words? Well it's important to keep in mind, very important in fact, to keep in mind that Jesus is referring here to fellowship forgiveness. He's not talking about salvation forgiveness, not talking about legal forgiveness. This is made clear by the fact that Jesus mentions God as your Heavenly Father. So this is a situation that pertains only to believers in Christ. Because as I said earlier, unbelievers aren't interested in forgiving others, and God is not their Heavenly Father. So again, I reiterate that the issue here is not losing your salvation, but rather maintaining a warm and close walk in your relationship with the Lord. And to do that, Jesus said, you must forgive those who sin against you, because if you don't do this, then you are in sin. You are in sin. And it is sin, note this, it is sin that breaks the sweet communion with Him that you long for. This principle of sin breaking our close fellowship, communion with God, it's spelled out for us so clearly in Psalm 66 verse 18, where we read, If I regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. What does that mean to regard iniquity or wickedness in one's heart. Listen, it is not the same thing as struggling. It's not the same thing as struggling with one's sin because, well, you know you should do something, but you're finding it difficult to do. It's not the same thing as that. That's a struggle. No, to regard wickedness is to willfully, stubbornly, refuse, adamantly to refuse to repent of it. And if a believer has that kind of hardened, unrepentant attitude towards his sin, then the Lord will not respond to their prayers. Because their sin has broken the one sweet fellowship. Listen, we see this same principle spelled out in 1 Peter 3, verse 7, where we read this, So husbands, pay attention. This is directed to you, Peter says. You husbands, in the same way, live with your wife in an understanding way as with someone weaker. Since she is a woman, show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life so that your prayers will not be hindered. It's the same principle. Peter is saying that if a husband does not live with his wife in a caring, honoring, sensitive, understanding way, then he might as well Might as well not pray. Because his prayers will be hindered, meaning that God's not going to answer his prayers because he's got unrepentant sin in his life. Listen, all of us, all of us struggle at times to forgive those who have hurt us, who have insulted us, who have wrongly criticized us, who have offended us, who have slandered us, who have spoken evil of us. But the key to forgiving others is to remember how much you have been forgiven by God, regardless of what they do to you. They can't outdo your sins towards God. Anytime you struggle to forgive others, you need to recall what a wretched sinner you are. How much God has forgiven you. Otherwise, what do we reveal? We reveal that we have a serious problem with self-righteousness and pride. As if we're not sinners who have been forgiven. As if we're all above this. As if we're not capable of showing mercy as God has shown mercy to us. It's nothing but self-righteous pride. Listen, how dare we not forgive those who have sinned against us? How dare we not forgive them? It is the height of arrogance, the height of hypocritical self-righteousness to accept God's forgiveness for our massive amount of sins, but refuse to forgive those who have sinned against us by comparison just a very little bit. There is no one who can outdo A sin against you that you've done against God. As John Stott writes, once our eyes have been opened to see the enormity of our offense against God, the injuries which others have done to us appear, by comparison, extremely trifling. And they are trifling. Trifling indeed. But let's face it, there are scores of genuine Christians who have a really hard time forgiving others. You may be one of them. They know that they need to forgive others, but it is a real battle for them. There are others, though, others who profess to be Christians, but instead of struggling, instead of battling to forgive others, they just outright refuse to do it. They don't struggle. It's not a struggle to them. They just reject it as an option. It's not an option to them. I'm just not going to do it. These are people who harbor old hurts and nurture those feelings until they are dominated by bitterness. They carry resentments and hold grudges in their hearts over things said or done to them years ago. They actually nourish and they cherish animosities and they have no desire, no interest at all, no intent on pardoning anyone who's done wrong to them. So what do we say to people who claim to know Christ but have absolutely no interest and an unwilling heart to forgive others? I'll tell you what we need to say to them. You must be born again. because no true born-again Christian refuses, adamantly refuses to forgive others. No true Christian has absolutely no desire to forgive others. If they've experienced God's forgiveness in Christ, they desire to forgive others, even though it's a struggle. But to those who are genuine believers, people like us who struggle with forgiving others, it is a different story. These are believers like us who have been so deeply hurt, so deeply disappointed by someone that they just are finding it hard to forgive them. These are the people that Jesus was referring to in Matthew 6. And according to our Lord, God is the Father of those who forgive, and He is the Father of those who don't forgive. The only difference is that those who forgive are forgiven by Him, and their sweet fellowship is continued. They walk with Him. But those who don't forgive are not forgiven by Him until they repent of their sins and they choose to forgive. And listen. Listen closely. I said choose to forgive because forgiveness is always a choice. It is an act of the will. Not the emotions. If you waited until you felt like forgiving someone, you never do it. Choose to forgive, cancel their debts, and your feelings will eventually catch up to what you did is right. And you don't have to think, well, I can't forget. Who told you to forget? You're always going to remember, but you don't have to hold it against them. Choose to forgive. You know what happens to a Christian who does not forgive? Though they are saved, not only don't they experience God's wonderful parental fellowship type of forgiveness, but they're miserable. They're miserable. They lose all joy. They have no peace in their hearts. There's no spiritual usefulness. They're constantly under the disciplinary hand of God. And the amazing thing is that some people have lived like this, some Christians have lived like this so long that they think it's normal. I've got news for you, it's not normal. It's abnormal. Philip Keller in his book on the Lord's Prayer wrote these meaningful words about the misery of those believers who don't forgive others. He said, why do most of us have trouble forgiving those who have wronged us? Why is it so hard to give up old resentments and ill will? Why do we harbor hate and grudges? Why do we allow bitterness, hostility, and antagonism to cripple our character, twist our personalities, and blight our relationship with others? All of this leads to tremendous tension, stress, and darkness within. Many of us do not even realize that this state of affairs exists in our lives. In some cases, we've lived this way so long, we are scarcely aware of the warfare within ourselves. Belligerence, spite, and ill have been companions whom we almost accept as normal life partners. I suspect that some of you have been living in these self-imposed prisons that you've created by your own lack of forgiveness. Jesus gave a parable about this. It's found in Matthew 18. The parable is intended not only to encourage us to forgive others by showing us how much God has forgiven us, but also to show us the consequences if we do not forgive others. Matthew 18, starting in verse 21. Then Peter came and said to him, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times? Jesus said to him, I don't say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven. For this reason, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king, a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he had begun to settle them, one who owed him 10,000 talents was brought to him. But since he did not have the means to repay, his lord commanded him to be sold, along with his wife and children and all that he had, and repayment to be made. So the slave fell to the ground, prostrated himself before him, saying, have patience with me, and I'll repay you everything. And the lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and forgave him the debt. But that slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii, and he seized him, and he began to choke him, saying, Pay back what you owe. So his fellow slave fell to the ground, began to plead with him, saying, Have patience with me, and I'll repay you. But he was unwilling. And he went and threw him in prison until he should pay back what was owed. So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their lord all that had happened. Then summoning him, his lord said to him, you wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave in the same way that I had mercy on you? And his lord moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers, until he should repay all that was owed him. My heavenly Father. will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart." Now, the story that leads into this parable begins with Peter asking Jesus how many times he should forgive someone who has sinned against him. And the Jewish rabbis had advised that you could forgive up to three times. Did I hold up four fingers? Up to three. I'm not good in math. Three times, and then that's it. So it would appear that Peter's just being very gracious. Lord, look how sweet I am. I'm willing to do it seven times. But Jesus said that there's no limit. There's no limit to how many times we forgive others. The point isn't 490 times and then the next time, no. The point is there's no limit to how many times you're to forgive someone who sins against you. And then the Lord illustrated this type of limitless forgiveness. This servant in the parable, he owed a debt that he could never repay. One talent was worth the equivalent of about 6,000 days of work. 6,000 days of work. This man would have had to work six days a week for almost 20 years to earn one talent, and he owed him 10,000 talents. But the king forgave him. Yet this man, who was forgiven, He refused to forgive someone who owed him 100 denarii, which was the equivalent of about three months work. That's it. And what was the result of his lack of forgiveness? The king had him tortured. Now folks, I don't interpret this as a picture of hell, but of the consequences of an unforgiving Christian. It is the torture of a life of frustration, a life of stress, a life of tension headaches, a life of joylessness, a life of ulcers, a life of continuous unresolved conflicts with others. This is the torture some of you may be experiencing right now because God has been disciplining you for your lack of forgiving others. But you don't need to stay there. You don't need to stay in that torture chamber. You can get out of it. All you need to do is start forgiving others. Perhaps it's a spouse who has hurt you deeply. Maybe it's a parent who has treated you in a horrible way. Maybe it's a rebellious child. Maybe it's an employer who has treated you unjustly. Maybe it's a neighbor, a relative, a fellow church member, or even a pastor. Whoever has sinned against you, you need to forgive them. And you can forgive them, not by waiting until you feel like it, but by an act of your will, you choose to no longer hold their sin against them. Just remember how many sin debts God has forgiven you. You remember that, and then you know what you do? You cancel the debt of others. You just cancel it. They no longer owe you anything. So stop mentally punishing them. Now if you're not a Christian, then you need God's judicial forgiveness. You have sinned against Him as all of us have, and the only way to experience this forgiveness of your sins is by trusting Jesus Christ and His death on the cross. Trusting that in Him as the sole basis, the sole basis for your salvation. Not Christ and church, not Christ and anything you've done. Christ and Christ alone. His death was a death of payment. He was a substitute. substitute for the debts of sinners like us. So come to Him, place your confidence, your trust in Him, and be forgiven. If you'd like to speak to someone about that today, just see me. Some of our elders will be around me, and they'll be happy to talk to you. But for the rest of us, make sure you've forgiven others, that you're right with the Lord, that that sweet fellowship is ongoing. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for this passage of scripture. It is that terrible petition if we don't obey it, but it is wonderful if we obey it. Lord, thank you for forgiving us at the cross. Thank you that we have been forgiven of all of our sins. We don't even know all of our sins, they're so massive. We could never even count them, but you forgave them. And Lord, we want sweet fellowship with you. We want our relationship to be as close as possible, so I pray And for everyone here who knows you, I pray that they will choose to forgive those who have hurt them deeply. And all of us have been hurt deeply. All of us have had people who have said things about us that have hurt us and cut us. And oftentimes we feel betrayed. But Lord, help us. We can forgive them. We don't want anybody here in a torture chamber they have made for themselves. There is a way out. So help us. May today be the day of liberation. And for those who don't know you, Lord, may today be their day of liberation from the penalty of their sins as they place their faith in Jesus Christ for their salvation. All of this we pray in his precious name. Amen.