Chapter 6. I'm going to read a little bit here before the Lord's Prayer and a little bit afterwards. We'll see what comes before it and what comes after it. Matthew 6. I'm going to read from verse 7 to verse 15. Just give your attention to the Word of God. Jesus here is speaking. And He said, And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases, as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them. For your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. Pray then like this, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. And we'll stop our reading at that point. We're going to focus on verse 12. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. This is how Jesus taught us to pray. So what do we learn from this line, forgive us our debts? There's actually a lot of instruction about our relationship with God in those four words, forgive us our debts. There's a lot there. One thing that we see is that our relationship with God that has many elements to it includes this, that we owe God something. That's what the word debts conveys to us. A debt is something that is owed. And here we are asking God to forgive us our debts. There are things that we owe to God. Now, what would we owe to God? It's not money in the first place. The thing that we owe to God is an acknowledgement that He is God. We don't acknowledge this privately to ourselves and publicly, before others. Jesus said, if you confess me before Men, I will confess you before my Father in heaven." And there's this repeated mention in the scripture of assemblies. And I will come to the assembly and I will worship you in the great assembly. So we owe God an acknowledgement and worship in public assemblies and in our own private hearts. And together with owing Him His praise and His glory, we also owe Him obedience. He is our Creator, He is our Judge, He is the only true God, He knows us and knows what is best for us. We owe Him obedience. So that's true for all human beings. All human beings owe the one and only God. Praise and honor and glory, acknowledgement, not a bare acknowledgement, but worship, and also obedience. But those who call on God as Father, having believed in Jesus Christ, We have even more reasons that we are in debt to Him. For we can look at Jesus on the cross and see the price paid to redeem us. And so all of us owe God things, and we who are believers owe Him even more. Before I go any farther about what we're learning from the word debt, I want to address A question that might be in your mind. Sometimes maybe you've gotten together with other Christians and prayed the Lord's Prayer and it's all going great until you get to this line. And suddenly they're saying trespasses. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. It's longer, it throws you off, you're not together anymore. What is this trespass? Well, if you look at verse 14 and 15, you see trespasses. What happened in English is that the first translator in English, Mr. Tyndale, took the word trespassers in 14 and 15, and that's how he translated verse 12 also. He was then killed for the crime of giving us the Bible in English, so we didn't have a whole lot of time to ask him what he was up to. But the Book of Common Prayer, which is then the guiding book for the Church of England, picked up on trespassers. And even after the King James Bible came out and more accurately translated death, the Book of Common Prayer just kept rolling on and on with trespasses. That's what everybody was used to. That's what they kept doing. And then when the Roman Catholics in this country stopped saying the Lord's Prayer in Latin and began to say it in English, they had a choice to make who they were going to go with, and they went with the Episcopalians with trespasses. I thought it was a Catholic thing, but no, it's actually an Anglican thing, and it's now been picked up by the Catholics. So, some will pray forgive us our debts, some will pray forgive us our trespasses, and you'll notice they do say trespasses just a couple of verses later, so it's not like this is some awful mistake, it's just an alternate word put in there for sin. When you trespass, you go where you don't belong. You cross the line. You're where you shouldn't be. And when you have a debt, you owe something. And Jesus here, by using these two words close together, is teaching us things about sin. He could have just said sins. But he's teaching us a little bit more about how to think about sin. When we sin, we are not giving God his due, so we have debts. And we have crossed the line, gone into a zone that is not ours to go to. We have trespassed. So you can pray it either way. Debt is a little more accurate. What do we learn from debt? One, that we owe God something. And then, from the fact that we're saying, forgive us our debts, we're learning two more things. One, we owe God something, and we have not paid in full. Perhaps we've paid in parts. But clearly, Jesus is teaching us, and this is our regular prayer, we're to understand that we owe God something, and we have not made a full payment. Not only that, he teaches us not to say, give me more time, and I will repay you all. That's not what it says. Since we're praying to be forgiven the debt, we learn a third thing. We owe God something, we have not paid in full, and we evidently can't. Because if we could pay in full, then we should. If you can pay your debts, you ought to pay those debts. You only ask for debt forgiveness when you can't. So he's teaching us right out of the bat, and this is for those who call on God as Father, you owe God something, you've not made a full payment, and you can't make a full payment. Now there's one more crucial thing that he's teaching here, and that is that you are not to despair. I mention this because I've read about gambling and I learned that gambling addicts, and these are people with debts, right? Gambling addicts are, of all addicts, the most likely to commit suicide. I was a little surprised by that because that's what I saw. Imagine when you have debts that you cannot pay. That can be an overwhelming thought, particularly if you've piled up more debt doing stupid things to try to pay debts. Jesus says, no, this is how you deal with God. You owe Him things you've not paid a full payment. You cannot repay. You're to ask for forgiveness. You're not to despair. Now, will He forgive us? Because if He will forgive us, or if He might forgive us, then you could say, I'll do this. But if He won't forgive us, maybe I should try another strategy. Or maybe I will despair. We are reminded of where He began the prayer, our Father, who is in Heaven. As Christians, we have come to know God as Father because Jesus, the true Son, has brought us to the Father that we might be adopted. He did this for us when we confessed our sins the first time and put our faith in Jesus. At that point, at which you can begin to really call God Father. when you have been forgiven your sins and thereby adopted by Jesus Christ. And so, we know that God does forgive those who repented their sins. And Jesus brought this home in many ways. He told a parable about a Pharisee, a good guy, and a tax collector, scum. I want you to understand that's their assumptions about those two people. But in his parable, Jesus had the Pharisee praying by congratulating himself, thanking God that he's not like others. And there's a tax collector pounding his chest and saying, God, have mercy on me, the sinner. And all the listeners are like, yeah, he's a sinner. He's a tax collector. He's a traitor. And Jesus ended the parable with, it's the tax collector who went home justified, and not the other. The point being that we all need to ask God for forgiveness. And it was this tax collector who got the points. And who did what was required. And who confessed his sin and asked for forgiveness. And so received it. Jesus also said, blessed are the poor in spirit. And you're poor in spirit when you say, forgive me. You're still trying to hang on to some sort of wealth when you're like, just give me time and I will pay off. I was trying to hang on to some dignity, or to be poor in spirit and faith. Forgive me. Or at the end of the Gospel of Luke, he summarizes. Look, this is what's written in the Old Testament, he says. It is written that the Christ must suffer and be raised on the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins shall be preached in his name to all nations. There's his summary of the message of the Old Testament. But there has to be repentance and forgiveness. Remission means forgiveness. Remission of sins preached all over the world. That's what needs to happen. So we're to know this. Repent of your sins and confess them to God, asking for forgiveness in the basis of Jesus Christ. And you are forgiven. You can be assured of this. Now along with being assured of this, you also need to be humble. How often do you have to pray this prayer? Well, you look at the previous line. Give us, this day, our daily bread. Would you like to eat every day? Oh yeah, I definitely do. I like to eat three, four, five times a day. And so we must pray every day for our bread. We're praying every day. Forgive us our debts. Martin Luther saw this. You've heard of the 95 Theses that Martin Luther nailed up. Do you know what Thesis number one is? Number one. When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, Repent, He willed the entire life of believers to be one in repentance. That's Thesis number one of the famous 95. So, we're being told that we sin daily. That's why we have to repent daily and ask for forgiveness. Which addresses a question. My father is a pastor, and he would begin the service often with a confession of sin. And someone from a Roman Catholic background, at a certain point, began to fault him and say, why do you keep asking for forgiveness? We are forgiven. Yes, and that's not enough. Yes, those who believe in Jesus Christ are forgiven, and we are now in a different relationship with God. He's now Father. We relate to Him, children before the Father, not rebels before the King. But you know, children can be kind of rebellious. And when we are rebellious, we're to repent of it quickly, and ask for forgiveness. And so the remedy for that recurring rebellion is not to say, well, I don't need to say that again. You sinned again. You must confess and repent and ask forgiveness again. So in Psalm 32, written by a believer. When I kept silent, my bones aged. I was wasting away and groaning. Then I said, I will confess my sins to you. And you forgave my transgressions. Or Psalm 51, written by a believer. Lord, restore the joy of my salvation. He lost it. He lost it by sinning and not repenting and not confessing for some time. And now he has repented. In the psalm. As he does it. You should also think of the Lord's Supper. This is my blood which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. We are to be reminded of the forgiveness of sins. How often do you eat the Lord's Supper? Well, often. Frequently. Believers are now God's children, and He looks on us differently. We can pray, Our Father, with confidence. But as we do sin and rebel, we are to quickly repent, and ask for forgiveness. Our life is to be one of repentance, and confession, and forgiveness. So that's much on the first half. Forgive us our debts. But now we're going to talk about what Augustine calls a terrible petition. And by terrible, I think he probably means terrifying. Not bad, but terrifying. The terrifying petition is, as we forgive our debtors. Now why should that make this into a terrible or terrifying petition? Well, first of all, because Jesus immediately underlines this in Red English, verses 14 and 15. Because, if you forgive others their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. So we see here that Jesus is absolutely requiring this of us. There's no other way that he can make it more required than that. You want peace with God? Yes. You want God to forgive you then? Yes. Alright, well, if you want God to forgive you, you must forgive others. It's not strictly speaking the ground of our forgiveness. Jesus' work on the cross is the ground of our forgiveness. It's the basis of forgiving us. But Jesus makes this required. It is nonetheless necessary that we forgive others. Now why is that terrifying? Because it's very hard to do. And we may not want to do it. Do we have to forgive others? I read a book on my trip. It was on race and covenant. Talking about reconciliation. Trying to find religious roots for it. But it was a book of essays. Different authors. I was reading this one essay in there. And this Jewish writer was saying, we do not forgive the unforgivable. He's talking about the Holocaust. We can reconcile with the next generation, but we do not forgive the unforgivable. There is a difference between a Jewish writer and a Christian writer. The Jewish writer does not acknowledge the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. He has Psalm 51 that I quoted, but he does not have the Lord's Prayer. which has to be reaching around for reconciliation in some other way, having denied the straight road of forgiveness. You've got to be aware there are some writers who will be strongly against forgiveness. And there are other writers who kind of complicate matters. Jay Adams wrote a book called From Forgiven to Forgiving. And he begins by going through Luke 17. He does a good job with Luke 17. But then he says, OK, this is forgiveness. You forgive somebody, and that means that you promise them, I'm not mad at you anymore, and I'm never going to raise it again. Not to me, not to you, not to others. You say, OK, fine. You keep reading the book, and then it comes up. So do you forgive somebody if they don't repent? And based on his definition, That forgiveness is a promise to never raise it again. He then has to say, well, no, you don't forgive them if they haven't repented, because if they haven't repented, they're in sin and they need to have somebody bring it up to them so that they can repent. And what's going on is, he's thinking of a certain situation. He was a biblical counselor. He's thinking of two people in the room. The one has said, I repent, please forgive me, but the other one keeps bringing it up. And so he's saying, well, look, if you've forgiven him, quit bringing it up. That's a good point. But what about all the cases where people don't repent, or you can't reach them? Well, you look at this passage here, and you see the other person doesn't really show up. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. If you forgive others their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. And what really clinches it is that Mark 11.25 says, whenever you stand praying, forgive if you have ought against anyone. In this place, the other person hasn't even shown up. You haven't even talked to the other person. This is while you're praying. If you realize there's something against somebody, you're to forgive them then and there. Which shows us that Adam's definition of forgiveness was too precise, or only thinking of a certain situation. I would suggest that forgiving is when you give up your anger and your desire to seek your own vengeance. You forgive when you say, God, I leave them to you. I will not take vengeance. Are you going to raise it with them again? Depends on the situation. But you'd be in a much better place to raise it if you'd given up the anger. Are you going to raise it with somebody else? Depends on the situation. The people may need to know about something. Forgive us our debts. Give up the anger. Give up the desire for vengeance. Because God says vengeance is His. And so we leave it to Him. Christian is to learn, one, that in Christ we are forgiven. Two, that we must be forgiving people. And as we practice that, we learn the benefit of it. that we're not to burn with bitterness. We're not to be consumed with rage, which we can easily be, and will be, if we do not forgive. But as God in Christ has forgiven us, so we can and must forgive others. Jesus told another very powerful parable in Matthew 18 to make that point. He said the king decided that it was time to raise a little money. And he had a lot of people who owed him money. So he brought him in and somebody owed him 10 billion dollars. And it wasn't Warren Buffett or Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos. So they couldn't pay. So the king commanded that the man be sold with his family and all that he had. And he fell on his knees and said, have mercy on me and I will repay all. Which is absurd, because he couldn't. And in mercy, the king forgave all that death. But what did he learn from the experience? He learned that he needed money. And so he went out and he found some fellow servant who owed him a couple thousand dollars. And he grabbed him by the throats. Repay. And the man fell down and said, give me time and I will repay all. Which perhaps he could do. But the man wouldn't wait. He went and threw him in the debtor's prison. Do you know how Jesus ends the parable? He ends the parable with the other servants being very distressed and reporting back to the king what the forgiven but unforgiving servant had done. And the king summons them back and says, your debt forgiveness is off. He delivers him to the torturers until he should pay all his debts. That's Jesus saying, you must forgive. This is a distinguishing mark between Christians and the world. This distinguishes us from other religions. You see what it says right here. If you forgive others their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. That's what we're to learn. But of course we're talking about prayer, not learning. So let us take care. One, we learn that we're supposed to pray every day. Give us this day our daily bread. Let us learn to pray. And as we pray, certainly we pray for the things we need for the day. We pray for health, and for bread, and for a clear mind on that task. That's what tells us, don't get stuck on the physical. Be in relationship with God. And you want it cleared. Forgive us our debts. The debts I have accrued since yesterday. And we're reminded that while we need the things of this life, what we need most of all is our Father in Heaven. We need that relationship with Him. And so we are to take hold of this through asking for forgiveness. And we are to go on and live as those who are redeemed by seeking to redeem others, to forgive others, to show the same grace to others that has been showed to us. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are rich in mercy and in grace. And so Lord, we thank you for that mercy to us. And we pray that you would deliver us from our sins and deliver us from temptations and from evil. We pray, Lord, that you would strengthen our hands and our wills so that we may, from the heart, freely forgive others. Lord, give us wisdom and understanding where there are dangers. Give us prudence And Lord, we entrust ourselves to you, trusting that as you are the Heavenly Father, you will watch over us and take care of the things that concern us. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.