This morning we consider the instruction in the Heidelberg Catechism and Lord's Day 51. Lord's Day 51. Question and answer 126 asks, which is the fifth petition? And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. That is, be pleased for the sake of Christ's blood not to impute to us poor sinners our transgressions. nor that depravity which always cleaves to us, even as we feel this evidence of thy grace in us, that it is our firm resolution from the heart to forgive our neighbor. Beloved in our Lord Jesus Christ, there are only three petitions in the model prayer that our Lord Jesus Christ teaches us that pertain to ourselves directly. They are the request for our daily bread, the request for the forgiveness of our debts, and the request for deliverance from evil. Thereby the Lord teaches us that these three things are the only three things that we need in life and in death, making the request for those three things The child of God covers all of his needs and by implication his desires and his hope. The last two pertain to sin. The last two are requests for deliverance or salvation or liberation from sin. which shows that the matter of sin is our greatest need, far greater than the need that we set before God when we request our daily bread. And that's true even though bread is listed first. This is largely ignored today in the prayers of those who claim to be calling upon the one true and living God. Prayers today concern mainly, if not exclusively, with the earthly physical wants and desires of a child of God. They are mainly, if not exclusively, requests for matters pertaining to bread, for food and clothing, for money and retirement funds, for a successful business, for earthly peace and prosperity. And the prayer is consumed with thanking God for these things. But there is almost nothing about any concern for what really is the greater need, the forgiveness of sins and deliverance from the evil of sin Now indeed, the request for bread is made first, and rightly so. Number one, because in us, in this life, being of the earth earthy, our spiritual life is bound up in our physical life, and we need the sustenance. of our earthly daily bread so that we might live and therefore in that living to honor and praise God. The request for bread is also first because it is intended to be a picture of the higher, more important, and greater spiritual reality, our need for spiritual bread. Our need that is set forth in those very last two petitions that we make, that's even brought out in the Heidelberg Catechism's treatment that we consider this morning, when it says that the response or the request that we make is that God do not impute to us poor sinners, showing thereby that that which we request is that to bring us out of a spiritual impoverishment, a lacking, as it were, of the things pictured by earthly physical bread. Lastly, by way of introduction, I wish to bring to your attention that this request is obviously a request for that aspect of salvation that we call justification. Justification and the forgiveness of sins are virtually synonymous. And that is also why this is a fitting Lord's Day to consider on the occasion of baptism. For we all know, we all understand that baptism is a sign and seal of the washing away of our sins, that is, of forgiveness. we ought also to see, and we will this morning, something also very important with regard to this request, and therefore also to baptism, which is the request isn't simply a request for justification all by itself, but it includes the request for sanctification, even before we make that a separate request in the following petition, and that this is a request really for the whole of salvation, That which comes along with the forgiveness of sins is evident by what the Lord asks in that petition. He teaches us to ask not simply forgive us our debts, but forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. As we forgive our debtors speaks to sanctification, thereby teaching us something very important about the reception as well as the request for the forgiveness of sins. Same thing true in baptism. If you go back in your mind to just a few minutes ago when we read the baptism form, you will discover that we were taught there many things that are signed and sealed in baptism itself. It's not simply a sign and seal of the washing away of sins, but also of sanctification. It signifies not only being incorporated into the death of Jesus Christ, but also into His resurrection. It pertains to newness of life, to holiness of life. So also this request and this petition. Let's consider this, the fifth petition, for the forgiveness of sins. We will consider first this morning the request itself, secondly the answer, and finally the necessity, the great need. It almost needs not to be said But then again it does, simply to emphasize the reality that is expressed here in this Lord's Day, namely that we are poor sinners and what needs to be said and what we need to be reminded of is that this is another request that we will not make and cannot make any other way than by faith. That should be evident when we consider, when we truly consider that is truly considered without simply having it roll off our lips like it often does, almost like a prelude to the amen in our prayers. Lord, forgive us our sins, amen. When we really think about it, we should see and understand by faith that is what a bold, courageous, and from every earthly human point of view, foolish request. It's a request for far greater riches than anything found in this creation. If you were king, or if you wanted to be king of everything in this present creation, and you had everything that this world has to offer, it does not compare to what the poorest child of God is asking for when he asks his Lord and Savior to forgive his debts. That's evident simply when you compare it to the previous request where we pray for our bread, where we're praying there for all the earthly physical necessities that we have in this life. Even there we were taught, of course, that that request is limited to daily bread, that the child of God is forbidden from requesting all kinds of things that he might need tomorrow, to concern himself with those things, to be anxious about those things. The child of God, with regard to earthly physical things, we were taught to think about today, and only today. But the request for the forgiveness of sins is about matters eternal. Truly, even though a child of God will make this request daily, and we're going to see the importance of that, if the child of God has the forgiveness of sins, He has everything for today and tomorrow. He has everything for eternity. And He has far more than all the riches of this present world. The child of God could have everything that this world has to offer, but if he dies, he dies and it's all gone. But if that child of God now has the forgiveness of sins, nothing really as pertaining to the earthly physical life really matters. Same thing goes with any individual who lacks daily bread. will die and die once. An individual who lacks the spiritual bread of the forgiveness of sins dies everlastingly and eternally, body and soul. This is a request to God because it is something only God can provide. When a child of God goes to God with this request for the forgiveness of sins, He does so believing that only God can forgive his sins. The child of God goes to God for that request because he understands, my neighbor cannot forgive my sins. I cannot receive this forgiveness of sins by anything that I do. In fact, if that's even the understanding of the child of God, then his request to God for the forgiveness of sins is hypocritical and condemned. Child of God and going to God acknowledges, I cannot find this forgiveness anywhere else, not anywhere else in the world, not anywhere in my own doing, and if understood correctly, not anywhere even in all my religious practices and liturgy. Strictly speaking, I cannot find the forgiveness of sins in the baptism of water. that was found here this morning. Strictly speaking, I could read the Bible for the rest of my life, and if God does not give me the forgiveness of sins, I won't find it as such in Scripture. I won't find it in all my praying as such. God, and God alone, can forgive sins. It's a request. as I pointed out in my introduction, really for the whole of salvation. We have to understand that. When a child of God makes a request for daily bread and that piece of daily bread lands upon his table, he understands this is what I have for today. It may represent what I need every day, but it's a request what I need for day. But also understands that it is a request for everything that I need today. And it really represents everything that I need today, just not food for my belly, but clothing and shelter and all these things. So also the child of God really makes this request to his God. Doesn't make it with the understanding, well now I'm asking God, strictly speaking, just to forgive my sins. That's really all I want, that's really all I need. Just forgive my sins, only forgive my sins. That's not the idea. There will be a separate request for the deliverance from evil, that is, deliverance from the power of sin. And the forgiveness of sins pertains to deliverance from the guilt of sin. But understand, when God lifts that guilt, when God indeed forgives our sins, then the whole of salvation is in one's hands. Peace. Power. Prosperity. comfort, assurance, indeed eternal life. And as I pointed out, that's evident by what the Lord adds. The Lord deliberately adds that. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. As we forgive our debtors doesn't speak to our forgiveness as such, doesn't speak to justification as such. It's referring to the fruits of justification. It refers to what flows out of a child of God who's forgiven. That child of God will forgive his neighbor graciously, even as God has graciously forgiven him. This is a petition, therefore, for God's grace. That's especially why the request is for such great, great, Riches. That's evident. Evident that this is the basis even upon which we make this request. And that this is a prayer that we have addressed to our Father. We don't make this prayer to someone that we hope someday may be our Father. We don't make this prayer to some unknown God that we may have heard about. We don't make this prayer to some power, some abstraction. not even some great being, but we pray to our Father. Remember that when we make this prayer. How do we become the children of God? According to baptism form. Remember that part of the form? First column, left-hand side. Talking about that we are incorporated in Christ, therefore we are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And then especially when explaining now what it means to be baptized into the name of the Father, sets forth the fact that God has made an eternal covenant of grace with us and adopted us to be His children and heirs. Grace. You didn't make God your father any more than you made your own earthly parents your father and your mother. You had nothing to do with it. Notice the emphasis of the Heidelberg Catechism on that very point. Very short, Lord's Day. But notice the emphasis on God's grace. Be pleased to provide. It's an acknowledgment there. That God now, strictly speaking with regard to Himself, doesn't have to provide. We have not obligated God to provide. God has obligated Himself, but God doesn't have to provide at all. Be pleased to provide. Even that word provide, to give. to give in such a way that that need is supplied. Then it adds, even as we feel this grace in us. What grace? Well, the grace of the forgiveness of sins, of course. Forgiveness to who? To poor sinners. More on that in just a bit. And then, if we still haven't gotten the point, explicitly adds, for the sake of Christ's blood. When a child of God makes this request, doesn't make this request, forgive me because of this or that, forgive me for the sake of Christ's blood. Everything about it is a grace. Grace because what must be given must be given by God. God imputes to me the righteousness of Christ and doesn't impute to me my own sins. God must do that. The only explanation is God's free, unmerited favor and mercy and grace toward me that He determined to forgive my sins. He determined to do this for His own sake. Grace because God must provide the basis for that forgiveness. Here's something we often forget. such as our sinfulness that we often imagine, well, God is God, He can do anything, and what we're asking God to do is just simply forget my sins, just simply look the other way, consider them not as bad as they otherwise be, and just do that because. Exactly because God is God. Exactly because God is a righteous and a holy God, God cannot do that. God must provide the very means and the basis for the forgiveness of sins. God must have a reason to forgive our sins in and of Himself, otherwise He's not righteous. For God to forgive our sins, the debt has to be paid. And so God pays the debt Himself in His own grace, in His own mercy. Grace because the means by which we receive it is graciously given. How do you receive the forgiveness of sins? How do you receive that? Answered by faith, by believing. By believing that God has forgiven my sins, that's how you receive it. But where does that come from? You just wake up one day and decide to believe? You may seem that way, even for a new convert, but where did that come from? By grace are you saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. God even gives the means by which we receive the forgiveness. That grace, of course, is Jesus Christ himself. Be pleased for the sake of Christ's blood not to impute his blood. That is, God imputes to me the result of Christ's death. The death caused by the shedding of his own life blood. Says something important about his death there. Something even symbolized in the sacrament of baptism that we saw. How could that be? The answer is because Christ graciously became our substitute, came in our flesh, came as the head of us, came as our eldest brother, came as our husband, came as our head so that He could pay, legally now even, what we could not pay. In the Incarnation, God comes in our own flesh. places Himself under the law given to us human beings, and makes Himself responsible for the payment of all our failure to keep that law of God. It says even something about His life. It's not simply the death of Christ that's beneficial to us, but the life of Christ. God doesn't simply cancel our debts, but He makes us those who live in Him, who follow after Him, who even obey Him. He does that through His life. Now those things help us understand the answer. How does God answer this request? That God be pleased for the sake of Christ's blood not to impute to us poor sinners our transgressions, etc., etc. The answer you understand is quite simple, but it's a little more complicated than that. First, I'd like to point out to you that God answers this personally. Personally. This request is made personally. Yes, I know. Just like the forgiveness or just like the request for daily bread, give us this day our daily bread, speaking there, not simply about myself, so also in this request, forgive us our debts even as we forgive our debtors. Again, there is always in the consciousness of the child of God by faith, His kinship, His union, His communion with all the Lord's children, with all in the household of God, with the entire church and all the body of our Lord Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, The request is personal. Even as when you make the request, give us this day our daily bread, and you expect the Lord to answer by placing a piece of bread on your individual plate. So also, the Lord answers this request personally and individually. To put it more bluntly, God answers this prayer by forgiving me and forgiving you who makes this prayer by a true and living faith. Very important for us to understand that. This is the importance of the role of the Holy Spirit, the personal role of the Holy Spirit in each of us. Why faith is an individual gift. God doesn't simply just give faith to the church as such. Yes. My understanding and my faith and my believing with regard to what God does to his body, what he does to the church in common, what he does to my brothers and sisters, and what he has done is important. In many ways, one can say that one does not really have personal faith unless one even has that understanding. of what God has done for us, choosing us, redeeming us, enlivening us, so also forgiving us. But on the other hand, none of that has any meaning, none of that really has any even benefit unless I know, unless I believe, unless I am assured that God has forgiven me. My confession, as well as your confession, is that which follows, as it were, this request. God forgive me, and I need to hear God say, you are forgiven. Now how does God do that? By what we call imputation. God tells me, I hear God say, in response to my request, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to impute to you. I'm going to reckon to your account. I'm going to consider with regard to you everything that Christ has done. Everything that He is and everything that He's done. All His righteousness. All His perfect obedience is reckoned to your account. There's that statement in the Lord's Supper forum as long as we're talking about sacraments. And how much so? It's as if I myself, personally, had fully satisfied. As if I myself had actually done everything that God requires of me. God says, do this. God says, I consider it done. There's another aspect of it that's brought out in the catechism that's quite a remarkable statement that we ought not forget on the other side of the equation. And that is that God does not impute to us poor sinners our transgressions. Now that's interesting. Normally we stress when we talk about justification of forgiveness of sins that God imputes what Christ has done to pay my debt, to wipe it clean. The catechism here includes the notion that God doesn't even impute to us poor sinners our transgressions. Now that has to be understood. Rightly, if God wouldn't do that at all, from a certain viewpoint, there would be no need for Him to impute to us the righteousness of Christ, because there would be no debt. Nevertheless, the catechism adds it, because it is a very comforting and assuring thought that when God forgives my sins, it's as if they never existed. It's as if the king, the owner, never even put the debt down. Another amazing thought. with regard to what we're requesting here, not to impute to us poor sinners our transgression. Now, it's a request, too, that God subjectively now apply that to declare this to me and to do that by his word. He also does that by the sacraments. Let's understand. So the next question is, well, how does God actually do this and God actually says so? You say, where does God do that? Where does God tell me that my sins are actually forgiven? And the answer is here, right now. When God speaks the word of the Holy Gospel to us, when we preach on this Lord's Day, then and there, God imputes to every believer who has made this request the righteousness of Christ, and says to you, your sins are forgiven. I don't impute your sin to you. I impute to you everything that my Son is and everything that He's done. And then God, having said that, gives us a sign and a seal. Your sins are forgiven. And this morning, the amazing thing is the emphasis of God's grace. Why many Christians do not want infant baptism. The very thing that's brought out here, that God does this in His grace. Oh yes, God tells us. God seals this on our consciousness through means, like preaching and the sacrament. But now when that sacrament is implied to a child, about which the baptism form says isn't even aware, of this thing called depravity, aware of sin. God says, now I wash away the sins of that child too. He emphasizes the grace of it. But that's what God's doing. By faith, God applies what Christ is, what Christ has done to the guilty conscience of the sinner. And God simply does that by faith. If you would ask me now, how do I know? How do I know God has forgiven my sins? My sins, you know, are really, really bad. My response is by believing that those sins are forgiven. This is a grace by which God also empowers me to live a new and holy life. That's how God answers it. There's something remarkable about this. Something that we minimize and we forget all the time. To say there's something powerful really doesn't do justice to it. It really is the power. There's power in the forgiveness of sins. Real power. Now to point this out, I would simply point to the very thing that the Lord Jesus Christ points out in teaching us the model prayer, which is the power of the forgiveness of sins with one another. Maybe you've experienced that. Great trouble, great affliction, great anxiety, energy sapping. depressing, anxiety-causing, disruption in a relationship. Because one or the other is not sorry for sin, so there is no sin to forgive. There really is. But when someone doesn't acknowledge their sin, there's no sin to forgive. There's no healing for the great physician, as it were. Or, when somebody is sorry, And they demonstrate that sorrow for their sin. The other will not forgive. But when there is forgiveness, watch what happens. When there's real forgiveness and real sorrow of heart for sin, watch what happens to that relationship. Amazing things can happen. Astounding things can happen. Sometimes we lose hope over that, You have to retain that hope, but now imagine with regard to God. There is an amazing power, that's the grace, when we hear God say, your sins are forgiven. That ought to be a reminder to this congregation, by the way, if I ever get up on this pulpit and I simply preach a wonderful, even true, orthodox, very detailed and very specific sermon, on the truth of justification by faith alone. But you never hear that your own sins are forgiven. Then you need to do something about it. We don't simply believe in the truth of justification by faith alone. We do. But a child of God must understand, I am justified by God Himself through faith on the basis of what Christ has done. Because when that happens, There's power in that. That's the power of a sanctified life. It's really the only power of a sanctified life. Any other means that God might use to administer that power would be worthless and vanity apart from the forgiveness of sins. A child of God would never even pray to God. If he didn't understand he had the forgiveness of sins through the blood of Jesus Christ, he would rather run from God. He would hide from God. And that's witnessed too in Scripture many, many, many, many times. We know that from our own experience. Cover your own sins once. Hide your own sins. Justify your own sin once. What happens? You'll discover that if this request arises from your lips, it has no meaning, no understanding. It's hypocritical and we know it. So it's really a request for the whole of salvation. Every aspect of it. It was emphasized even earlier in the Heidelberg Catechism. Question and Answer 86 talks about the forgiveness of sins. And by that, Christ also renews us. Read the Belgic Confession, Article 24, when you go home. Notice the connection. And therefore, Christ chiefly answers this prayer also by empowering us to forgive others. That's the idea of, as we forgive those who trespass against us, or our debtors. It makes clear, when the Lord here speaks of us forgiving one another, that's not a means to obtain God's forgiveness. How in the world could that be? How could the idea be that God forgave my sins because I've forgiven others, or on the basis of my forgiving others? The point is that if I'm asking God to forgive me, it's a request that God forgive me in His grace on the basis of what He has done. And for that same reason and on that same basis, I forgive others. How does God work that? Well, it begins with God forgiving us. God forgives us, then we forgive others. So much so that Christ then can say, forgive us our debts as we forgive one another. In fact, here's a good point to remind ourselves. that Jesus is teaching here, this is really one of the primary ways we show love for one another. We talk about loving one another. The commandment set forth what it means and doesn't mean to love one another. But Christ here is pointing out that real love for one another is forgiving one another for Christ's sake. We don't have time this morning to really delve into that statement. There's a lot of important doctrine about forgiveness and repentance and confession that's found there. We're going to leave that go this morning and return back to it another day. I want to finish this morning by emphasizing now the necessity for all this. The necessity, of course, is that we're poor sinners. Do not impute to us poor sinners. This is the official name the Heidelberg Catechism gives to every one of us. Poor sinners. Oh yes, I know. The Bible also calls us saints if we're forgiven. All of our sins are forgiven. They're not imputed to us. We might say to ourselves, well then, why are we called sinners? And the answer is, because you are. I am. On this side of the grave, we never stop being sinners and we may never forget that. Something very important for us to understand. Yes, justification in many ways is a one-time thing from God's point of view. Got to be clear here. At the cross, when Jesus shed His blood, all of our sins were forgiven. The blood of Christ, the sufficiency of that blood, the preciousness of that blood covered every sin a child of God will make, has made, big and small, for you and for me, believe in Him, done. Yet Jesus says, pray for the forgiveness of sins, and do so because you're a poor sinner. That explains the need to make the request. The need isn't in God. The need isn't because Christ hasn't done anything, that Christ only provides something that the effectiveness of what Christ has done depends on us. None of those things. The need is, you and I are poor sinners, always will be on this side of the grave. The idea is that we're sinners in everything that we do, even when we do good works, sin. Even when we make the prayer, Lord, forgive my sins, you can be sure there's sin in that attachment. There will be sins we may be hiding. There will be sins that we were forgiving. Maybe it just comes off of our lips. We will sin in that. And the point is that that's a spiritual impoverishment. It's to be spiritually empty. The idea is that when we pray, we come empty before God. There's nothing that we have, nothing that we can present to God that will handle this matter of our sin and the debt it incurs. Debtors. In fact, we ought to understand, beloved, that we're the greatest sinners. The ungodly can't sin against the grace of God. They can't sin against the mercy of God, not as such. We do. We sin against God, who in Jesus Christ has paid the price for our sins, who has forgiven us over and over and over again, who has given us so many things. And that God now we sin against. And Jesus says, remember that. We're sinners with regard to our transgressions, that is, the actual things that we do and do not do. Not simply the sins of youth, not simply the gross sins that I commit, but all the sin, even the little sin that the Heidelberg Catechism just pointed out to us in the strict preaching of the law of God. Sin, sin everywhere. even sinners with regards to our depravity. Notice, do not impute to us poor sinners our transgressions, nor that depravity which always cleaves to us." He's talking there about the source of sin. There's a lot of doctrinal significance here. Number one, the Heidelberg Catechism is pointing out the folly of this notion of perfectionism, that such is sanctification, that in this life we can achieve some sort of perfection, either inwardly or outwardly, perhaps both. What foolishness, what folly. The day you die, no matter how much progress in sanctification, you and I will still be sinners. And sinners because we are depraved. And notice the idea is, still just as depraved as you were the day you were born. The depravity that was presented here for baptism in the arms of these parents, will not alter or change one whit throughout their life. We're just as evil, just as wicked, just as prone to evil as the day we were born. And that, too, is part of our wretchedness, part of our poverty. And Jesus, now in the Lord's Prayer, reminds us of that. No matter what your needs, the Lord says, don't ever forget the need for the forgiveness of sins. Oh, I know. We can be certain the Lord does not want us to have that sort of morbid introspection where we don't rise above by faith what we are by nature, sinners and only sinners, depraved In fact, that's the very purpose of the request. Lord, forgive us our debts so that we might have peace in that, that we might have joy in that, that we might be empowered in that. Because that's what comes that way. That nevertheless, me being a poor sinner, nevertheless being depraved in every aspect of my flesh, totally, God forgives me. and God lives in me. Make that your request. Amen. O Lord, our God, and Father in heaven, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. O Lord, our God, forgive us for Thy namesake, for the sake of Thy dear Son, for the sake of the precious blood shed, free to us graciously provided to us, but costly, painful for thyself. O Lord our God, forgive us in the depths of our soul and in our being that we might live thankfully and gratefully, even powerfully before thy face. So grant our prayer in Jesus' name, amen.