Turn with me in your Bibles to
Matthew chapter six. Matthew chapter six. All too often when portions of
scripture are used by people, repeated by people, all too often when people do
this, they do it without knowledge. They do it not knowing the meaning,
the real meaning of the words. And therefore it becomes a chant,
a mantra, so to speak. And that's a shame because these
words, the words of God's revealed word, they are so full of meaning,
which is a comfort to God's people. And for that reason, I decided
to take each part of the disciple's prayer here, the model prayer,
and deal with each segment of it so that when we finish, hopefully
we'll have a greater understanding of what this means when we say,
look at verse 10 or verse nine. When Christ said, after this
manner, therefore, pray you, our Father, which art in heaven,
do we know the Father? Is he really my Father? What
does that mean? And I'm not gonna preach on that
today. Well, essentially I am, but I've already done that message.
But hallowed be thy name, holy, no one like God. He says, thy
kingdom come. You do realize now, if you're
a child of God, you're not a citizen of this world. We're citizens
of a heavenly kingdom. Thy will be done in earth as
it is in heaven. God's sovereign will is always
the right thing. Give us this day our daily bread.
He provides for us spiritually and physically. We're totally
dependent upon him. And today, I want to talk about
verse 12 on the glorious forgiveness of our sins. Forgive us our debts
as we forgive our debtors. And if you jump down to verse
14, listen to this. He says, for if you forgive men
their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your
Father forgive you your trespasses. Think about that. Sobering thought,
isn't it? Forgive us our debts as we forgive
our debtors. This verse has been the source
of a lot of misunderstanding, confusion and even division among
professing Christians. And the issue is this, especially
when you look at verses 14 and 15. If you forgive men, God will
forgive you. If you don't, he won't. Is Christ
teaching conditional forgiveness here? That God will only forgive
us our debts if we forgive others, if we forgive others? And as
I said, you look at that verses 14 and 15, that question arises. Well, let me give you some context
here to go by. And the context I'm talking about
is not just the context of this prayer, but the context of the
whole Bible. When you read the Bible, read
them within these contexts. And first of all, just to show
you the forgiveness of our sins. Think about that. That is an
awesome, marvelous, astounding truth of God's free and sovereign
grace in and by the Lord Jesus Christ. That we who are such
a sinful people are so forgiven by God. One of our greatest needs, what
do we need? We need to be saved from our
sins. Sin is our problem. We fell in
Adam into sin and death. We used to talk about, you know,
people have these little signs on the back of a jacket that
said, born to die. That's biblical. Do you know
that? It is appointed unto men once
to die, after that the judgment. Why do we die? Sin. It's not because nobody's found
the cure as far as diseases go. It's sin. That's our problem. And then
our depravity. We fell into sin and death. We're
born spiritually dead in trespasses and sin, Ephesians 2 tells us. That's how we're born. It's not
how we develop, it's how we're born. Spiritually dead. What does it mean to be spiritually
dead? It means you don't have spiritual life. You have physical
life. You even have mental capacities.
But you have no spiritual inclination or desires toward the living
God. And if left to ourselves, what
does the Bible say? We'll go our way merely into
eternal damnation if left to ourselves. That's what the Bible
teaches now. Now there are people who call
themselves Christians who deny that, but they're denying what
the Bible teaches. So sin is our problem and we
cannot cure the problem. We cannot do it. Think about it. Let me give you
this. Our four greatest needs, this
is why I put this category. Number one, the forgiveness of
our sins. The cure, which equals forgiveness. Number two, a righteousness that
measures up to God's standard. That's one of our greatest needs.
I need a righteousness. That's why I preach righteousness
so much. I need one, and I have one. But that's our greatest
need, isn't it? To approach God. God is holy,
and he cannot look upon sin. Scripture says, the soul that
sinneth must, I need a righteousness that equals the demands of his
law and justice. Thirdly, I need spiritual and
eternal life. Being born dead and trespassing
sin, what do I need? I need life, I need eternal life.
Now I can't bring that about. And then fourthly, our fourth
greatest need, we need God to preserve us and keep us in his
grace and power to bring us to glory. That's our four greatest
needs. And think about this, the forgiveness
of our sins, our greatest, and righteousness that equals the
demands of God's law and justice, the forgiveness of our sins and
the imputation or the accounting of righteousness to us The righteousness
of Christ, that's our justification before God. That's what justification
includes. God forgiving our sins on a just
ground and making us righteous by his legal declaration, his
imputation. The gift of spiritual and eternal
life is our regeneration and our conversion in the new birth.
God's preserving grace and power is our continuation in faith
and in glory. Put it all together, what does
it equal? Salvation. That's what salvation is. Salvation
is not just getting saved on a particular day when you walked
an aisle and gave your heart to Jesus. Salvation is a bigger
thing than that. And so don't look back on that
all the time, because that's not going to do you any good.
Look forward to Christ, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher
of faith. And there's two very popular
errors concerning this issue of the forgiveness of sin. The
first one is, is that God offers the forgiveness of sins. That's
not right. God offers it, take it or leave
it. No, God does not offer forgiveness. God forgives his people. That's
exactly right. Let me tell you something. There
comes a time when by the power of the Holy Spirit we receive
the forgiveness, but we've already been forgiven before that. So
it's not an offer of forgiveness, take it or leave it. God simply
forgives his people. And here's the second error that's
popular. that God forgives our sins conditioned
on our forgiving others. And when you read passages like
Matthew 6, 14, and 15, people think they have some support
for that. But that's not so, that's not what this is teaching.
First of all, if God only forgives me conditioned on my forgiving
others, I gotta tell you something, I'll never be forgiven. Well,
pastor, don't you forgive others? I try to, and I can say I do.
But that's not the condition I meet in order for God to forgive
me. So if that's true, we're not
forgiven. You see, forgiveness is not a blessing that we earn
from God by our forgiving others. If that's the case, if that were
the case, then forgiveness wouldn't be by grace. Do you understand
that? What's grace? It's unearned.
It's undeserved. Why do I need grace? Because
I can't do anything to earn it or deserve it. That's what grace
is all about. Free, unconditional forgiveness. So with that in mind, I'm going
to give you five truths. I hope I can get through all
of them in this message. I'm going to spend a little time
especially on one. Think about this, here's the
first truth that we need to understand in order to understand the forgiveness
of our sins. Number one is the truth of our
sin. And it's not just that we are
sinners, we are, but what kind of sinners are we? You know,
here in this passage, he uses the word debt. He says, forgive
us our debts. as we forgive our debtors. Now
he's not talking about earthly finances here. He's talking about the fact that
sin, many times in the Bible, is described as a debt because
sin brings a person under an obligation of debt to God's law
and justice. It's like the criminal who goes
out and commits the crime. He's got to what? Pay his debt
to society. Well, when we sin, we run up
a debt. The Bible says the wages of sin
is death. It's what we earn by sin is death. Well, down here in verse 14,
he says, for if you forgive men their trespasses, That's another
word for sin. Trespass describes how sin involves
stepping over a line that God has drawn in his law. We all
fell in Adam, as I said, into sin and death. We're all naturally
and spiritually born dead in trespasses and sins. We've all
sinned and we've all come short of the glory of God. We've missed
the mark. And you can look in the history
of humankind and find the best person that ever lived, whoever
you think that is. Romans 3.23 describes him or
her too. For all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. They still come short. Can anything
we do pay our debt to God's justice? The answer is no. It takes the
blood of Christ to pay our debt and to make us righteous before
God. And that's the reality of our sin. That's the truth of
our sin. It's not just that we've made some mistakes. It's not
that our environment has corrupted us. We fell in Adam. We're born
dead in sin. We can do nothing to contribute
to our salvation. We can do nothing to contribute
to the righteousness which we need. It's all grace. It's all in Christ. Here's the
second truth. It's the fact of our inability. I've already mentioned
it. Because of our sins and our spiritual
death, neither salvation nor any blessing of salvation, including
the forgiveness of our debts and our trespasses, can be earned
or deserved by our attempts to keep the law. We're unable to
pay the debt. Romans 3.20 says, by deeds of
law shall no flesh be justified. Is there any exception to that?
And the answer is no. No flesh, no man or woman born
of Adam can be justified, forgiven of
their sins, declared righteous in the sight of God by deeds
of the law, by working their way there, by trying to be good.
Should we try to be good people? Yes, but that's not gonna Wipe
away the sins. That's not going to bring about
forgiveness. That's not going to make us righteous. You understand
that? By nature, we want salvation. We want to be forgiven. But by
nature, we don't want it God's way. We want it our way. And the Bible shows us that we're
so sinful by nature that if the forgiveness of our sins were
conditioned on our forgiving others, then none of us would
be forgiven. We would all perish. Now here's the third truth. This
is the one I want to spend a little time on. The truth of God's grace
towards his people whom he has forgiven. That's the third truth. First one is the truth of our
sin. Second one, the truth of our inability. Third one, the
truth of God's grace towards his people whom he has forgiven. How does God forgive his people? Now salvation and all of its
benefits and all of its blessings, including the forgiveness of
sins, is a matter of God's free, unconditional love and grace,
not our works. But it's also a matter of God's
justice. God is a loving God, a merciful
God, a gracious God towards his people. That's why I had Brother
Robert read that Psalm 86. Have mercy. Oh, he delights to show mercy.
His mercy endures forever, the scripture says. But he's also
a just God. He must be just. If he's gonna
love sinners, he's gotta do it in a just way on a just ground.
If he's gonna show mercy, he's gotta do it in a just way on
a just ground. If he's gonna forgive, It must
be in a just way, on a just ground. And what is that just way? What
is that just ground? The blood of Jesus Christ. His righteousness alone. All for whom Christ died and
arose again are justified. which includes, as I said earlier,
the pardon and forgiveness of all their sins, and a righteousness
that equals the demands of God's justice. A righteousness that
does not miss the mark. The imputed righteousness of
Christ. Now with that in mind, go back to Psalm 130, and if
you can't keep up with me on these verses, I wanna show you
several verses here that puts the, forgiveness of sins in the
right context. And if you can't, just write
these down and look at them. Psalm 130 that I read at the
beginning. Look at verse three. The psalmist writes, if thou,
Lord, now understand what this is saying. If thou, Lord, shouldest
mark iniquities. What is it to mark iniquities?
It's to keep a record. It's to charge these iniquities. Charge them against us. Keep
a record of them, bring them up. If you would mark iniquities,
O Lord, who shall stand? Is there any one of us or anyone
in the fallen, depraved human race, if God were to say, I'm
gonna mark iniquities, Doesn't say how many iniquities, does
it? He doesn't say if I mark 10 iniquities, or if I mark 10
million iniquities. He just says if he marks iniquities.
Now where does that put us? Who would stand? Who would pass
the test? Who would make it through? Now
you know He doesn't give an answer to say no one, but that's what
He means because it's a rhetorical question. We're all sinners.
We all need salvation. If God were to mark iniquities,
if He were to impute sin to me, I wouldn't stand. My sins. But here's the answer,
verse 4. But there is forgiveness with
thee. that thou mayest be feared. Now what this shows us is, here's
what this is teaching us. The forgiveness of sins comes
on the basis of the non-imputation of sins. Do you understand that? Non-imputation. It means God
doesn't charge me with the crimes I've committed. He doesn't charge
me with the sins. And in the Bible, what does the
non-imputation of sins mean? Well, it means that God charged
him to somebody. He couldn't just say, well, it's
your first offense, I'm gonna let you go, no. We're not talking about human
courts here, we're talking about God, who reveals himself in judgment. justice, not only love and mercy
and grace, but in judgment. He must be a just God as well
as a Savior. So what did God do with our sins?
Well, the Bible teaches us that Christ, before the foundation
of the world, was made the surety of his people. Now what does
the surety do? He takes upon himself the responsibility
of paying another person's or another people's debts. Forgive us of our debts. How
you gonna do that, Lord? I'm gonna put it on the surety,
whose name is Jesus Christ. I'm gonna make him sin. What
does that mean? I'm gonna impute the sins of
my elect people to Christ. And then what do we get in return?
His righteousness imputed to us. Our debts imputed His righteousness
to us. And you see this all through
the scriptures. Look at Acts chapter 13. This
is where the apostle Paul Preaching a gospel message shows the impossibility
of being saved and forgiven by the law of Moses. And here's
what he says in verse 38 of Acts chapter 13. Listen to this. He
says, Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through
this man, through Jesus Christ, is preached unto you the forgiveness
of sins. Now how does the forgiveness
of sins come? By this man. Not by you, not by me, not by
the preacher, not by the church, not by some guy dressed up in
funny religious clothes. No, it comes by this man, this
one man, this God-man, Jesus Christ. And look at verse 39. And by him all that believe are
justified, forgiven, righteous, from all things from which you
could not be justified by the law of Moses. You see, forgiveness,
justification, it's all connected to the blood of Christ. We could
go on. Let me just quote this to you,
Colossians 1.13, talking about a God who has delivered us from
the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of his dear
son, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness
of sins. Comes by his blood. Turn over to 1 John. I want you
to see this one. 1 John chapter one. Look at verse seven. 1 John chapter
1. If we walk in the light, as He
is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood
of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin. He says if we say that we have
no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If
we confess our sins, He's faithful, and what? and just to forgive
us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now
what's the ground of forgiveness? The blood of Jesus Christ. All
who are forgiven give evidence of having been forgiven by confessing
our sins. Lord, like that psalm that Brother
Robert read, that's what David was confessing. I'm helpless. I'm doomed. unless I have a surety. The blood of the Lamb of God,
and that's it. You see that? In the Bible now,
whenever you read about the forgiveness of sins, whether it states it
out clearly or not, it's always based upon a just ground, and
that ground is the merits of the obedience unto death of Christ,
His blood, His righteousness alone. Not you're forgiving others. That's not the ground of it.
But now here's the fourth truth. The truth of the obedience of
faith. Paul wrote in Galatians chapter
one and verse six, for in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth
anything nor uncircumcision. Listen to this phrase, but faith,
now what is faith? That's the God-given gift that
brings us to look to Christ for forgiveness, His blood, His righteousness,
to rest in Him, believe in Him, cling to Him, and follow Him. And that doesn't come by works,
that doesn't come by free will, it comes by the grace and power
of God. For by grace are you saved, through
faith, that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. And so Paul writes here, but
faith which worketh By love. Now what does that mean? Well,
whatever faith is, and I believe I know what it is, I'll tell
you how it works, not by law, not by trying to earn anything
from God, but out of a God-given heart of love to God and love
to his people. We have to keep in mind that
the Lord is teaching here in Matthew chapter six, well all
through the Sermon on the Mount, of obedience that God requires
of the true citizens of the kingdom of his grace. That reigns not
through any supposed righteous acts we do solely upon the imputed
righteousness of Christ. It's all based upon his works,
his righteousness and beauty. And so whatever we read here,
including issues of a believer's attitude and character and conduct,
must be kept in the context of salvation, forgiveness, righteousness,
all by the grace of God through Christ. He's all in all. A true believer's obedience in
any area, including forgiving others, is to be motivated by
grace. What does that mean? It means
I'm to be motivated and inspired to forgive you unconditionally
because that's the way God forgave me. You may do something bad to me.
The Bible says forgive you. I know of a multitude of sins
that I've committed. that God has forgiven me by his
grace. It's to be motivated by gratitude.
Thank you, Lord, for saving my soul. It's to be motivated by
love, love to God and love to our brethren, not by law. That's
the obedience of faith. And then lastly, here's the fifth
truth. It's the truth of the power of God's grace. This shows
us that whatever act of obedience is required by God and has been
what true children of the kingdom should strive to do. It's never
a condition that we must meet in order to attain salvation
or maintain it or to earn God's favor or any blessing of it.
It's always the fruit and evidence of God's free grace and his mercy
towards us. No act of forgiveness that we
try to do can obligate God to forgive us. But a true sense of God's free
and unconditional forgiveness of our sins based on the blood
of Christ most certainly will inspire and motivate us to be
forgiving of those who sin against us. That's the motivation. This whole thing, think about
it. The scriptures commands us to
forgive one another even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven
us. You can read about that in Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3.
Forgiving one another even as Christ forgives us. Well how
did he forgive me? Freely, unconditionally, by grace. But there's a problem. I could
say I could add this as the sixth truth. And you know what it is? The truth of sin that still dwells
within us, the flesh lusting against the spirit. Why is it not easy for us to
forgive one another? Why is it not easy? And it's
not easy now. You may come to me and say, it's
easy for me. I say, well, good for you. You
need to be walking on a cloud somewhere. Where's your halo? It's a struggle to forgive. Why is that? Seen as how we've
been so freely forgiven by God through the blood of his son.
Well, I'll tell you why. Paul wrote about it in Galatians
5.13, the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against
the flesh. It's true that when God the Holy
Spirit in the new birth gives us life and knowledge of how
God forgives us freely and unconditionally by His grace based upon the blood
of His Son. He brings us to faith in Christ, true repentance. He
implants the spirit of forgiveness within us to motivate us and
cause us to be forgiving towards others, especially our brothers
and sisters in Christ. But that doesn't mean it's easy.
And the reason it's not is because of our flesh, the remaining sin
that contaminates everything we do. That's why we're in continual
need of the blood of Christ. But let me give you this thought.
And next week, I'm going to finish this, the Lord willing, I'm going
to finish this prayer. And then I'm going to come back
and I'm going to give you some other things on this issue of forgiveness. Somebody says, well, I don't
feel like forgiving people. Yeah, I know what you mean. But
you see, our forgiving one another, those who have offended us, is
not to be based upon how we feel. You know, people say, well, I
don't feel like doing this, I don't feel like doing, you know, or
I feel like doing something. You know, a lot of times, if
not most of the time, our feelings come from the flesh and not the
spirit. So forgiving one another is not
to be based upon how we feel that day. Forgiving one another is to be
based upon what we know to be true in spite of our feelings. You may do something to me and
I may be angry and want vengeance, that's the flesh. And I may struggle
to forgive you. But you wanna know something?
I know I should forgive you. I know it's right to forgive
you. I see that my Lord forgave me
a whole lot more than what I'm to forgive you for. And I know
it's right. You know, that's a big part of
the Christian walk. It's doing what you know to be
right, even when you don't feel like it. I had a fellow one time
tell me years ago, he said, well, if I don't feel like doing this
or that or the other, He said, aren't I a hypocrite to do it
anyway? I said, no. I said, you may be a hypocrite,
but not about that. What do you know to be right?
Christ commands us to follow Him. When men railed at Him,
He didn't rail back. When He was reviled, He didn't
revile. He said, Father, forgive them. They know not what they
do. And you know what? Here's what I know. You say,
well, Pastor, you feel like doing that? No. But I know I should. I know it's right. I know that
I want to follow my Lord and Savior. I want to obey Him. I
want to honor Him. So when he talks about God forgiving
us, if we forgive, he's not talking about earning forgiveness. He's
talking about showing forgiveness and evidencing the grace of God
in our hearts. to honor him, a spirit of forgiveness. Well, I hope that's helpful for
you. I know it was for me, so let's get our handles.