We've been studying the Lord's Prayer, which is in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus had been performing many miracles. He had given sight to the blind. He had made the lame to walk, the deaf to hear. Even we read in the four gospels of times where Jesus raised the dead. Jesus multiplied the fish and the loaves, and Jesus walked on the water, and all of these miracles, God the Father was authenticating Jesus. Authenticating Jesus as the promised Messiah, declaring that Jesus' message is absolutely true, that he came from the Father, declaring that Jesus' message was true, and Jesus claimed to be the eternal Son of God. who had become flesh, who had come to save a people for God. Jesus, having performed miracles that authenticated his message, that authenticated his identity, proceeded to preach to the people and great crowds came to him because he did not preach, teach or preach like the teachers of that day, but he preached and he taught with absolute authority. Just imagine listening to the eternal son of God in human flesh preaching. We have one of his sermons here, the Sermon on the Mount. And in the sermon, Jesus is talking about true righteousness. That there was a religious people of the day who saw themselves as righteous. that they saw themselves as keepers of God's law. They saw themselves as people who were bound to enter into the great kingdom that God had established through the promised Messiah, the promised Christ. But Jesus speaks in the Sermon on the Mount about true righteousness. And he exposes that the religious people of his day who had an outward appearance of righteousness did not have a true righteousness of heart. a true righteousness of life. And that unless they repented and received the salvation that Jesus came to give, they would perish in their sins. So it is an evangelistic sermon exposing self-righteousness, laying out the signs that one has salvation, one has a right standing with God, and teaching Jesus' followers how to live in a way that pleases Jesus Christ as our Lord. It's a wonderful sermon and smack dab in the middle of it. We have a model for Jesus' disciples on how we are to pray. We've called this the Lord's Prayer, though it is not a prayer that Jesus could pray, because as we will see today, it includes a request for forgiveness of sins, and Jesus was innocent, righteous. He was tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin, he had no sin of his own. So he could not pray this, but it's a model. for how Jesus' disciples, for how believers are to pray. And we come this morning to the fifth petition regarding forgiveness of sins. I've been amazed in my life at different points at how quick other people have been to forgive me. My sins are many. But when I've confessed to Esther ways that I've sinned against her, she's been so ready to forgive me. When I confessed sins to my parents that I committed against them, they were so quick to forgive me. My children, when I lose self-control and I yell at them in anger, and then I humble myself before them and I ask them to forgive me, I say, Daddy was wrong. for how I yelled at you, I spoke in anger, I've asked God to forgive me, will you forgive me as well? It amazes me how quickly they forgive me. Have you ever been amazed? by forgiveness. We come to a request that the children of God are to bring to our Heavenly Father for a forgiveness that truly amazes you if you take it to heart and you understand it, which is what we want to do today. We want to unpack this and understand what Jesus is speaking about. I'm going to read to us the Lord's Prayer in its entirety, and then the following verses, because the following verses are connected to what we're going to focus on today. So I'm going to read Matthew 6, verses 9 through 15. Please stand in honor of the Word of God for the reading of His Word. Matthew 6, 9. 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. This is God's holy word. Please be seated. I'm gonna organize our study of this fifth petition. around four headings. First of all, we want to see the believer's need for daily forgiveness. Second, the believer's request for daily forgiveness. Third, the Heavenly Father's gift of forgiveness. And fourth, the evidence that you have received forgiveness. First of all, the believer's need for daily forgiveness. And notice that the term that Jesus uses here for our sins is forgive us our debts. The Bible uses various terms to describe sin to give us a fuller picture of the nature of sin. And here Jesus speaks of our sins as debts. Forgive us our debts. These debts are called trespasses in verses 14 and 15, where Jesus talks about if you have forgiven the trespasses of others, your heavenly Father forgives you your trespasses. If you do not forgive the trespasses of others, God does not forgive your trespasses. So he uses the word trespass in verses 14 and 15 interchangeably with the word debt here in verse 15. Understand that God, as the creator of all things, has authority. He has authority over all his creatures. He has authority over you, he has authority over me, because he has made us. And because he is our creator who has authority over us, he rightly imposes obligations on us. Those obligations are given to us in the law of God. We read of them in scripture. Now, when we fail to fulfill any of these obligations to God, we incur a debt to God. For example, God requires us to tell the truth because God is truth. God always tells the truth. But when you fail to fulfill that obligation, when you fail to tell the truth, you incur a debt to God. The Bible also requires us to be content. Contentment's the opposite of covetousness. The 10th commandment is you shall not covet. We're not to covet because we are to be content. We're to be content with God and content with what He has given to us. But when we fail to obey that, when we fail to be content, we incur a debt to God. Jesus summed up the law as, love the Lord your God with all your heart, and to love your neighbor as yourself. When we fail to do that, we incur a debt to God. Now, this debt that we owe God because of our sin, because of our disobedience to his law, is a debt that we cannot repay. There are people who think that they can repay it, but the Bible tells us that you cannot repay this debt that we owe to God. But the good news of the gospel is that Jesus Christ paid the believer's debt in full at the cross. And that when a sinner first believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, God cancels the believer's debt of sin. And this gracious cancellation of debt is what the Bible calls forgiveness. This word in our text, forgive, in the original language means to release, to cancel, to remit, to pardon. Jesus here is teaching us as his followers that we are to pray daily for forgiveness. The previous request was give us this day our daily bread. We see there in the previous request that the sorts of things that Jesus is teaching us to pray are things that we ought to pray for every day. It follows that this forgiveness is a daily forgiveness for which we are to pray. Now, that we are to pray for a daily forgiveness does imply that the Christian is not going to reach a condition of sinless perfection on this side of eternity. That even though there is a growth, In the Christian life, growing to become more like Christ, growing in obedience to God, still even the most mature of Christians on this side of eternity probably sins every day. So the difference between a young Christian and an old Christian is not that the old Christian sins rarely, but that the sinner is more like Jesus. has a greater hatred of sin, a greater love for God, and is more like Jesus, but that does not mean that we are not going to sin every day. We do sin every day. James 3 2 says, for we all stumble in many ways. From the newest of Christians to the oldest of Christians, we all stumble in many ways. Now, when we come to this petition, forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. We need to understand that there is a false teaching that says that the believer does not need to ask God's forgiveness because of the truth that the believer was forgiven of all his sins when he was justified. There's this magnificent truth in the Bible that the believer was justified. When we first believed that God declared us who were guilty, He declared us righteous. He imputed the righteousness of Christ to us. And that justification included pardon. Pardon of all of your sins, past, present, and future. But there's a false teaching that looks at that and says, well, because we've been justified, there's no place in the Christian life for asking for forgiveness after we sin because we've already been forgiven. In fact, the false teaching even states that for a Christian to ask God again for forgiveness is an expression of unbelief. An expression that you don't believe that you were justified, that you don't believe that you were cleansed of all of your sins when you first believed. But such teaching fails to recognize the difference between God's judicial forgiveness and his fatherly forgiveness. This false teaching also amounts to a rejection of the verses in scripture that teach the Christian to seek God's forgiveness, including what we're studying here in the Lord's Prayer. Justification changes our legal standing before God. God, as the judge, pardons us of all of our sins, past, present, and future, and gives us a right legal standing before Him. The sins that we commit as a Christian do not change our new legal standing. We have just as much of a righteous standing with God after we sin as a Christian as we had before. All right, we're given a perfect legal standing before God as righteous and that's in justification. But in the Lord's prayer, we are not approaching God as our judge. In the Lord's prayer, we are approaching God as our loving heavenly father. The forgiveness that Jesus teaches us to pray for has nothing to do with our legal standing. As our heavenly Father, God is displeased when we, as his adopted children, disobey him. He is grieved when we, as his adopted children, live contrary to the commandments he has given to us. And so in Hebrews 12, verses five and six, we read, my son do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him, for the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives. God does not ignore the sins that we commit as Christians because we've been justified. As our heavenly father who loves us, he's greatly concerned when we sin against him. And He even will discipline us to correct us. And so that we learn to walk in obedience to Him. Ephesians chapter 4 verse 30 says, And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. That comes between instructions to the Christian on how we are to live a life that is pleasing to our Lord and Savior. And what we learn there is that when we disobey our Lord, we grieve His Spirit. Now, when we our children, and we disobey an earthly father, what do we need? Just think back to, if you're an adult, think back to your childhood. If you're still living under the authority of your parents, think about your current situation. When you disobey an earthly father, what is needed? We need to confess our disobedience to our father and humbly ask for his forgiveness. And we need him to forgive us. And what we see in the Bible is the same is needed when we disobey our heavenly father. We need to confess our disobedience to our heavenly father. We need to humbly ask for his forgiveness and we need to be forgiven by him. Fatherly forgiveness is not just taught here in the Lord's Prayer, it's also taught in 1 John 1. So please turn with me towards the end of the New Testament to the first epistle of John 1. And John tells us that he's writing this epistle to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. In other words, he's writing to Christians, those who have been justified. And in 1 John 1, verse five, in verse five he says, this is the message we have heard from him and proclaimed to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him, while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This is a passage that talks about fellowship with God. It's mentioned in verse 6. It talks about if we say we have fellowship with God. Now verse 7 here speaks of an ongoing cleansing from sin as we fellowship with God. Notice that in verse 7. If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin. Note that verb cleanses. The blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin. In the original language, this is in the present tense. It speaks about something that's continuous, that is ongoing. This is saying that as we have fellowship with God, we continue to be cleansed by the blood of Jesus from all sin. And then verse 9 speaks of a repeated confession of sin to God. Verse 9 says, if we confess our sins. Again, in the original language, the verb confess is in the Greek present tense, which speaks of something that is ongoing. This is not talking about taking the same sin you've committed and confessing it multiple times. Well, maybe I wasn't forgiven, so let me ask for forgiveness again. Let me confess it again. No, this is as we sin as a believer and we come to see that we have sinned, bringing this new sin to the Lord, confessing it to Him, asking Him to forgive us. This is a daily thing of confession and receiving His forgiveness and cleansing. A wonderful promise. Literally, if we are confessing our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. In the context of the whole book, this passage teaches us that one of the evidences that you have eternal life is an ongoing practice of confessing your sins to God and receiving his forgiveness. For the book gives us various evidences that one has received eternal life. And here he talks about an evidence that you have eternal life is you walk in the light. Before you were saved, you walked in the darkness. But now, as a believer, you walk in the light of God, and His light, as revealed in Scripture, exposes our sins. And as that is exposed to us because He's given us a new heart that loves God, then seeing our sin moves us to confess our sin to our Heavenly Father, and to seek His forgiveness and receive that forgiveness. That's an evidence that you have eternal life. He says, if you say that you are without sin, You don't know God. You don't know his salvation. You don't have eternal life if you think that you're without sin. Rather, it's the ongoing confession of sin and seeking God's forgiveness and receiving that that is an evidence of eternal life. That's what walking in the light is about. The difference between the once for all time judicial forgiveness that you received when you were saved And the daily, fatherly forgiveness that is spoken of in this text and in the Lord's Prayer, the difference between the two is illustrated in John chapter 13. So turn with me back to the Gospel of John, the fourth Gospel. to chapter 13. When we come to the 13th chapter of John, what we have is the Lord Jesus Christ in the upper room with his disciples and with Judas. This is the night before he's gonna go to the cross. This is before he institutes the Lord's Supper. He's washing his disciples' feet. It's a very striking thing. Very unexpected. Let's pick it up in verse six, verse six. Jesus came to Simon Peter, who said to him, Lord, do you wash my feet? He's saying, things are upside down here. I should be washing your feet, Jesus. You're the master. Lord, do you wash my feet? Take a second, let's think about this. Are you sure? Jesus answered in verse seven, what I'm doing, you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand. That is, after Jesus goes to the cross, you will understand. Peter said to him, you shall never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, if I do not wash you, you have no share with me. Stop right there. If I do not wash you, you have no share with me. Jesus is using this idea of washing as a metaphor to speak of cleansing from sin. Cleansing by the blood of Jesus. Cleansing through the death that Jesus is about to suffer. He's saying, if I do not wash away your sins, you have no share with me. The only way into a right relationship with Jesus Christ, the only way into a right relationship with God, is through the cleansing that is provided by the death of Jesus Christ, being cleansed from all of your sins, the cleansing that comes with justification. Let's continue, verse nine. Simon Peter said to him, Lord, do not, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. Jesus said to him, the one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you. For he knew who was to betray him. That was why he said, not all of you are clean. Notice here in verses nine through 11, that Jesus distinguishes between a bath for the whole body and a foot washing. When your whole body has been washed, he says the bath does not need to be repeated, but your feet still need to be washed repeatedly. Put yourself in that day. Anytime that you're going to travel somewhere, you travel by foot. What kind of roads do you walk, do you go on? You go on dusty, dirt roads. What are you wearing on your feet? You're wearing sandals. Your feet get very dirty any time that you walk somewhere. It was very common that you would need to have your feet washed. It was part of just typical hospitality. When you would enter into someone's home, they would have a servant wash your feet. Your feet were washed much more often than you had a whole bath. Jesus says, and he's speaking about spiritual truth, he says, when your whole body has been washed, That bath does not need to be repeated, but your feet still need to be washed repeatedly. What he's teaching is that the complete forgiveness of sins that has brought a person into right relationship with Christ does not need to be repeated. That's once for all. But he's saying there's another cleansing from sin that is needed day by day as we follow Christ. That's the fatherly forgiveness that Jesus is speaking of in the Lord's prayer. Beloved brethren, let me ask you, do you recognize your need for daily fatherly forgiveness? It is so important for your relationship with your heavenly father that our Lord indicates in this threefold summary of our needs that this is one of our primary needs. In the Lord's prayer, he sums up all of our needs as daily bread, that's material provision, Forgiveness of our sins, deliverance from evil. Don't put this to the side as, oh, this is not all that important. This is a very important part of our communion with God, is this asking for our Father's forgiveness. Well, having looked at our need for daily forgiveness, we now need to focus upon the believer's request for daily forgiveness. Forgive us our debts. This is a request that is to include confession of our debt to God, confession of our sin to God. We read earlier in 1 John 1, 9, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But it's not just in the New Testament that we see that we need to confess our sins to God. The Old Testament teaches it as well. For example, Proverbs 28, verse 13 says, Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy. When we ask our Heavenly Father to forgive us, we're asking Him to accept our confession. The aim of our confession and request for forgiveness is not to avoid earthly consequences. You know, perhaps there were times in your childhood when your parent caught you in disobedience, and you were quick to say, oh, father or mother, forgive me. I'm so sorry. But if there wasn't a real change of heart about it, then probably what you were seeking in asking for forgiveness was essentially, don't give me any consequences for what I have done. But in this prayer that Christ teaches us to pray, forgive us our debts, this asking God to forgive us has nothing to do with trying to avoid earthly consequences. The aim of this confession and request for forgiveness is restoration of close fellowship with our Father. The fullest example in scripture of such confession and request for forgiveness is found in Psalm 51. Please turn with me to Psalm 51. The Psalms are given to us as examples of various types of prayer, how to go to God in prayer in various circumstances. And Psalm 51 is a model asking God for forgiveness and confessing our sin to him. And we see that the two go hand in hand here. Now Psalm 51 was written by King David. He was a man after God's own heart, but that does not mean he was without sin. Far from it. In the inscription at the top of Psalm 51, we read to the choir master a Psalm of David when Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone into Bathsheba. David, though God had given him so much, was not content with what God gave to him. He was on the roof of the palace. He saw a woman bathing down below and he lusted in his heart after that woman. And then he called her to himself. He committed adultery with her. She conceived a child. And so David tried to hide his sin. He deceived people. He lied. But he had a problem. Bathsheba had a wife, Uriah. No matter what David tried to do, he couldn't make it look like the child that Bathsheba has in her womb belongs to Uriah. So what did David do? He committed murder. His sin just multiplied. Finally, after he was not confessing his sin to God, not seeking God's forgiveness, God sent the prophet Nathan to David. And the prophet Nathan, in a very profound parable, clearly rebuked David for his sin. And David was convicted by the Holy Spirit of his sin But Nathan foretold the consequences. That King David would suffer for his sin. In the immediate future, this child who had been conceived with Bathsheba, upon birth this child would die. God would take the life of this child. The sword would not depart from David's house the rest of his life. And you read the rest of 2 Samuel, and it's a sordid story of the sword and evil and violence come into the house of David, which grieved David's hearts. And the prophet even said that God, whose justice matches the sin, said that being that David took someone else's wife, someone else was gonna take all of David's wife and sleep with them in broad daylight. And David is convicted by the Spirit of God. And he later wrote Psalm 51 to express his confession and his seeking forgiveness, which is a model for us. He writes in verse one, have mercy on me, O God. According to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. "'Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity "'and cleanse me from my sin. "'For I know my transgressions "'and my sin is ever before me. "'Against you, you only have I sinned, "'and done what is evil in your sight, "'so that you may be justified in your words "'and blameless in your judgment.'" Here in this model of confession, We have confessing what one has done as sin against God. Not calling it something less than sin, but calling it for what it is, sin against God. This confession includes an expression of sorrow over having offended God. This confession includes an admission of one's guilt. and acceptance of responsibility for the sin that one has committed. And even in this model, there's an admission that one deserves the consequences the Lord is bringing against us. You see there in verse four, David says, against you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. God spoke his words through the prophet Nathan. David heard the word of God, not only saying that he was wrong for what he did, but also laying out the consequences that he would suffer. And David, in this prayer of confession, he's not concerned about the consequences. He's concerned about his sin. He's not trying to change God's mind so that he's not gonna have to suffer the consequences. He says, you are justified in your words. You are blameless in your judgment. Those consequences that you say are gonna come upon me, it's right for them to come upon me. I accept them. He's admitting that he deserves any consequences the Lord is gonna bring against him. It's a model for us. Now, such confession of our sin to our Heavenly Father and petition for His forgiveness is an important part of our communion with our Heavenly Father. The Lord's Prayer is not the sinner's prayer, asking God for salvation. This is part of the communion of the Christian with the Heavenly Father. And we're learning here that confession of sin and seeking forgiveness is an important part of our communion with our Heavenly Father. And to do so sincerely, what does it require in your heart? What does it require in my heart? It requires humbling ourselves before our God. Why do we pray? We don't pray so that God changes His plan. We pray, one of the reasons we pray is so that God will change our heart. As you're praying, your kingdom come. The Lord is giving you a heart for His kingdom. As we pray, your will be done, the Lord is giving you a heart to do the will of God. And as we pray, confessing our sins to God and asking His forgiveness, we're humbling ourselves before our Heavenly Father. Let me ask you, brothers and sisters, after you are convicted of a sin that you commit as a Christian, what do you do? Do you feel that conviction in the Holy Spirit? You know, suddenly you know that what you did, maybe yesterday, maybe a moment ago, earlier on, you know what you did was sin against your Lord and Savior. What do you do after being convicted? Do you humble yourself and confess your sin to your heavenly Father? Do you ask His forgiveness? We don't always do this. What keeps us as Christians sometimes from doing so? After David sinned, he did not confess his sin to the Lord until the Lord finally sent Nathan the prophet. And that was a period of time that I think is spoken of in Psalm 32. Listen to how David was at first refusing to confess his sin. Psalm 32, verse three. For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. See law. I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin." David says, at first, he didn't confess. He kept silent about his sin. He kept trying to hide his sin. And meanwhile, his bones were wasting away. He was groaning all day long because God's hand was heavy upon him. But then he acknowledged his sin to the Lord. He did not cover it any longer. He said, I will confess my transgression to the Lord and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. What kept David from confessing all that time? What kept him from confessing is the same thing that keeps you and me from doing so, our pride. It is our pride that keeps us from confessing our sin to God. Knowing that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble, let us put pride to death. Let us humble ourselves in sincere confession of our sins to our heavenly Father. Let us petition Him for His forgiveness. But understand that such petition does not include beating ourself up in an effort to persuade God to forgive us. Such petition does not include penance. There are some churches who teach that you need to do penance before God will forgive you, and there's nothing about penance in the Bible. Penance is contrary to the gospel. The petition that Jesus teaches us to pray to our Heavenly Father, forgive us our debts, is a petition that includes faith. Faith that our Heavenly Father is eager to forgive us. Faith that our Heavenly Father will joyfully forgive us the moment we confess our sins and ask His forgiveness. Because Jesus died for our sins and we stand in God's grace. We don't have to twist God's arm so that He will forgive us. We have a Heavenly Father who is eager and ready to forgive us. When we confess and we ask, He gives that forgiveness with joy. Well, this brings us to the third point, which is the Heavenly Father's gift of forgiveness, the Heavenly Father's gift of forgiveness. When our Heavenly Father forgives us, He cancels our debt. As 1 John 1,9 says, He cleanses us from all unrighteousness. So it's fatherly forgiveness is spoken of in Psalm 103. I want us to turn there to the book of Psalms in the middle of the Bible, Psalm 103. And you may not realize, but one of the hymns that we sang this morning was Psalm 103 paraphrased and put to music. Praise my soul, the King of heaven. In the middle of Psalm 103, We learn about God's forgiveness. I want to begin reading at verse eight. Verse eight. The Lord is merciful. and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us, as a father shows compassion to his children. So the Lord shows compassion to those who see here that the Lord is not a cold-hearted, mean father, always looking for you to do something wrong, ready to punish you the moment you make a mistake. Far from it. Look at verse eight again. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. This is our heavenly Father. Look at verse 10. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. If he did, we would be without hope. If he treated us as our sins deserve, he would send us to hell for an eternity. That's what we deserve. He does not deal with us according to our sins. He does not repay us according to our iniquities. Instead, he deals with us according to his steadfast love. that is spoken of in the next verse. Look at verse 11. Get that in your mind. The Lord's steadfast love is as high as the heavens above the earth. Think about the highest heavens that God has created. In the highest heavens you have the stars, You have all the galaxies. The highest heavens, that takes you all the way to the edge of the universe. Think of how it is impossible for us with our finite, limited minds to even grasp the great magnitude of the size of this universe that God has created. We cannot grasp how high the heavens are. They're light years after light years after light years to the exponential degree. We cannot understand that. Just the next galaxy or even the next star in the Milky Way is so far beyond us. Here's the picture. As high as the heavens are above the earth, which you cannot comprehend, as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him. So great is his steadfast love towards his children. And it's according to this steadfast love that he deals with us, or according to this steadfast love that he treats us, not according to our sins. Verse 12, as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. The picture is that east and west never meet. You go forever east and you'll never end up at the end. Go to the West and never end up at the end. East and West don't meet. As far as the East is from the West, so far does He remove our transgressions from us. The guilt of our sins is a terrible burden to bear. Men and women, boys and girls do all sorts of things to try to get rid of their guilt. Let me ask you an important question this morning. What do you do about the guilt of your sins? Do you try to somehow make up for your sins? Try to make some good to outweigh the bad? Do you try to punish yourself for your sins? Do you try to bury your guilt by filling your life with earthly pleasures that distract you and make you forget about your guilt? If any of these three is your typical way of dealing with the guilt of your sins, then you do not understand and believe and walk in the gospel. The gospel is about what Jesus did in bearing the guilt of your sin. The gospel is what Jesus Christ did in suffering the penalty for your sin. And the gospel says that your sin is serious and that you cannot make up for it. You cannot atone for your sin. Only the innocent blood of the Lamb of God could atone for your sins. The gospel says you need God in his grace to cancel the guilt of your sins. You need God in his grace to remove the guilt of your sins. And this is what God does in a judicial sense when a sinner first believes in the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is also what God does in a fatherly sense, a fatherly way, when his children confess and ask his forgiveness. In His steadfast love, which towers as high as the highest heaven, He removes our sins from us as far as the east is from the west. Canceling your guilt, removing your guilt, removing your sin from you. After you get up off your knees, having asked your loving Heavenly Father for forgiveness, you can know that you are completely clean. You can know that your debt has been totally canceled. You can know that your sin has been utterly removed. You can know that the guilt of your sin is gone. You can know that there is nothing in between you and your heavenly Father. This is one of the greatest blessings on this side of eternity, the blessing of divine forgiveness. And receiving this blessing of forgiveness forever changes your heart. This truth that the forgiveness of God changes your heart is the foundation of the second line of the petition in the Lord's Prayer. How does it go? Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. This is the only petition upon which our Lord amplifies following the Lord's Prayer, which emphasizes the great importance of the petition. Look at how, come back to Matthew 6, notice how Jesus amplifies upon this petition in Matthew 6, verses 14 and 15. 14 and 15, 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. What we see here and elsewhere in scripture is that if you truly recognize the weightiness of your sin debt, If you truly appreciate the forgiveness that you have received from God, you will be quick to forgive the people whom Jesus calls your debtors. Your debtors are all who sin against you. Sin is likened to debt here. Forgive us our debts that we owe to God. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, those people who have sinned against us. Living in right relationship with other people is so important. that without it you cannot claim to be living in right relationship with God. That's why we have the order we have here in the Lord's Prayer of, He says, forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. We've already forgiven our debtors, now we're asking our Heavenly Father to forgive us. Why that order? Because, as I said, living in right relationship with other people is so important that without it you cannot claim to be living in right relationship with God. Earlier in the Sermon on the Mount, in chapter five, verses 23 and 24, Jesus said, so if you're offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. He says, you can't offer me worship that's gonna please me if you're not living in right relationship with people. Right. Reconcile with other people, forgive, confess, reconcile, and then come and worship. Jesus says, forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. You can't say forgiving another person is unimportant. Jesus says it's at the heart of following Him. Forgiving other people is at the heart of what it means to live for the Lord, to live out the salvation He has given to us. The incongruity of receiving God's forgiveness but then not forgiving other people is amplified in Matthew chapter 18. Please turn with me to Matthew 18, to this parable that Jesus tells, maybe, Begin reading at verse 21, which is the setting of the parable. In the parable, Jesus uses the term debt, again, to speak of sin. And again, he speaks of forgiveness as canceling a debt. Matthew 18, verse 21. Then Peter came up and said to Jesus, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times? Peter's thinking he's being generous here. A limit of seven times how many times I will forgive the same person. Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but 70 times seven. He's saying you must not limit how many times you will forgive. Verse 23, therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents. That's an enormous amount of money in that day. That'd be like today talking about billions of dollars. So the master begins to settle, and a servant's brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents. Now there's no way that this servant can repay such a huge debt. That's the point that Jesus wants us to see. Too big to repay, verse 25. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold with his wife and children and all that he had in payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, have patience with me and I will pay you everything. And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him 100 denarii. And that day, that was a significant amount of money, that's 100 days wages for a common laborer, but it's much smaller than the 10,000 talents. When that same servant went out who had been forgiven the 10,000 talents, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him 100 denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him saying, pay what you owe. So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, have patience with me and I will pay you. He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, you wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you? And in anger, his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly father will not do, I'm sorry, so also my heavenly father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. Jesus is not teaching that we earn forgiveness by forgiving other people. He's teaching that if you have truly been brought by the Spirit of God to see the enormity of your debt that you have owed to God, your debt of sin, and you have received from God through Jesus Christ forgiveness of all of your sins, That forgiveness is going to forever change your perspective on the sins that other people commit against you. Your sin was enormous because of who you offended, a holy, holy, holy God who has created you and has all authority over your life and has only done you good. He's the one you've offended. That makes our debt to him enormous of our sin. Compare that to other people sinning against us. Yes, other people's sin against us can be very painful. It can be very significant. It can really damage our lives. But put it into the perspective of how serious our sin was against God, that God's forgiven. And you see there's no comparison. And when you've truly received the forgiveness of God, it gives you a heart to forgive those who sin against you. God's forgiveness humbles our hard hearts. His forgiveness softens our hard hearts. How can we refuse to forgive someone who has offended us when the whole reason why we are able to live in the kingdom of God is that we have received forgiveness? Brothers and sisters, we have not entered into the kingdom of God because of our works. We have not entered into the kingdom of God because of anything that we have done. We're in the kingdom of God because we have been cleansed of all of our sins by the blood of Jesus. It's Christ's finished work for us that has given us a place in the kingdom. So then how can we not turn around and forgive those who sin against us? Now it may be very hard to do, as it was for Corrie ten Boom. Corrie ten Boom lived in the time of World War II. She lived in the Netherlands, and she and her father and her sister Betsy were Christians, and they loved Jewish people. And though they did not know what the Nazis were doing with the Jews that they took from the Netherlands, They didn't know all the atrocities of the death camps. They knew that what the Nazis were doing was wrong. They wanted to do everything they could to protect the lives of their Jewish neighbors. And so the Ten Boom family made a hiding place in their home to hide Jewish people. So the SS soldiers would not find them and take them off to the prison camps. One day, someone who knew what they were doing leaked the information to the SS, and the SS soldiers came. They searched that whole Ten Boom house. They could not find the Jews who were in hiding, but they took Corey and his sister Betsy and their elderly father. Corey and Betsy were put into one of those concentration camps, one of those death camps. And they were treated just as horribly in the concentration camp as the Nazis treated the Jews. The SS soldiers completely humiliated and tortured. and distressed Corey and Betsy. And as you read the story, The Hiding Place, as Corey later related these things to us, it's a wonderful story of how the Lord grew Corey and Betsy closer to him in the midst of such suffering, suffering such atrocities there, seeing such atrocities done to those around them. By God's grace, the liberation came. The allies came. They liberated Germany. They liberated the concentration camps. And Betsy died there in the concentration camp, but Corrie, she was freed. And Corrie went back to the Netherlands, and Corrie received a heart from the Lord. to take the gospel message of Jesus Christ and to share it with as many people as she could. Listen to an account of one evening when she was preaching, sharing the gospel in a church building. And there in the church building was one of the SS soldiers who had treated her so wickedly in the concentration camp. She writes, it was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, a former SS man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly, it was all there. The room full of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsy's pained, blanched face. He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein, he said, to think that as you say, he has washed my sins away. His hand was thrust out to shake mine, and I who had preached so often to the people in Blumendal, the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side. Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man. Was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him. I tried to smile. I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again, I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I prayed. I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness." As I took his hand, the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder, along my arm, and through my hand, a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me. And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness, any more than on our goodness that the world's healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself. Coheyton Boone, if she had not received the forgiveness of Jesus Christ for her sins, she would have never in a million years been able to extend her hand of forgiveness to this man who had treated her so wickedly. But the Lord reminded her of how he had forgiven her of all of her sins. And the Lord's grace that was given to her enabled her to extend that hand of forgiveness and to give the same forgiveness to her former jailer. That's what the forgiveness of God does to the hardest of hearts. His forgiveness softens the hardest of hearts. It sets the hardest of hearts free from bitterness. It sets the hardest of hearts free from vengeance and frees the heart to forgive as one has been forgiven by God. Jesus has taught us to pray, our Father in heaven, forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. That second line is not to be said mechanically, but with sincere self-examination. We're to think as we pray that, have I forgiven my debtors? Is there anyone who has sinned against me that I have not forgiven, that I need to forgive? I do understand that in the Bible, there are two types of forgiveness. There is a forgiveness that we are always to give immediately when someone else sins against us, that is a forgiveness that keeps us from bitterness, the forgiveness that keeps us from vengeance. It's a forgiveness that enables us to love someone who has wrongly treated us. And then there also is a second forgiveness. Jesus says, when someone comes to you and says, I repent, I've sinned against you, forgive me, when they acknowledge their sin, that then there's another forgiveness that's to be given, that is a restoration of relationship, saying, I'm no longer going to bring this up. I'm no longer gonna call you to repent of this, because you have repented. You've asked for forgiveness, and I give it to you free and full. Brothers and sisters, is there anyone today whom you need to forgive? Maybe someone who sinned against you a very long time ago, whom you have never forgiven. Or maybe someone who sinned against you this morning. Is there anyone that Christ is calling you to forgive? If so, take seriously what Jesus says here. and look to the cross of Christ, look to the forgiveness that you have in Christ, and ask God to help you to give that forgiveness to others. My friend, have you received from God the complete washing away of your sins to which Jesus referred the night before he went to the cross when he spoke with the apostle Peter and said, unless I have washed you, You have no place in me. The Bible says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All of us have broken God's law. He's written his law on every one of our hearts. He's given us a conscience and that conscience has told us that we have violated his law. That conscience has convicted us of sin. And understand that our sins separate us from a holy God. God is holy, and so he hates sin. He cannot allow sin to dwell in his presence. He is holy and just. He must punish sin. And Jesus Christ will come again. He will come as the judge of the living and the dead, and Jesus Christ will punish all evildoers after he raises the living and the dead. He will cast the wicked into the lake of fire unto an eternal conscious torment. That is what we deserve because of our debt of sin. But the Bible gives us the good news. It gives us the gospel of Jesus Christ. How God the Son, the eternal Son of God, who has always existed as God, who is one with the Father, one with the Spirit, through whom all things were created, the Father sent his Son into the world. The son became a man. He was born to a poor family. He was laid in a manger. He didn't have a great kingly surrounding when he came into this world. He came in a very humble way. He lived in complete obedience to the law of God. He declared that he is the eternal son of God, that he is the Christ, he is the savior of the world. He performed miracle after miracle that showed who he is. He proclaimed the gospel, the good news of God, and then he voluntarily laid down his life at the cross. He died as the Lamb of God, as the sacrifice. He sacrificed himself. He offered himself as the substitutionary sacrifice. He took our place. The wages of sin is death, and Jesus died. Though he had no sin, though he's holy and righteous, he died in the place of sinners. And there upon the cross, he bore the sin, he bore the guilt of his people. He bore the sins of all who had ever put their trust and faith in him. He paid for our sin in full at the cross. He was buried. On the third day, He was raised from the dead by the Father, declaring that He is the Son of God, declaring that He is the Savior, declaring that the Father had accepted His sacrifice, declaring He is holy and righteous and that He will save all who come to Him in repentance of sin and faith. The message of the Bible is to come to Jesus Christ in faith, that salvation is not by your works, it's not by any good thing that you could try to do, but salvation is entirely of the grace of God, received through faith alone and Jesus Christ alone. And so Christ calls you to come to Him, surrendering your life to Him, trusting in Him alone as your Savior. To trust in Him is to trust Him as your Savior and to trust Him as your Lord. is to submit your life to Him in faith. The Bible promises forgiveness of sins and eternal life to all who come to the Lord Jesus Christ in faith. So I urge you, my friend, come to Jesus today and be saved. Come to Jesus today and receive pardon. Come to Jesus today and receive eternal life. Beloved brethren, those of you who know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, Let me leave you with one last question. How do you need to apply what we have studied in God's word today? Has the study of God's word shown you that you've had a misconception of who your heavenly father is, a misconception of his nature? Maybe that needs to be corrected today so that you view your heavenly father rightly. Maybe such prayer of confession and asking for forgiveness has not been a part of your Christian life. And so that needs to be added to your communion with the Lord. Maybe when you have confessed your sin to God and sought His forgiveness, it wasn't from the heart, maybe it was just mere words. Maybe that needs to become sincere today. How do you need to apply? We don't want to just listen to the word of God, just study it and go, okay, I understand it better. We study the word of God so that we'll be changed by the spirit of God through his word for the glory of God. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we do thank you for the magnificent salvation that you've provided in your son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we thank you for the pardon received in justification. And we thank you for your daily fatherly forgiveness. Lord, use this time in your word in our lives for your glory, for your honor. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.