This afternoon, we'll give our attention to our text of Lord's Day 51 in the Heidelberg Catechism, and in connection with that, we'll read from God's Word from Genesis chapter 37, and then also from Matthew chapter six. Lord's Day 51 is part of the catechism's treatment of the Lord's Prayer. It goes through the Lord's Prayer, dealing with each part of it, each petition of it, and it comes now to the fifth petition, forgive our debts as we also forgive our debtors. So as we seek to understand what praying that request means, we'll turn first to Genesis chapter 37, and we'll read from verses 12 through the end of the chapter. Genesis 37 verse 12. Now Joseph's brothers had gone to graze their father's flocks near Shechem. And Israel, that is Jacob, Joseph's father, said, as you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I'm going to send you there to them. Very well, he replied. So he said to him, go and see if all is well with your brothers and with all the flocks and bring back word to me. And he sent him off from the valley of Hebron. When Joseph arrived at Shechem, a man found him wandering around in the fields and asked him, what are you looking for? He replied, I'm looking for my brothers. Can you tell me where they're grazing their flocks? They've moved on from here, the man answered. I heard them say, let's go to Dauphin. So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dauphin. But they saw him in the distance and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him. Here comes that dreamer, they said to each other. Come now, let's kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we'll see what comes of his dreams. When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. Let's not take his life, he said. Don't shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the desert, but don't lay a hand on him. Reuben said this to rescue him from them and to take him back to his father. So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the richly ornamented robe he was wearing, and they took him and threw him into the cistern. Now the cistern was empty. There was no water in it. And as they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm, and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt. Judah said to his brothers, what will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come, let's sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him. After all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood. And his brothers agreed. So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for 20 shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt. When Reuben returned to the cistern and saw that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes. He went back to his brothers and said, the boy isn't there. Where can I turn now? And they got Joseph's robe, slaughtered a goat, dipped the robe in the blood, and they took the ornamented robe back to their father and said, we found this. Examine it to see whether it is your son's robe. He recognized it and said, it is my son's robe. Some ferocious animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces. Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. No, he said, in mourning will I go down to the grave to my son. So his father wept for him. Meanwhile, the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard. We'll turn now to the New Testament, to the gospel according to Matthew, where we'll read from chapter six. You'll find Matthew just about three quarters through your Bible. It's before the books of Mark and Luke and John and after the book of Malachi. Matthew 6 verses 9 through 15. Here we find the passage where Jesus teaches the disciples how to pray and the familiar words of the Lord's Prayer. Jesus said, this then is how you should pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread, forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, Your Father will not forgive yours. Thus far the reading of God's holy word, may he add his blessing to it this afternoon. We'll read also from our confession of faith, the Heidelberg Catechism. You can find that in the back of your Trinity Psalter hymnals on page 895. Catechism has been explaining its way through the Lord's Prayer and it comes here to the fifth petition. Question and answer 126, page 895. What does the fifth petition mean? Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors means because of Christ's blood, do not impute to us or count against us, poor sinners that we are, any of the transgressions we do or the evil that constantly clings to us. Forgive us. just as we are fully determined, as evidence of your grace in us, wholeheartedly to forgive our neighbors. Dear congregation of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Have you ever found yourself praying a prayer that you didn't really mean? Maybe it's just a prayer you're rattling off out of habit and you realize halfway through what you're doing. Maybe it's something else. Most of us were taught simple prayers to pray as children. And while these prayers were invaluable parts of teaching us how to pray as children as we grew in our understanding, eventually we outgrew them. Eventually we understood what it meant to pray, to talk to God, to pour out our hearts before Him. Eventually we could form our own sentences before God and our own petitions and requests and our own ways of praising Him. And as we became capable of praying in our own words, rattling off words we had memorized became less helpful. If we were still using those children's prayers when that happened, we probably found ourselves praying prayers we didn't actually think about. And it's not just something that children do, it's something we can all do. We can do it in church. When the minister's praying, we can find our minds wandering elsewhere or might even find ourselves sleeping. We can do it when we're praying our prayers at bedtime. If we're tired, you start your prayer with good intentions, and before you know it, you've forgotten that you've begun praying. But true prayer, like any meaningful conversation, involves being aware of what you're saying. It involves meaning what you're saying. Well, in light of that, when was the last time you thought carefully as you prayed the fifth petition? The Lord's Prayer is very well known to many of us. We probably have it memorized, if not intentionally, at least through repetition. So when you pray, forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors, do you think about what you're praying? Do you hear what you're praying in those words, the way that you're tying God's forgiveness to your own forgiving heart to those around you? Do you recognize why Augustine so many years ago called this the terrible petition? What does it mean to pray to our Almighty Heavenly Father, forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors? As we look for an answer to this question, we'll consider Joseph's example and Jesus' teaching. We'll see the importance of living and praying the fifth petition. First, let's take a closer look at what is forgiveness. Although you might think of a book like the Bible that talks about forgiveness as much as it does, would mention forgiveness in the first couple chapters, it's actually not until the 50th chapter of Genesis that the word, or a word for forgiveness, is properly used. You could argue that the idea of forgiveness is early on in the Bible. You might see elements of it there in Genesis 3 when God comes to Adam and Eve in the garden and addresses them for their sin, pronouncing a curse, but also there in Genesis 3.15, pronouncing gospel hope. You might see the elements of forgiveness when Abraham intercedes for the city where Lot was living, Sodom and Gomorrah, as God had planned to punish it. But the first mention of forgiveness as such doesn't come until Genesis 50 verse 17, when Joseph's brothers, those same villains we see in our text this afternoon, come to Joseph and ask for his forgiveness. That's the first time the word for forgiveness is used. Well, the first time God has asked for forgiveness is actually in Exodus chapter 34, verse nine, when Moses intercedes for Israel after they've sinned with the golden calf. Israel had been led by God out of the land of Egypt. They'd been brought to a mountain where God had appeared before them. He had called Moses up to visit with him on the mountain and he had given Moses the 10 commandments. But when Moses came back down to the people of Israel, he was gone for several days. He found that they had abandoned hope. They figured he was lost. And instead they'd had Moses' brother Aaron take a calf of gold. And they declared that that calf had been God and had brought them out of Egypt. And they were committing idolatry with that golden statue. It was a terrible sin. It was a terrible insult to God. Well, in light of that, Moses pleads on behalf of his people, on behalf of the people of Israel. Exodus 34 verse nine, O Lord, if I have found favor in your eyes, then let the Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, forgive our wickedness and our sin and take us as your inheritance. Both in Joseph's brother's request and in Moses' request, we see the key ingredients of forgiveness. If you're gonna have forgiveness, you need to have an offense to be forgiven. Forgiveness is defined as the act of pardoning of an offender, as the act of releasing feelings of resentment or vengeance. It's a conscious decision to let go of anger, bitterness, and the desire to punish someone for their wrongdoings. But of course, forgiveness is not automatic. Both the request of Joseph's brothers and of Moses to God show that ordinarily before forgiveness comes repentance. Repentance is the key to forgiveness. Well, what is repentance? Our Heidelberg Catechism gives us a definition of repentance. It's not just coming to someone and telling them that you're sorry for what you've done. No, as Question and Answer 88 tells us, true repentance involves two things. It involves a dying away of the old self and a coming to life of the new. Or in other words, true repentance involves both stopping the sinful practice, perhaps even turning your life around, and then it also involves a new desire towards fellowship with the offended one, perhaps symbolized through making restitution if there's been theft or trying to make amends if you've offered them an insult. Well, in the case of the Israelites, great sin with the golden calf, there was evidence of true repentance. First, there was the dying away of the old self. There was sorrow for their sin. When Moses came down and confronted them over their sin, there were many in Israel who were sorry. Exodus 33 verse four tells us that the people mourned when they understood their sin. Second, as the book of Exodus unfolds, we see a renewed desire on the part of those people to follow God. They came to life spiritually. Before Moses asked God for forgiveness for the people, there were signs of genuine repentance. But even with the people's repentance, it remained an act of God's grace that he forgave them. These people that God had shown so much mercy to had turned immediately to worshiping an idol. They needed God's grace. Forgiveness is evidence of unmerited favor, of grace, favor you didn't deserve. The one who has been wronged agrees to forgive is not just done out of obligation, you don't have to forgive, it's done out of grace, even where there has been proper repentance. Even proper repentance doesn't make someone have to forgive you. Still, forgiveness doesn't mean that there's no consequence for the sin. For example, going back to the case of the Israelites' sin with the golden calf, we read in chapter 32, verse 27 of Exodus, that God did bring punishment upon Israel. Some of them were killed with a sword for their idolatry. In chapter 32, verse 35, we read God sent a plague among the Israelites. Forgiveness doesn't mean the offender faces no consequences. We see it all around us in our lives too. When serious harm is done, consequences follow. We see it in our relationship with God, If, for example, we steal something, we might go to God and ask for His forgiveness, and if we've repented, He will grant it because of grace. But that doesn't mean that we will not have to suffer criminal punishment. We couldn't tell the judge, well, yes, I stole the car, but I've asked God for forgiveness, so I'm good to go. No, the judge will still give you the proper time of punishment in jail, if necessary, for stealing the automobile. But that doesn't mean we don't have to pay the person back from whom we stole. God forgave David for his sin with Bathsheba, but even that sin had severe consequences throughout the rest of David's life and even in his family. Even though there may be remaining consequences to the sin, it doesn't mean that forgiveness is not a very good thing. When someone forgives an offender, it is a great good, especially when God forgives us for our sin. When you forgive someone who repents of their offenses against you, you'll find healing and freedom. There's a change in your heart. Holding on to the offense that someone commits against you very often leads to a deep bitterness, which rarely harms the offender, but has all kinds of negative implications for you. Forgiving the offender cuts off that bitterness at its root. Forgiving the offender also opens up the possibility of renewed fellowship. It doesn't mean that things will suddenly be the same as they were before this sin was committed against you. For example, if you forgive a friend who stole from your house, that doesn't mean that you're suddenly going to invite that friend over all the time. But over time, as they prove their genuine repentance, you just might invite them back. We live in a world broken by sin. We see it around us. We read it in the news headlines. We even experience it ourselves when people sin against us. The Bible reminds us that sin isn't just outside around us, it's within us. We too sin against others. We too stand in need of forgiveness from others. And so forgiveness is important to all of us. But the root issue of all sin is not sin against each other, but it's ultimately sin against God. That's the ultimate sin. That's where we need true forgiveness. What a wonder then that the story of the Bible is exactly that, a story of how our creator, the one who made us, the one whom we owed everything to, whom we sinned against, whom we insulted and rebelled against, our creator has also become our redeemer. He has called us to receive full and free forgiveness. And not just any forgiveness, but a forgiveness that stretches our imagination with its grace and kindness. God's forgiveness to us is both where we learn what forgiveness looks like and also what the fifth petition teaches us to imitate. And that doesn't mean forgiveness is easy. We see that when we consider forgiveness in action. Just how difficult forgiveness can be is illustrated in the following story from the life of Simon Wiesenthal. Wiesenthal was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp in Poland. From there, he was sent as part of a work detail to clean up a hospital for wounded German soldiers. When he arrived, Weisenthal was ordered to follow one of the nurses to a patient's room. There, he encountered a dying Nazi young SS officer whose badly burned body was wrapped entirely in bandages. The man was barely able to speak, and he wanted to confess his sins before he died. In particular, he wanted to confess his sins to a Jew. The Nazi began recounting his war crimes. On one occasion, he had sent fire to a building crammed with hundreds of Jews. When one family tried to escape, he slaughtered them in the street. Tormented by the memory of their anguished faces, he longed to beg forgiveness from a Jew before he died. Weissenfeld tells how he listened patiently to the man's story. He recognized and admitted that the man's repentance was genuine, and yet he was so horrified by what the man had done. When the confession was finished, he got up without a word and left the room. He was unable to offer forgiveness. Yet as he thought back and wrote down what happened afterwards, he wondered whether he had done the right thing. His account of the event closes with this challenge. He says, you who have just read this sad and tragic episode of my life can mentally change places with me and ask yourself this crucial question. What should I have done? Well, his experience is a terrible one, and it's not alone. There are many tragic stories of sin against individuals and against peoples. There are many stories of tragedy that show the cost of forgiveness. We read part of one today in Genesis 37. Joseph's brothers sinned against him in many ways, in serious ways, in ways that it's actually kind of hard to imagine all the implications of what they did. His stepbrothers had conspired, or his half-brothers had conspired to murder him. And although they didn't go through with it, their backup plan wasn't much better. His own half-brothers sold him into slavery. Joseph was sinned against by his own flesh and blood in a drastic way. Prime years of his life were spent not living in his father's house as he had been, but being sold as a human slave. living in a house not his own, where he served an Egyptian officer named Potiphar. And then if you read the account further, you discover that Potiphar's wife falsely accused Joseph, and he wound up in prison in Egypt. And even there in prison, things got worse because he was given a God-given ability to interpret a dream, and the man whose dream he came down from their land to get bread from Egypt. Joseph has reconciled with his brothers. His family has been restored to him. All of Joseph's brothers and his father come and live in Egypt with him. And then his father dies. And suddenly a question comes up. Was Joseph's forgiveness merely for the sake of his father? Now that his father's out of the way, the one who loves him and his brothers, perhaps now he'll exact revenge upon his brothers. And that's exactly what Joseph's brothers wondered. In Genesis 50 verses 16 to 17, we find their words to Joseph after their father's death. They tell Joseph, your father left these instructions before he died. This is what you are to say to Joseph. I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and wrongs they committed in treating you so badly. Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father. That's a bold request. They tried to kill him. They sold him as a slave. And now they come and ask for his forgiveness. And the worst part is, even in their apology, Joseph's brothers play a little bit of politics, don't they? They don't just ask for his mercy. They say, well, your dad said that you should forgive us. But Joseph had forgiven. He had been sinned against. He'd suffered deeply for that sin. He'd lost aspects of his life that he would never get back. But by God's grace, he turned not to bitterness and anger, but to faith in God's providence. He responded with those amazing words, you intended to harm me. But God intended it for good, to accomplish what is now being done in the saving of many lives. In Wiesenthal's story and Joseph's example, we see that forgiveness has a real cost. Forgiveness is not just a nice fluffy thing that good people do. No, it marks the letting go of actual pain and suffering. And so with this in mind, we're ready to return to the fifth petition, forgive as we've been forgiven. When Jesus teaches us to pray for forgiveness, he's not just adding some nice words. Just as Joseph's and Wiesenthal's stories highlight the cost of forgiveness, so too the Bible teaches that our sin and rebellion has a very real cost in God's eyes. We trespassed against him. We did things that deserved justly his anger. But as God in his grace works within our hearts by his word and spirit, we begin to see our sin and we begin to sincerely repent of it. God's word teaches us that we can pray through Jesus Christ and his work of redemption, forgive us our debts. Not because it's simply God's place to forgive as if God exists to provide forgiveness. but because we've grasped a little of the cost of our sin, but because we see our debt before God, because we can confess with David in Psalm 51, against you, God, you only have I sinned. The very words Jesus teaches us to use in that prayer are telling. Forgive us our debts. They help us understand what we're asking. Connecting our spiritual sins with monetary debt is helpful for us. It makes us understand the reality of sin. Think about it, if you owed your friend $10,000, how would you feel about going to that friend and asking them to wipe away that debt? To forgive the debt, to forget it ever existed? Well, basic economics teaches us that if we don't pay that $10,000, our friend has to. And depending on how close we are with that friend and where they are financially, they might just do it for us. But that debt doesn't disappear. That forgiveness costs them something. That's the same truth we saw in the life of Wiesenthal and of Joseph. To forgive has very real costs. But as we pray to God, forgive us our debts, we have the gospel promise that he has given us of his amazing grace. that while we were yet sinners, while we were yet rebels against Him, having no love for Him in our hearts, having a desire of sin, He in love sent His Son. He sent His Son in the world not to punish us for our sin, but to receive our punishment in our place, dying on the cross, so that His Son in His death and in His resurrection might defeat sin, might empty it of its cost, and might open a way for us through Christ to have eternal life. Christ came to call us to repentance. Christ came to call us to receive for free what cost him dearly, the full forgiveness of our sin. But as our petition, as our prayer this afternoon reminds us, as we have received, so too we must now give. When Jesus said the fifth petition Forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors. He didn't make a mistake. It wasn't a slip of the tongue. Forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors is confirmed in verses 14 and 15. Jesus knew that this petition would be difficult for us to understand and to live out, and so he explains it. He says, if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, Your Father will not forgive your sins. Now understand if the prerequisite for salvation was that we forgave others first, then forgiveness would be a good work that leads to salvation. Something that you and I do to be saved. Salvation is not of works, it's by grace alone and Christ alone. So God begins the work of salvation even before we've repented. But we need to understand that when we know what forgiveness is, we must also forgive. If we have an unforgiving spirit, there can only be one reason, and that is that we have not understood the grace of Christ. Forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation. Forgiveness can occur without a debtor asking for it. It can occur when they ask it, but without understanding the hurt they caused, or without caring. Reconciliation takes both parties, but forgiveness only truly takes one. Forgiveness includes forgetting, but there are times it's impossible to totally forget. There are other times when it's necessary to hold people to account for their actions, even though you forgive them their debt against you. But true forgiveness means not holding onto a grudge, not using that debt as leverage later on. As one author puts it, it means laying down your right to remain angry and giving up your claim to future repayment of the debt that you have suffered. And so when the Holy Spirit helps us to see what God has done for us through Christ, he prepares us to pray that fifth petition. Forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors. So why then do we call it the terrible petition? Well, because of the immensity of what we pray when we use it. because of the amazing thought of tying God's forgiveness of us to our forgiveness of others. We've noted already that our forgiveness of others is not a work that God demands of us before he forgives us. But that doesn't take away the force of this petition. Having been forgiven, God says, you must be ready now to forgive. Thankfully, even here, he doesn't leave us on our own. God shows us in his own character what true forgiveness looks like. God gives us his word to call us and to command us to act and teach us how to. And God works in us by his Holy Spirit to bring life to our stony hearts, to bring love for our neighbor and make us ready to forgive. As we meditate on God's word and as we pray for God's Holy Spirit's work within us, we'll grow in recognition of the amazing grace that God has shown us. And as we understand the amazingness of grace, we'll grow in a desire and ability to forgive others. We'll grow in our freedom from sin and our desire to forgive. And the fifth petition, far from being terrible, becomes beautiful as it reminds us of the grace that we have received and the opportunity to live as an example of our Heavenly Father. Amen.