Our scripture reading this morning is from Matthew's gospel. We're look at verses 9 through 15 The focus today is on verse 12 and then 14 and 15. So will you follow along with me? Pray them 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 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 the word of the Lord. Maybe seated. Let us pray. Father in heaven, we do thank you this morning that we can gather as your people. That we can come and open the scriptures, your words to us, your voice to us. Father, would you give us ears to hear? Would you give us hearts wide open? Let your word be planted deep within us and take root. Be planted, come forth and bear fruit. For all the world to see your glory and your grace, mirrored, reflected in our lives. All for your glory, in Jesus' name, amen. This week as I was getting back into the swing of things, going through a lot of different things, actually I started last week, but this week I was reading Martin Lloyd-Jones. Old Wales preacher and he had something in his commentary on this that I just wanted to pass by to you. He says the Lord's Prayer is so simple yet so deep. It's sufficient in and of itself if one would simply repeat these phrases and meditate upon them and consider them from the heart. There would be no need for preaching and teaching upon them." Martin Lloyd-Jones. I mean, that's a weighty thing for him to say. One of the preeminent preachers of all time, Martin Lloyd-Jones. He would do as we're doing through this Lord's Prayer. He would take petition by petition. He would take word by word, verse by verse, and preach through the Bible. But he's saying, if we will just take a look at this, the Lord's Prayer in and of itself, the way it's written to us. and all the grace and the mercy that Jesus has to offer us, if we will simply contemplate the words, meditate upon them, that this prayer could be sufficient in our lives. Obviously, he speaks of, later on in the same chapter that he's written this statement, that we would elaborate upon those. These would be springboards, petition by petition, for us to go into. I talked about before in previous sermons about Eric Alexander. He talks about this being not only a pattern of prayer, but a pattern of life for the Christian. And so I want to look at that today in this particular petition. Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors. We want to look at that particular one. We want to open it up. see what it has to say, how we can apply it to our lives. I've entitled this message, Forgiveness Assured. That's a conclusion that I hope you come to at the end of this sermon. We're going to look at it in four particular points this morning. The first of which is that there is an underlying assumption to this petition. An underlying assumption to this petition. There is a needed definition for this petition that is made. And there is a purpose for this petition. And finally, there is a comparison. I hope as we go through each and every one of these points that you'll see forgiveness is assured in Christ Jesus. And so as we open up this scripture, as we look at this text, I want to begin with this assumption that is made. The assumption to this petition is that there is an awareness, a consciousness of sin. There is an awareness and a consciousness of sin. The Sermon on the Mount, given by Jesus, is for believers. This is not a prayer for unbelievers, brothers and sisters. This is a prayer for believers. Believers have a consciousness of sin. They understand they are a sinful people. This whole Sermon on the Mount begins with a transformation that takes place. It talks about the attributes that a believer will now have. They will be poor in spirit. They will be dependent upon the Lord for everything. Pastor Jake talked about this last week and give us this day our daily bread, our dependence upon the Lord daily. That's an amplification of being poor in spirit. Then we're going to be like the next beatitude. We're going to mourn. We're going to mourn our own sin. That's that conscious awareness that we have. We are going to mourn for the sin of others. We have a mission as the church to make disciples, to bring people to Jesus Christ. So we mourn not only for our own sin, but for the sin of others. How many of us have family members? How many of us have workmates, schoolmates that we know are lost, that they're apart from Christ? Does it prick your heart to know that? I have an image every once in a while, a vivid image. I won't say who, I did a funeral for a man. Open casket. I still see his face. He wasn't, as far as I know, a believer. Did I share the gospel with him? Yes. But I always think I didn't do enough. It's not up to me to save, it's up to Jesus Christ to save. But I am conscious that there's sin in the world, and that's an image that I never want to forget. So that I see that image when I see someone who's still living. Someone who still needs Christ. That day's coming. We need to understand this assumption that there is a consciousness of sin, an awareness of sin. Yes, we have been saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. But we also know from the scriptures that there's this battle that wages within us. When I was in seminary, you know, we had to read a book. It wasn't John Owen's Mortification of Sin, but it was Chris Lungard's book called The Enemy Within. He did all the heavy lifting. I recommend that book to anyone here to read. Mortification of sin. Just as we're dependent upon the Lord for our physical needs, our physical sustenance, we are dependent upon the Lord for His spiritual provision. A consciousness of sin brings that about. We daily need to go to Him. with this consciousness of sin, asking for forgiveness, because this battle wages within us. Paul talks about this in Romans chapter 7. You know that part that ends, wretched man that I am, who can deliver me from this sin? It's the Lord Jesus Christ. But he talks about this battle that wages within, about the old man and the new man. When we come to faith in Christ, we are a new creation. born through Christ Jesus at his sacrifice for us. But that old man is still there. When he penned the Colossians, he talks about putting off the old and putting on the new. So it's a constant daily battle that we have. So in this, we have to be aware of this. We know we have to deal with our sin. This assumption brings forth two things. The awareness of sin, our sin, and the awareness of my sin. Notice that every petition that's given in this Lord's Prayer is plural. Our. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts. Lead us not into temptation. Listen, we are saved individually, but corporately we are the body of Christ. So we need one another. So there's this vertical aspect that takes place in the horizontal aspect that's taking place here. So I am aware that my sin is not only my own sin, it's sin within us. This is why Jesus directs us to go to one another as brothers and sisters. To pull one out of sin. To do that good work. So the first thing that we know is awareness of our sin and then the awareness. Of the unsurpassable amount that it is. Which leads to the second point? This needed definition. The word that's used in the text is debt. You know about debt. How many of you have a mortgage? OK, there's a debt. How many of you have credit cards? There's debt, car payment, debt. Debt is anything that we make a transaction with a promise to pay. And so that debt is out there. Unfortunately, some people have way too much debt. Do you know the national debt right now is $14.9 trillion? Dollars you can go to a website. You can see just the money rolling dollar by dollar just ticking away But brothers and sisters we've become callous to that term trillion We have no concept of it So let me help you out. I was reading a financial article This was quite interesting the difference between a million a billion and a trillion Okay 1 million seconds was 11 days ago. One million seconds, 11 days ago. One billion seconds was the year 1989. A little difference there. Okay, one trillion seconds would have been, forget about what you believe about how old the earth is, 30,000 BC. That is one trillion seconds ago, 30,000 BC. We don't have a concept sometimes of our sin, of our debt. Athanasius wrote a book called On the Incarnation. One of the things that he addresses in that is why God had to become man. Why he had to become man. And the simple explanation that he gives is our sin is an offense to God. And God is infinite. He is eternal. So whatever our offense is, that debt in and of itself is infinite. We all learned that term when we were in probably elementary mathematics. Okay, maybe junior high. Mathematics, you know, and I remember my math teacher trying to put into Concept what infinite was? Because I'm going I can't get my mind. I know how to drive a symbol. You know, it looks like an eight on its side But he said let me Jeff let me make this this simple for you think of the biggest number that you have and then plus one and And he said, but then you have to do plus one again, and plus one again, and keep plus one-ing. Our offense, in and of itself, is infinite toward God. Think of it this way. Have you ever been to a restaurant, and you get your menu, and you start looking for what you want to eat, and you start looking at the cost that's associated with that particular item? And some of them you go, man, I don't want to pay for that. Okay? Or you go to a fancy restaurant. Been to one in my life, I didn't have to pay. Everything is market price. Okay, which is a scary thing because you don't know what it costs. Here's what I'm trying to get the point across for you. This definition of debt, this definition of sin, debt is sin, sin is debt. It's against the Holy Infinite God. You could go to the Ten Commandments, okay, in Exodus chapter 20. Thou shalt have no other gods before me, cost infinite. Thou shalt honor your mother and father, cost infinite. If you start thinking about sin in that manner, you want to pray this petition. You want to be forgiven. You want to be cleansed. You want to be released of that debt. Debt always has to be paid. There's no getting around it. Someone absorbs the cost. The problem with sin is you can't make the payment. There's nothing you can do. You could work all eternity and you still can't pay that debt. So that is the definition Jesus wants us to know. First and foremost, you need to have a consciousness of sin to pray this petition. An awareness of it. You also need to know what debt is. How blatant, how black, how dark sin is. And that it needs to be dealt with. We cannot carry it on and on and on. We need to deal with our sins. Now many of us like to deal with our sins. We know we can't pay for it, so we'll try to justify it. We'll try to reason it. We'll try to blame other things or other people for that sin. I want to deflect it and I want to put it on someone else's account. We do the same thing with our debt. You see all the commercials, you get advertisements in the mail. Debt consolidation. Okay, call this attorney, we'll take care of your debt. All these easy money ways to try to get out of it. Guess what? You never get out. Someone has to pay the price. Someone has to pay the price. You cannot kick the can down the road. There is a day of reckoning that's coming for sin. This leads us to the third point here, which is the purpose of the petition. We see that it has an assumption that there's a consciousness of sin. We see that it has a definition of what debt is, what sin is, and the vast mountain that it has become that reaches to the heavens. But we see the purpose of this petition is to cancel our debt. It's to cancel our debt. It's to do what no one else can do. Now I want to make clear here, we're talking about believers in the Sermon on the Mount. There are two types of forgiveness in Scripture. There is those that speak about the faith and the forgiveness that comes by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, which points to the cross and his atonement for sin, past, present, and future. It is definitive. You are forgiven. And yet there's an aspect that's taught in scripture as well. that we live in a fallen world. We walk through a world filled with sin. We sin. That battle within us, that old man, new man, constantly waging war with one another. And we get dirty. We sin. And so this petition addresses the cancellation of that daily type of sin. A week ago, I had gone over to T1 to walk through the building just to see what progress was being made and things like that. It was one of those triple-digit days, and so I had shorts, T-shirt, and flip-flops on. And I enter in the one end of the building, and I figure I'm just going to walk through and see the progress. And I walk through the building, and I'm looking around. I'm looking at walls. I'm looking at new lights and stuff like that all the way through. And I walk the building, and I head back out the front door. And I happen to look down, and my feet are covered with dust and with dirt. And so I step off the sidewalk, and I go over the grass, and I'm trying to wipe off the dust. Stomp my feet. It's still there. I walk to the car. I open up the car. Many of you know I have that little gray Mini Cooper. The interior is black. Okay, so I step on the mat, and I happen to move it over, and there it is. It's got this white dust all over. I go home, I get out of the car in the garage, I take off the flip-flops, and I do the best I can to wipe off the bottom of my foot. And I go straight to the bathroom, flip-flops in hand, I throw the flip-flops in the tub, I turn on the water, I get the soap, and I wash off. That white dust, as I'm washing it off and rinsing it off, turns brown. It covers the bottom of the tub. I had to clean the tub out after washing my feet. I give you that illustration. That's the sin that happens each and every day in our lives. Sin, as in our shorter catechism, is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of the law of God. We have acts of omission as well as acts of commission, purposeful and those that we just ignore, each and every day. Just think about the greatest commandment. If you're to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, do you do that? Brothers and sisters, that's sin. Anything that's not a faith is sin. Are you ever compelled within to act out something? I should really call that brother. And you don't? Are you convicted of that and you still don't do it? That's sin. I mentioned Chris Lungard, his book Enemy Within. He decided when he was in seminary that he would go ahead and he would read two of John Owen's books. Mortification of Sin being one of them. And Owen's hard to read. If anyone's read Owen, you're going to read a sentence, and then you're going to read the sentence again, and you're going to read it again, you're going to highlight it, and you're going to go back. It is laborious. So, like I said, Chris Longard's done all the heavy lifting. But you know what caused him to want to do all of this? It tells a story in his book. He said they bought a new refrigerator for their house. And the handle was on the wrong side. The door opened the wrong way. He had promised his wife, you know what, I'll fix it. But he's not a handyman, okay? And he puts it off and he puts it off. Finally, his wife is away. And he's got the kids, and he's in the kitchen, and he's going to do this whole switch. So he gets the tools that he has, and he comes out, and he starts to pull off the hinges and everything else. And he notices, once he gets the door off, and there's the refrigerator open, so the refrigerator side and the freezer side, that the actual hinges, the plates that attach to the refrigerator, have torque screws, only to be taken off with a torque wrench. He doesn't have a torque wrench. Already he's miffed, to say it lightly. And then the kids come in. He's got little kids. They decide to bring their carnival in today, and he totally loses it. Okay, he unleashes and says things that he wishes that he never said, but he does that. He has to get his composure back. He has to go and he has to ask for forgiveness. To right that relationship with his kids. So this petition for us, forgive us our debts. We are asking for forgiveness for the day-to-day dust and dirt that's coming along our sakes. That we're sinning willfully. sometimes unintentionally, but we're still sinning either way. We need that cleaned off, restore that right fellowship with God. John the Apostle talks about this type of fellowship in his first epistle. Again, written to believers. Talking about the moment of reflection. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. There are some that say, yes, I've placed my faith in Jesus Christ, my sins are forgiven, I don't have to do anything else. In one sense, you're right. In the other sense, you're wrong. You miss out on the joy of communion and fellowship with God. This petition has a purpose. We get a perfect picture of this in John 13. Another scripture passage. You know this one. Peter comes to Jesus and he says, how many times do I forgive my brother? Seven times? Seven being the perfect number? Jesus says, no. Seven times 70. And he isn't looking for 490. He's saying, you do it continually. And then as that passage goes on, this is in the upper room, they're about to take the Lord's Supper for the first time. He takes a towel and he wraps it around his waist and he ties it. And he explains to him, you don't understand what I'm doing for you right now, but you will later. And he begins to wash the disciples' feet. What does Peter do? Oh, no, no, no, you're not washing my feet. And what does Jesus say? What does Jesus say? He gives us the reason for daily forgiveness, because he says, if I don't wash your feet, you have no part in me, with me. So what does Peter do? He becomes the first Baptist. Not only my feet, but my hands, my head, the whole body. We need daily cleansing. We live in a fallen world. We need to be in fellowship with God. The last point that I want to make here is the comparison. Verse 12 ends with, as we forgive others their debts. And then he goes on and he explains it in 14 and 15. He says, if you forgive others their trespasses, he's changed the word there, but it's still sin. If you forgive others, your Heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you don't, your Heavenly Father won't forget you. This is not conditional. This is not conditional forgiveness. In other words, if I get others to forgive me, then God has to forgive me. It's not that. Jesus is trying to make a point, teach a principle of forgiveness that is based upon His mercy. It is a comparison. If you have an understanding, a consciousness of sin. If you realize the weightiness of it, that you need forgiveness in and of yourself, then you're going to forgive others. Because you cannot help but understand the Lord Jesus Christ. Think of the Sermon on the Mount as a whole. How does it start? It starts with three petitions. All God's glory. Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done. It puts God in all His holiness, all His grandeur, all His majesty first. It lifts Him up. When you have a right understanding of who God is, you know who you are. You begin to have that consciousness for sin. You understand that the only way you have fellowship With God, the Father, who you now get to call Father, is because of the person and the work of Jesus Christ. All that He's done. We talk about Jesus and His passive obedience and His active obedience. We need to understand this. The love the grace, the mercy that is extended to us in Christ Jesus. I want you to think about this for just a moment. Before all eternity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit form a covenant with one another, a covenant of love. The Father says, Son, I'm going to give you a people, but you have to redeem this people. And Holy Spirit, you need to apply that redemption to these people. And when it's all complete, the Son says, I'm going to give that people back to you. All of this is for the glory of God. So before the foundation of the world, a chosen people is proclaimed, and the work of redemption is going to be done. So Jesus is given a body. He comes down. And this is the point that I really want you to see this morning. This is how we know forgiveness is assured. Jesus comes incarnate, born of a virgin. Brothers and sisters, each and every day, each and every moment of Jesus's life was out of love for you. The author of Hebrews says, for the joy set before him, he endured the cross. What joy was that? It was you. Every day he walked, every day he taught, took all the insults, took all that life threw at him, all the oppression, all the affliction, in his life. When he was a little kid, this is speculation on my part, when he was a little kid, other kids probably made fun of him. Why? Because he's perfectly obedient to his parents. Every stage of his life, every aspect of his life was perfect. And it was perfect for you. Because each and every day he's going, I love that one, I love that one, I love that one. I'm going to give myself for them. that kind of love. And then he goes to the cross. And he pays for it all. During this time in the Greek world, if you had a debt and you made final payment, they wrote on that note, Tetelestai. It's a Greek word. It means complete. It means finished. But in that common era, It meant paid in full. What was Jesus' last words on the cross? Tetelestai. It is finished. It is paid in full. The greatest expression of love, the greatest expression of mercy, the greatest expression of grace was on the cross. How can we as believers not receive all that mercy, all that grace, and not show it to another? You have the parable of Matthew 18 that talks about the master that has a servant who owes 10,000 talents. A talent would have been the equivalent of about 20 years pay for the average person. He owes 10,000 talents. The master says, sell him and his family, put them in debtor's prison until he pays it all back. And what does he do? He begs. Master, have mercy on me, I'll pay it all back. And so the master does. And then he goes out, and you know the story. He finds one that owes him 100 denarii, another servant. A denarii is one day's pay, so about 100 days pay. And he grabs him, he chokes him, he demands that he pays what he owes. Other servants go back to the master and they tell the master what happened. And the master brings him back in and he says, you wicked servant. Essentially he's saying, how dare you not forgive your brother? I forgave you so much, how come you can't do the same? And he throws him into prison. Assurance of your forgiveness will show itself in whether or not you forgive others. I know a man right now that isn't forgiving. He has a hardness of heart. Others have reproached him. Others have asked forgiveness on their part. And he still isn't moving. We need to forgive. We need to absorb the debt as Christ absorbed our debts in some occasions. Make the payment. Love them as Christ has loved you. It may cost you something, but oh, is it an expression of love. May God grant us to reflect Christ in such a way that they will see, people will see his love in us shown through mercy and forgiveness to them. Let us pray. Father, we do thank you for this morning. We thank you that you are a loving God, that you are merciful And as we sang earlier, your mercy is more. Let us embrace it, let us understand it, let us receive it, and let us show it to others. Let us offer forgiveness to a world that is desperately in need to be forgiven, to be set free, to know that you restore, that you create newness, and that you forgive. Lord, we ask this in Jesus' name, amen.