The Need of Humanity (Matthew 6:11-12, 14-15)
Sermon on the Mount • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Sermon
Sermon
Key Passage
Key Passage
“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.
And 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 other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
“When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.
But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face,
so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Introduction
Introduction
Today, we are going to highlight four verses out of the Lord’s Prayer.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
We are covering some massive ground in this sermon. I want you to know that there is no way that I will be able to communicate everything that is connected to these topics.
We will look at the following topics:
Our dependence on God
Our confession before God
Our forgiveness given to others
In this portion of the Lord’s prayer we drive down into some incredibly practical issues in our lives.
As we have covered everything in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is driving us to a place of understanding that our hearts are the core of what needs to be changed within us.
He is not giving us laws and commands. He is revealing His heart.
His heart as God to His created beings who bear His image.
His heart as God to a people He knows and loves.
Rather than looking at the following verses as rules and law, look at the following verses as a manual for how we were created.
These are descriptions of what who we were created to be!
Let’s dive into this passage.
Preaching
Preaching
Give us today our daily bread.
Prayer displays our Dependence on God
Prayer displays our Dependence on God
To introduce this idea, I want to dive into the depth of these six words.
At face value, we would look at this and maybe quip, “If we are ever in a place where we don’t have any food in the cupboards, then we can know that God will give us food.
I believe this passage points us to a deeper truth about ourselves and the nature of God.
As we have done quite a few times through this series, I want to go back to Genesis 1 and look at God’s creation.
In the beginning, God created the Heaven’s and the earth
This is followed by the account of God’s creation of everything we know to exist.
We have built on this understanding by using other parts of Scripture to understand who we are.
I want you to know that we are discussing things that philosophers have searched in creation for answers to.
We look at the word of God and there is a simplicity to these questions: Who am I? What am I created for? What is my purpose?
I hope you find the answers to these questions in every communication of the Gospel that we present. These are not hard questions. They are simple questions when we look at the nature of God and who we are.
For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.
He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it;
for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters.
Everything is created by God and for God and it is all His.
Now when we look at us as human beings, He created us in His image. But He also created us in ways that are unique from His image.
He did not create us to be little gods. He created us separate from God. Unique. We carry His image and some of His qualities, but He also did not create us to be:
Omniscient
Omnipresent
Self-sufficiency
Other qualities of God.
This difference between humanity is very clear, but God took the time to highlight this attribute of Himself and humanity in Exodus 16.
We can see that the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness.
In the wilderness, there wasn’t much food.
Picture of the Sinai Region
If you can imagine in a place like this, there isn’t much food. Especially for an entire nation of people. Also, not much water.
God knew this need and every morning He would provide them bread on the ground outside of their tents.
They were commanded to pick up enough bread for that whole day.
If they tried to pick up bread for two days, it would rot.
Why were the Israelites hungry?
The initial answer is that there was no food around.
But the deeper answer here is that God had created them to be hungry.
God created us not self-sufficient like Him
We need food and water to survive as human beings.
He created food and water, then created human beings to need food and water.
In fact, God explained why He allowed the Israelites to go into the wilderness where there was no food.
He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
God humbled the nation, so they would learn the lesson that even the most basic physical need was in God’s hands to sustain them.
God taught them that they had a hunger and that He was the solution to that hunger.
Now this idea seems strange in our culture because it is likely that none of us woke up this morning saying, “I hope I have enough bread for today.”
Here is the lesson we need to learn from this text:
Prayer becomes our guard. Asking for our daily bread protects us from thinking that we can sustain ourselves.
One of the reasons I think we are so flippant about prayer in our world is that we begin to believe that we can provide for our own selves.
We believe that we can sustain our lives on our own.
We believe this because we have the things in our cupboards, freezer, savings accounts, and water faucet to prove it.
This is not a Biblical way of looking at these things. Remember? The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.
The fact we have these things stored up and available for us is evidence of God’s providing, not ours.
God’s blessing of abundance will either drive us to our throne in prideful arrogance, or to our knees in gratitude.
This is where the Israelites were, which is why they wandered in the wilderness. They were blessed with poverty, because in poverty they learned humility and dependence on God.
He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
Prayer is our reminder that all we have, whether much or little comes from Him and is His.
Prayer delivers us from self sustaining Christianity. It teaches us and reminds us that the earth is the Lords and everything in it.
Prayer displays our dependence on God.
Prayer displays our Dependence on God
Prayer reveals our need for confession to God
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
In this passage, we will look at the topic of “debts” before God.
In the next point, we will look at the debts owed to us from the world around us.
First of all, I want to address the word “debt” here
Typically, when we see the word “debt” we think of financial debt. Something has happened that causes one person to owe another person money.
When we ask God to forgive our “debts”, is this because we owe Him money?
No, but I’m not going to say that you shouldn’t put money in the offering box or at reallifeselkirk.com
Our need for daily bread
Our need for relationship with God
Our need for relationship with one another.
As we process through this prayer in light of the rest of what we know about God through salvation, there is a salvation debt and a relational debt that we can accrue.
All debt is the result of sin.
Salvation debt— All have sinned and fallen short (debt) of the glory of God.
The first approach to the debt incurred by sin can only be paid through Jesus Christ and His sacrifice on the cross.
Jesus came...lived a perfect life...died for our sin… resurrected...
This verse is not saying that every time we pray, we need to get re-saved. That isn’t the nature of salvation, that isn’t the nature of God.
This idea is a spiritual reflection of the physical need that we just talked about.
God created us with a physical need for food and water. He created food and water. He is the source of our physical need.
God also created us with a spiritual need. This is a need that only He can fulfill within our lives.
This is the relationship that we were always intended to have through Him.
When we live a life of discipleship through the grace of Jesus Christ, I want you to know this.
Our sin is paid for at the cross of Jesus. His blood is enough. His love is sufficient. His mercy is new every morning.
However, as with every relationship, we must address the steps we walk as we follow Him.
Do we still have a sinful nature? Yes.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,
fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Sin will still tangle us up and we must relationally address it with God to grow.
Relational debt— Again, I would like to use the parallel of marriage here. I have told my wife, “I do” and she has said the same to me.
Our vows say, “for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health”
Do I still stick my foot in my mouth and mess up and break things relationally with my wife?
Yes.
Does it mean that we are no longer married? No. It means I’ve created a relational debt.
I could live a life of repentance with my wife and say, “I’ll just fix things and not make mistakes when I mess up.”
But relationally it is important to acknowledge where we have incurred relational debt for the sake of the relationship.
We have said this for a number of weeks: Sin breaks relationship.
I love what Deitrich Bonhoeffer says:
“He who is alone with his sin is utterly alone.”— Deitrich Bonhoeffer
Sin separates and relationally divides us from God.
Isolation is not spiritual maturity, it is spiritual death.
The confession of sin to God, and ultimately to one another brings shame upon us.
This is often the fear, I don’t want to be shamed. But Jesus bore the shame of sin at the cross. When we have sin in our lives, it is equally shameful, but this is what it means to bear our cross.
With shame comes humility, honesty, and the opportunity for growth in Christ
Confession shatters pride. I am not great, or even good. I am a helpless person in need of a savior.
This is what John means when he says this: 1 John 1:8-9
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
At creation, we were created in need of food and water. We were also created with the need for relationship.
Going to God in a prayer of humble confession acknowledges my relational need for Him and for His grace.
David models this for us in Psalm 51. He had sinned egregiously with Bathsheba and against her husband Uriah.
David knew that confession would destroy pride as he asked God for forgiveness of the relational debt that he had incurred.
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge.
We can see that humble confession leads to repentance
Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
Do you hear David’s heart? Do you hear the cry from within him of his need for relationship with God?
Do you hear him say, “Forgive me my debts”
Prayer displays our Dependence on God
Prayer reveals our need for confession to God
Prayer orients our hearts to forgive others
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
First off, I want you to see the language that Jesus is using here.
Do you see the tense of this sentence?
It was written with the two verbs intended to be in different tenses.
We ask God to forgive our sin—present tense
We ask God to forgive our sin in the same manner that we have forgiven others.
If you think that is a mis-interpretation of the text, Jesus ends the prayer with this massively clarifying statement:
For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Is forgiveness of others important to God?
Jesus doesn’t say, “Love me with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and try to love others. It’s optional, but a good idea.”
Jesus says, “If you know me and know my heart, you will forgive others how you have been forgiven.
This is why we say “Who you are in relationship is who you are in relationship.”
If I am unwilling to forgive others, then I don’t understand the forgiveness God has given me and vice versa.
I think forgiveness is spoken about in super passive and unclear terms in our world.
Jesus doesn’t play with it. He says, “You must forgive! This is my heart. If you are growing as my disciple, then you are growing of forgiveness in the world around you.”
We cannot segment our relationships with others from our relationship with God.
Earlier in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Love your enemies”
If the love of God is within us, then the forgiveness of God is within us.
Love is not an easy command.
You cannot love and you cannot forgive if you hold onto your own heart.
You cannot love and you cannot forgive if you decide to stay where you are.
You cannot love and you cannot forgive if Jesus is your religion.
Only when you follow Jesus will you be changed by Jesus.
The world will not only see the love of Jesus from you, it will also see the forgiveness of Jesus from you as well.
If we are in a position to forgive someone, then there is a relational debt between two people
Someone has done something to you
As we navigate this, I understand that we will be treading on some of the deepest hurts in each of our lives
These hurts that don’t just go away, instead these hurts have a way of defining us:
They define how we interact with others
They define who we interact with
They define what we feel about ourselves
They define what we feel about others
Because this topic is what it is, and it impacts every relationship we have, do you see why Jesus gives us direction here?
Now, I don’t have the time to walk through every “But my situation is different” circumstance in this room.
I believe we will come to the conclusion that this isn’t about your situation. It is about your heart as you deal with the pieces of your situation.
Our ability to understand forgiveness and actually forgive impacts our relationship with God.
If we cannot or will not forgive others, we do not understand a God who has forgiven us.
I want to walk through a few things about forgiveness.
When we bring this topic up, it is likely to bring with it a big ball of emotion and misunderstanding of forgiveness that prevents us from being obedient to Jesus.
FACTS ABOUT FORGIVENESS
It takes one to repent. It takes one to forgive. But it takes two to reconcile
Do they have to say “sorry” in order for me to forgive? No
If they do say sorry, do I have to forgive? No
Reconciliation happens with both parties, but forgiveness can happen in your heart without their involvement.
FACTS ABOUT FORGIVENESS
It takes one to repent. It takes one to forgive. But it takes two to reconcile.
Forgiveness is not a feeling
Forgiveness is not weakness
Forgiveness is not forgetting
Forgiveness is not a feeling
Forgiveness is not about the euphoria of, “Now I feel free!”
Forgiveness is often a matter of will in the heart. Much like when Paul instructs us to set our hearts and minds on Jesus. We may not want to in our circumstances or in that time, but it is what we are called to do.
Forgiveness is not weakness
It may feel like you are letting the other guy win.
The truth is that it takes a lot of strength to acknowledge pain and forgive it.
Forgiveness is not forgetting
We often hear, “Forgive and forget”
Jesus didn’t forgive and forget. He forgave and knows the cost of His forgiveness.
In the case of our lives, think about this: forgiveness is not amnesia. You still have your pain. Your pain is a reminder of what happened. So by continuing to remember, that doesn’t mean you haven’t forgiven. It means you are human and we have to live as a forgiver.
FACTS ABOUT FORGIVENESS
Forgiveness is not pretending that nothing happened.
Forgiveness is not condoning or excusing a wrong
Forgiveness is not reconciliation
Forgiveness is not based on the other person’s actions
Forgiveness is not pretending that nothing happened.
It isn’t erasing the whiteboard
Forgiveness is not condoning or excusing a wrong
It doesn’t minimize what happened
We can forgive and still say that what happened was wrong
Forgiveness is not reconciliation
As we said before, a fear we often bring into this topic is that now we have to go back to being the friends we were before.
Forgiveness takes one person. Reconciliation takes two. That leads to the next point:
Forgiveness is not based on the other person’s actions
They may not be remorseful. They may not even know anything is wrong.
FACTS ABOUT FORGIVENESS
Forgiveness is not conditional
Forgiveness does not remove consequences
Forgiveness does not change the other persons behavior
Forgiveness does not restore trust
Forgiveness is not conditional
If you do this, then I will forgive
Forgiveness does not remove consequences
For both parties
It does not mean that they do not have to pay for their actions in some other means
It does not mean that you no longer feel the pain or consequences of their act.
Forgiveness does not change the other persons behavior
It does not promise that they will change. Forgiveness is not a manipulation tool used on others.
I often see this when people go to the person who hurt them and say, “I forgive you”
There may be a time and place for this. You can still, must still forgive, even if they don’t know about it. Forgiveness is (we’ll get to this in a moment) between you and God and it is about them.
Forgiveness does not restore trust
This is similar to the relationship idea. Just because you forgive them, does not mean that they can be trusted.
FACTS ABOUT FORGIVENESS
Forgiveness does not take away your pain
Forgiveness is rarely a one-time, climactic, Hallmark movie event.
So now that we have seen everything that forgiveness is not, what is it?
In order to understand forgiveness, we must understand the cross.
We live in a world that was created to be holy. It was by Christ and for Christ
Sin broke relationship with God and relationship with the world.
But as we said when we opened this sermon up, what is sin?
Sin is any act that is contrary to the holiness of God.
All sin is purely and completely against God.
Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge.
David is saying this on the heels of sleeping with his friend’s wife, then having his friend killed to cover it up.
It seems like a pretty rotten thing to say that he had not sinned against his friend or his friend’s wife.
But listen to what David is saying.
Sin is something that is done contrary to the Holiness of God.
The world around us suffers the consequence of sin.
When we recognize the truth about sin. We discover that what has been done to me and what I have done to others was done in rebellion to God’s created order and His holiness.
It is not my holiness that was sinned against. I am unholy, just like you.
So who has the just right to judge and declare a verdict?
God does. It is His creation, His justice, His holiness that are in question. I am the hurt party, but it is God’s nature that was violated.
Forgiveness is:
Trusting God’s judgment, and not my own
Recognizing that I am a sinner against God as well as the person who harmed me
Understanding that the wages of their sin AND my sin is death
Embracing the Gospel in forgiveness
Trusting God’s judgment, and not my own
God is right when He judges. When I determine the guilt of another, I may be right or wrong. But that does not matter. It is God’s judgement that matters.
Recognizing that I am a sinner against God as well as the person who harmed me
Their sin that impacted me is the same sin that I commit that impacts others
Understanding that the wages of their sin AND my sin is death
Their sin and my sin are both payable by death
We often use grudges, anger, hatred, and malicious words as the wages of other people’s sin.
But the actual wages of sin is death.
It may seem harsh, but their only hope for the commitment of their sin that impacted you is Jesus Christ.
Embracing the Gospel in forgiveness
The Gospel is the only hope for mankind.
It boils down to two kinds of love and I believe we struggle in understanding this in forgiveness.
Agape- Love based on identity
Phileo- Love based on action
And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
This is the word, “Agape”.
It is choosing to trust God in His judgment. If I choose not to forgive, then I am choosing to act as God in my life and in theirs.
Judgment is mine.
If we continue to act as if all we are called to be is Phileo love in the church, then we have every right to hold grudges.
But Jesus calls us to Agape love.
In this, we can love and still hurt.
In this, we can love and still protect.
In this, we can embrace the Gospel and leave the righteous judgment to God and still celebrate the forgiveness of God.
Phileo may never be restored based on what was done.
But we cannot abandon the Agape love God demands because of the broken Phileo love that we experience.
God calls us to a higher love as we follow Him.
Conclusion
Conclusion
God is a relational God.
We are not God. He created us for needs, then created the solution for those needs. We ought to seek Him for His solution to our need, whether physical or relational.
Gospel Message
Jesus came...
We must Know God, Surrender to God, Obey God and follow Him.
Real Life in Action:
Head- Where have I recognized my need for God today?
Heart- Ask God to reveal any pride that prevents obedience.
Hands- Clearly confess your sin to God and repent
Faith without works is dead.
