Matthew 6:12; Forgiveness

INTRODUCTION

Turn with me in your Bible to Matthew 6. We’re continuing our teaching series on the The Disciples Prayer where Jesus teaches us HOW to pray. v. 9 taught us who we pray to. v.10 showed us God’s kingdom establish, v.11 from last week showed us how often we need the Lord. Tonight, we look at v. 12 - which is the easiest thing to ask but the hardest to give.

Opening Illustration: The Group Project

Think about the last time you had a group project at school. You know how it works — everybody’s supposed to do their part. Now imagine this: you completely dropped the ball. You didn’t do your research, you didn’t finish your slides, you didn’t show up for practice. By all rights, you should’ve failed the class. But your group comes in clutch — they cover for you, they finish what you didn’t do, and when it’s time to present, you get the grade that they earned.”

“That’s a tiny glimpse of what Jesus is talking about in Matthew 6:12. Spiritually, we’re the ones who didn’t do the work — we failed the project. But Jesus steps in, covers what we couldn’t, and we get His grade. That’s forgiveness: He takes our failure and gives us His record.

If you have your Bibles - place them above your head! This is our way of demonstrating our heart posture to submit to God’s Word in our life - Word up!

Let’s turn in our Bibles and read Matthew 6:5-15 together.

As we unpack verse 12, what I think could be the hardest part of the Christian faith to live out- here is what I hope you see… The Purpose of Forgiveness is show the true and transformative power of the gospel through you. this means to live out your faith in a biblically way you must learn to forgive those who do wrong against you in the way and as a demonstration of God’s forgiveness of your sin.

CS Lewis says it this way ..

“As we remember the sins of others wrought [brought] against us we can, at the same time see those same sins in our own lives. We expect forgiveness for those, so too we must grant forgiveness for those.”

Here are 3 truths I want us to see tonight from verse 12.

The Weight of our Sin Debt.

The Work of God’s Deliverance

The Way of Demonstrating God’s Forgiveness

The Weight of our Sin Debt

The first truth that I’d like us to see that the reality of the weight of our sin debt.

Illustration: Lifting Weights my 7th grade - I remember my 7th grade year in starting real sports. I played football and it was the offseason where we all we do was strength training. This was the first time I had ever lifted weighs in my life. I lay down with my friend Enrique spotting me - I was extremely skinney then - the only thing I was lifting was the bar and I struggled to get the bar up - IT WAS JUST TOO MUCH!!!

When the jewish Christian audience would have heard this they would have thought the same. To have a debt would could be ruin for a family because of a punishment called Debt Imprisonment where if you owed a debt then you would either be jailed or sold as a indebted slave until you could pay off your debt. We see this in Matthew 18:23–25 that sats “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 ten thousand talents. [1 talent was equivalent to 20 years worth of work in Jesus time and this man owed 10,000 talents which would be 73,000,000 years to pay off] And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made.” The point here is not about the money but the fact that there was no way that any could pay that debt.

This is why Jesus uses this picture to show us the reality of the weight of our sin. We have a sin debt that we can’t pay.

Here is what the Bible says about our sin debt that we owe to Christ.

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

Isaiah 59:2 “but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.”

Ezekiel 18:4 “… the soul who sins shall die.”

Psalm 38:4 “For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me.”

These verse teach us that the weight of your sin is on you without Christ.

Jesus teaches us to pray “forgive us our debts”… this is the prayer of confession because the godly Christians know their need for forgiveness. Notice that there isn’t a period from verse 11 to verse 12. This means that these two verses are meant to be read together. The purpose is that in the same way that our bodies need bread for food our soul needs forgiveness for life.

One pastor says “there are two types of forgiveness that God extends. Judicial and parental” before we are Christians God extends Judicial forgiveness in that you become a Christian. Before you you surrender your life to Christ you are under judgment for God but when you submit and surrender your life and ways to Christ you are extended forgiveness for all sin.

Parental forgiveness is only extended to those who’ve trusted in Christ and come to God for daily forgiveness of sin like a child would when they have done wrong.

Judicial forgiveness is about salvation. Parental forgiveness is about fellowship. Only those who can pray “Our Father” can be pray “forgive us our debts”

The message here is that should be praying daily to the Lord - forgive me of my sin.

The point - The weight of our sin is too much to carry for any person and your sin will rest on those who reject the hands of Christ.

The Work of God’s Deliverance in Forgiveness

The second truth that’s important we notice the Work of God’s deliverance. [Illustration] Years ago my mother, who as a teacher shared with me about how teachers keep a record of each student and it follows them as they progress to each grade. This means that what I did in the 4th grade would be on my school record int eh 9th grade. The teacher could and would place my grades, extra-curricular, activities, and even my behavior issues - which I had a lot.

This meant that my record preceded me and the teacher knew who I was - not just in name - but in what I had done before the first day of school. This was wild because I was NEVER the best and most behaved student in the classroom.

When Jesus teaches us to pray “forgive us our debts” this was in mind - that we have a spiritual record that must be clean before we enter heaven and before we can have peace with God. The good news is that God doesn’t leave us with the record that we have earned by our life but he offers and takes care of it himself of clearing the record.

This is the work of God - the complete doing away of and removing of sin. Jesus doesn’t just take away your guilt and shame and sin but he removes it from your record and gives you his perfect and clean record.

The work of God is that you are not just forgiven once but you will be continually forgiven when you continue to sin and run back to God after you have sin.

When you’ve promised God to not look at that screen, or say that word, or think that thought - the promise of God for his people is that forgiveness and grace for sin is at the ready for his people.

Consider the Apostle Peter himself - one of the most devout and faithful Christians in our faith. We see how God handles his sin of denying that he was a follower of Christ. In John 18 Peter denies Jesus 3 times but in John 21 we see how God uses what Peter did for the kingdom. Let’s read in John 21:15–17 “When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Remember in He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.”

Remember how Peter denies Jesus 3 times. Here, Jesus questions and Peter affirms his love for Christ the same amount of times that he denied him. Take notice, though, of the response of Jesus - it was not condemnation or rejection but Jesus employed Peter each time with a mission to go share what Christ has done and this type of forgiveness that has jsut been shown would certainly be a part of that message.

What am I trying to say? Jesus delights and is ready to take away guilt and shame, not just once, but daily when we come to him.

Here is the point - our deepest spiritual need of forgiveness has been met in Jesus Christ.

The Way of Demonstrating God’s Forgiveness

The third truth that we see in one of the most important aspects of the Christian faith. It’s the truth that Forgiven people forgive people. Those that have been set free from sin though the forgiveness that only Jesus Christ can offer demonstrates their faith by forgiving people who have wronged them - why - it’s because they know God has forgiven them of their wrongs and one of THE major ways that we live out our faith is through allowing God to transform our lives and work through us.

This is the impactful part of the our Christian faith - knowing what God has done for us and allowing Jesus to work THROUGH us.

James 2:18 says “Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”

Ephesians 2:10 says “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

The work that God does in you is expected and should propel you to do the same for others. One Christian poet says it this way…

He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass if he would ever reach heaven; for everyone has need to be forgiven.

George Herbert (Poet)

Here’s what this means for you - there are likely countless examples in your life right now where someone has said something, done something, took something to you that would cause you to be hurt and tempted to not forgive.

Remember in verse 10 where Jesus teaches us to live out “your kingdom…your will”? This is one of those ways that God’s Kingdom will be established is through you demonstrating that you have been forgiven by forgiving them.

Here is what I’m NOT saying - I am not sayuing that when you forgive that you need ot go back and be their best friend but forgiveness is doing the same thing Jesus did with your sin - He no longer holds over you, he no longer places it on your spiritual record or account but God places it on the cross where it will be nailed forever and never to come back down agains you. In the same way, when you forgive someone you no longer hold it over them and as far as you’re concerned their record is clean.

Forgiveness is not forgetting but it’s remembering how you came to God with a dirty, dark, and rebellious heart against God but that God cleaned your slate and gave you new life.

I want to end an close here - the most faithful way that you can follow the Lord is not in how much you pray, how often you read the Bible, but in how quickly you are to obey and follow Christ.

CONCLUSION:

Tonight there are two response i see here.

1 - You need to ask for forgiveness and surrender your life to Jesus tonight

2 - You need to reach out to that person and either ask for forgiveness or reach out to and extend forgiveness.

As we close there are next step areas in the back of the room where you find prayer and take your next step. Some need to follow the Lor din baptism. You may hvae thoght about a few months ago and tonight you’re ready to make that next step in following Jesus real.

The worse thing we can do is know God moving us in a direction and we dont follow. Let’s pray.