Our Need to Forgiven & Be Forgiven

a) Last week we looked at Matt. 6:9-15 & unpacked what forgiveness is & what forgiveness is not. I trust & pray that was helpful for many of you. However, there were 2 questions I received based on the verses we looked at last week. The 1stquestion I heard based on what we saw in v12 was this:

b) If God has forgiven us of all our sin (past, present & future), why do we as Christians still need to ask Him for forgiveness? The 2nd question I heard based on v14-15 was this: do these verses teach that if I as a Christian fail to forgive someone – then I can lose my salvation?

c) So today, I want to return to Mt. 6:9-15 & address those 2 questions b/c I think they are important. I’ve titled today’s sermon: Our Need to Forgive & Be Forgiven. Read & Pray.

Here’s our 1st question based on v12: Why do we as Christians still need to ask for forgiveness?

a) When Jesus taught His disciples to pray, He started w/ God’s name & glory. “hallowed be your name.” It’s a prayer for God’s name & His person to be treated as holy. To be reverenced. Then Jesus taught His disciples to pray for God’s kingdom to come & His will to be done.

b) We then see a prayer for God to provide: “Give us this day our daily bread.” Then v12 says: “forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Jesus said when you pray remember how you’ve sinned against God: failing to honor Him, to live for His kingdom & follow His will.

c) And then ask God to forgive you as you’ve forgiven those who’ve sinned against you. As I said last week, that’s a bold prayer. We are asking God to deal w/ us as we deal w/ other people. Then in v13, Jesus told His disciples to pray for God’s protection:

d) “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Jesus declared we need God’s provision & protection. Now most Christians pray daily for God’s protection & for their needs to be met. We sense our need for protection & provision. But v12 says we also have a daily need to be forgiven.

e) And that leads to our 1st question: hasn’t God already forgiven us of our sin? Hasn’t our debt been paid in full? Why would we need to keep asking God to forgive us? Didn’t Jesus declare: “It is finished.” So why does Jesus instruct His disciples here to pray: “forgive us our debts.”

f) 1st, notice how the prayer begins: “Our Father in heaven.” The prayer assumes the person praying has a living & personal relationship w/ God as their Father. For Jesus, God as His Father was a fundamental relational reality for Him. And this outraged the Jewish leaders. It was blasphemy.

g) But astoundingly, Jesus, the “only Son from the Father”, tells His disciples to relate to & to call upon God as ourFather. We are asking our Father to forgive us our debts. And why? 1st, b/c sin is an ongoing reality even for Christians. Whether we acknowledge it or know it, we see sin daily.

h) When you become a Christian, you don’t all of a sudden stop sinning. Sin is the problem & forgiveness is the solution. And forgiveness is made available to us by God through the person & work of His Son. Through His life, death & resurrection. But there are 2 aspects of forgiveness.

i) The 1st aspect of forgiveness is judicial.

j) This is the full, complete forgiveness granted by God as our Judge for our sin. It’s the full & complete forgiveness given by God to those in Christ for our past, present & future sin. In Christ, we are justified. We are declared by God to be eternally forgiven & righteous.

k) That’s what happens when you are saved. That’s what happens when you put your faith in Jesus as your Lord & Savior. Your sins are taken away. You are given the very righteousness of Christ. God, in His courtroom, drops His gavel & declares you righteous & accepted in Christ.

l) He declares you reconciled. He declares you to be a child & fellow heir w/ Christ. That’s why Rom. 8 asks: “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? Who is to condemn? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” In Christ, God has taken away, covered & blotted out our sin.

m) It is finished. So why should we as Christians pray: “Forgive us our debts”? The answer lies in the 2nd aspect of forgiveness. It’s what we might call relational forgiveness. In Christ, we no longer just relate to God as our Judge, but as a child to a loving, generous, heavenly Father.

n) United to Christ by faith, we have been justified. As Rom. 5:1 says: “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace w/ God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” But when we sin as the children of God, something happens in our relationship w/ God.

o) The relationship doesn’t end, but it is impacted. See, if my children sin against me, our relationship doesn’t end. They are still my children & I am still their father. But there could be a loss of intimacy & closeness in our relationship until they come & say: “Dad, I’m sorry. Forgive me.”

p) This 2nd aspect of forgiveness deals w/ the joy & intimacy we have in our relationship w/ God as our Father. We pray forgive us our debts to restore that relationship. Think about what David prays in Ps. 51:8, “Let me hear joy & gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice.”

q) He prays in Ps. 51:12, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation.” See, judicial forgiveness takes care of our salvation. Relational forgiveness involves the relationship our salvation creates. If I as a Christian walk in unconfessed & unrepentant sin, God may seem distant.

r) The joy of the fullness of my relationship w/ God as my Father may be impacted. Being judicially forgiven puts me in fellowship w/ God. Relational forgiveness brings me back into the fullness of that fellowship. God’s punishment & wrath for our sin was completely absorbed by Christ.

s) He became a curse for us. He bore our sin. But God may still be angry, displeased & grieved when a beloved child is walking in sin. Not in a condemning, but in a disciplinary sense. Heb. 12:5-6 says the Lord disciplines the 1 He loves. God hates sin. And not just b/c it dishonors Him.

t) He also hates sin b/c it harms us & others. Even though God is displeased when we sin, in Christ, He never looks on us w/ contempt. He’s for us & not against us. It’s b/c we have been justified that 1 Jn 1:8-9 says: “If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves & the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful & just to forgive us our sins & cleanse us from all unrighteousness”

u) We’ve been washed by the blood of Christ. We’ve received judicial forgiveness.

v) That doesn’t have to be done again. But relational forgiveness is ongoing. What’s true in our horizontal relationships w/ 1 another is true in our vertical relationship w/ God as our Father. Of course, God doesn’t sin & never needs to be forgiven.

w) But if we call upon Him as our Father, we must come before Him confessing our sins & asking for forgiveness. Why? B/c He is our Father in heaven. B/c He is a good, good Father/ B/c we know He will not disown us or put us out of His family. We did nothing to earn this relationship.

x) And we can do nothing to un-earn this relationship. But sin disrupts our communion w/ Him. In Christ, it sin can no longer damn or condemn us. Our debt’s been canceled. Our curse has been lifted. God’s wrath has been removed. But that doesn’t mean sin doesn’t impact our relationship.

y) And that’s why we run to Him & ask for forgiveness. Not b/c we need to be justified all over again, but b/c we have made a mess of the most important person & relationship in our lives.

z) Dr. MLJ said: “Who is the man who can pray, Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors? He is the man who already has the right to say Our Father. And the only man who has a right to say Our Father is the 1 who is in Christ. In Him, we enter into a relationship of a child to the Father. And the moment we realize we’ve grieved Him & sinned against Him, we ask Him to forgive us.”

Here’s the 2nd question: If I’m a Christian who doesn’t forgive someone, will I lose my salvation?

a) After giving His disciples the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus returned to forgiveness in v14-15. He said: “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.”

b) Jesus’ words may sound like God won’t forgive us until we forgive others. But is that what Jesus is saying? To understand v14-15 we must 1st remember that our salvation always has been & always will be by grace alone through faith alone in the person & work of Christ alone.

c) Anything + the gospel is not the gospel. Now remember, this prayer was given to Jesus’ disciples. It was a model prayer given to & to be prayed by believers who call upon God as our Father. If we say unforgiveness can cause us to lose our salvation, then we must say it’s the unpardonable sin.

d) Rather, a refusal to forgive others indicates someone knows nothing of God’s forgiveness. If we hold fast to an unforgiving spirit, we will not be forgiven by God & we won’t enter God’s Kingdom b/c it’s the dwelling place of forgiven people who forgive as they have been forgiven.

e) In Matt. 18 Peter asked Jesus: "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me & I forgive him? Up to 7x?"Jesus answered: "I do not say to you, up to 7x, but up to 77x."Then Jesus told the parable of the unforgiving servant. A king forgave 1 of his servants who owed a $6B debt.

f) But right after that, that same servant went out from the king & found a fellow servant who owed him a much smaller debt: say it was $100. But that servant refused his fellow servant’s pleas for mercy & for his debt to be forgiven & threw him in prison. When the king heard about it, he said:

g) "You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt...should you not also have had mercy on your fellow servant, even as I had mercy on you?"  Jesus said the king handed the wicked servant over to the jailers until his entire debt was repaid. In other words, he wasn’t getting out of jail.

h) Jesus was alluding to him being eternally punished b/c he was wicked. Then Jesus said in v35: “so also my heavenly Father also will do to every 1 of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” The point of Mt. 6:14-15 & this parable is God’s people won’t have an unforgiving spirit.

i) An unforgiving person shows they haven’t truly trusted Christ. An unforgiving person shows they haven’t truly come to know & experience God’s amazing grace & forgiveness. If we have, we will forgive as we’ve been forgiven. We will treat others as we’ve been treated.

j) Having a forgiving attitude is more than just an external standard we're called to in Christ. It’s the fruit of a life & heart that's been changed by the forgiveness we have in Christ. Dr. MLJ said this:

k) “the man who has seen himself as a guilty, vile sinner before God knows his only hope of heaven is that God has forgiven him freely. And the man who truly knows & believes this will not refuse to forgive another. The man who does not forgive does not know forgiveness. Therefore, I say to any man who is imagining his sins are forgiven by Christ & does not forgive, beware my friend. Beware lest you wake up in eternity & hear: Depart from me I never knew you.”

l) We are to forgive we’ve been forgiven us. But this isn’t something we produce in our own will power. We do so by the supernatural work of the HS. We do so b/c we’ve been born again & made new. Jesus is saying if the forgiveness we’vereceived at the cost of His blood is so ineffective in our hearts that we won’t forgive others, we show we are not forgiven.

m) How can we hold a grudge against someone else when we haven’t been offended by them nearly as much as God has been offended by us & our sin. May God help us to run to him when we sin & ask for forgiveness & to forgive others as we have been forgiven.given.