You know, we've been studying through the Lord's Prayer in Matthew, chapter 6, verses 9 through 13. What we know is the Lord's Prayer, but there's so much more than just words to recite. If you look back at Matthew 6, 7, 8, before Jesus even taught this model of praying, he said not to use meanings of repetition when you pray. This means on one hand, don't just say words without heart. Behind them there's that's meaningless.

But on the other hand, it's the trust that you put in yourself that if I say this over and over again, somehow I'm going to twist God's arm and make him hear me. What Jesus is saying is that you are not heard for repetitiously stammering. You are heard because God already knows what it is that you need, what a great proceeding disposition to have that before you pray, before you say the first word. God already knows what you need, how much greater to get in alignment with what it is that he wills and desires and how that will can affect my life. Colossians 2, verse 6 says, Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him.

As we have received him, and as his desire and intent is that we would walk in him, then we ought to want to pray the way that he has modeled. And the next part of this verse that we're going to study today deals with the very thing that keeps us separated from God. It's this thing that we don't pay a lot of attention to. We don't even really use the word very much because even in our culture we've given it so many different variations and definitions, but it's something that's always there rearing its ugly head. It's the very thing that God told cain in Genesis 4 that's crouching at the door.

It's the problem of sin. It's our greatest problem, the greatest problem in humanity. Paul wrote in Romans 5:12. Therefore justice through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin. And so death spread to all men.

Because why? Because all have sinned. Recently. George Barda, who now leads at the Cultural Research center at Arizona Christian University on September 24 released a study entitled Millions of American Christians Deny Their Sinfulness. Here's what he discovered from the study.

He found that 84% of people, all adults, agree that sin is such a thing. The remaining percentage that would deny sin exists would be those who either deny the existence or the nobility of God, or some of those that are in a more liberal camp or thinking. But listen to this. 72% of those who said sin exists describe sin as disobedience to God. However, and shockingly to me, 52% contends that sin cannot be absolutely determined.

In other words, of those adults, 52% said that sin is not absolute because truth is not absolute in their mind. When you pull this down, 66% of professing Christians claim that everyone has sinned. Only 66% of professing Christians. Which means that the other third claim that not everyone has sinned. That's a problem.

That's a big problem, because here's the most shocking truth that really is glaring at us, and it's something we need to address. 70% of adults said that sin is real, but people are basically good at heart. Of those claiming Protestant faith, 66% said sin is real and that people are basically good. If I'm basically good, if I'm okay, I just kind of mess up every once in a while, then I don't really have a problem, do I? If I slip up every once in a while, it's okay, but I don't owe anything for that.

And therein lies the problem. We read in Scripture, which is the source of truth. There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks for God. All have turned aside.

Together they have become useless. There is no one who does good. Not even one scripture already begins to bear out this truth that we we are sinners. Romans 3:23. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Ephesians 2:1. And you were dead in your trespasses and sin. Even going back to Solomon's dedication of the temple in First Kings 8:46, he said, when they the people sin against you, and in parentheses says, for there is no man who does not sin. How can we pray for forgive my sin? How can I say that in the Lord's Prayer?

If, for one, I don't believe sin exists, or that I don't believe that there's a concrete determination of that sin, or that I don't believe that every human being is a sinner, then why pray that part? We so tritely pray, forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. We forget that sin is more than just doing something right or wrong. But we miss the mark. Every human being misses the mark.

We miss the mark of God's righteousness. And his standard sin is more than getting caught. It comes with a price. Romans 6:23, and even going back to Genesis 3:19, the curse, the price the payment required for sin is death. And that seems harsh, but it's true.

Sin is more than just being good comparative to other people. It's a matter of life or death. There is a debt owed for the sin that I commit, and sin is more than my fallible perception or how I feel about something. It must be concrete and consistent, because Jesus Christ, the very word of God, is the one who determines what is right and what is good. And you and I, we're guilty.

And as a result, we are in debt. Not in borrowing money like we're making some kind of deal, but in the sense that we owe a fine, we owe a penalty. When we are forgiven of sin, we have been released from the debt that we owe. It's more than saying, I'm sorry. It's more than trying to give a gift back to make somebody feel better.

When we sin, we owe a debt. And in Christ, if we have received him, his blood has paid the price for my sin. What do we owe? We owe death. The wages of sin is death.

Hebrews 9:27. Inasmuch as it is appointed to men once to die, and after this comes the judgment. Revelation 20 reveals that death and Hades will someday be thrown into the lake of fire and calls this the second death. If anyone's name is not found written in the Book of Life, the Lamb's Book of Life, a believer in Christ, he will be thrown into the lake of fire. There is a debt.

We are indebted and we are not forgiven until my debt is removed. And the only way it can be removed is, is to put my faith and trust in Christ that He can forgive me this debt. It's not a price you can pay. It's a cost that you can't negotiate. It's a reality that you can't ignore.

It's a blemish you can't cover. It's a loan you'll never pay back. It's a problem that will not go away with time. Someone had to pay your debt, and his name is Jesus. First Peter 1, 18:19 says, Knowing that you have not been redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold, very expensive things from your futile way of life, inherited from your forefathers.

Because we are human, we have inherited the sin nature. It's been bought with the precious blood as of a lamb, unblemished and spotless. The blood of Jesus. We have been redeemed. He's bought us back.

The Son of Man came to give his life a ransom for many. First Timothy 2:5,6, that this Christ Jesus, he gave himself as a ransom for all. Revelation 5:9. When speaking of Jesus, the Lamb says, for you were slain and you purchased for God with your blood. Men from every tribe, tongue, people and nation, we sin.

We are sinners. But when I am forgiven, I am fully forgiven. Listen, look at me. When Jesus forgives my sin, he doesn't forgive part of my sin. He forgives me of my debt.

But wait a minute. As a Christian, do we still sin? Yes. But now the difference. Now it's different.

Because Jesus sits at the right hand of God, because he has forgiven me, I can be connected with God. I can then confess my sins and claim that same blood to cleanse me, cleanse me of the unrighteousness that I have committed. This tells us that if we are truly praying the Lord's Prayer with intent and heart, then I am asking God deal with my sin, the very thing that separates me from him. But here's the caveat. It also demands that I do the same for others.

It also demands that I do the same for. For others. Because when we say, our Father, who is in heaven, hallowed be your name, we start praying with praise, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. As we continue to pray, we shift to submission and we say, give us this day our daily bread. As we pray, we're declaring our trust.

We do these three things, and then we come to these last two petitions of the prayer, and they both deal with us, our sin and. And our temptation to sin. And it teaches us to forgive, ask to forgive our debts, the very thing I owe for my sin, as we also have forgiven our debtors. There's two sides to this verse. There is the part of reflection where we look at ourselves and realize that even in our Christianity, the only reason I'm a Christian is because my debt has been forgiven.

The reason, the only way I stay connected to the Father is that my sins are continually being forgiven and I must stay in a state of confession so I can stay right with the Lord, the other side of that coin, which is the hardest probably to. Probably for us to realize.

If I have been forgiven, God is calling me to forgive others. We confess our sins and we're quick to forgive other people in our life. Comparing our righteousness to somebody else just to feel better about ourselves, that I'm a little bit better than my neighbor or the person I work with that does not deal with my sin debt, calling out the sins of other people and putting them on social media. Or gossiping to my neighbor, which is a sin. All of those things.

We. We do that to make ourselves feel better about our sin, but it does not deal with the debt that I owe. Isaiah 59:2 says, but your iniquities have separated you from you and your God. Your sins have been hidden from his faith so that he will not hear you. Does that mean God doesn't physically hear.

No, he hears you. But until I come clean about my sin and repent of my sin, getting in the same mindset that God has about my sin, when, which is he hates it. When I begin to hate my sin and I see the ugliness of the cross and what it cost Jesus to pay my sin debt, then it leads me to a place of thankfulness and appreciation. And how better to show that appreciation than to forgive those who have sinned against me? As you pray, ask God to forgive you of your debt and take time to deeply reflect about where you are.

Lord, forgive us of our debts. So let me give you some prayer points that will help us as we are praying and learning from the Lord's Prayer, like how we can take this and use it. Here's the first one. Underneath this idea of God, forgive our debts. When you pray, pray evaluating yourself.

Pray evaluating yourself. Psalm 139, 23, 24 reads this. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my anxious thoughts, and listen to this phrase and see if there be any hurtful way in me. The King James reads wicked way and the ESV reads idolatrous tendency.

Both of those are saying, God, sometimes I don't even know the depth of my sin. I need you to help me see what sin is in my life. Sins of commission, the things I really did intend to do. And sins of omission, things that I should have done, but I didn't do. But even at that.

I mean, Peter even said, for it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God. Just because I'm a Christian does not mean that I don't need to evaluate myself. But when we pray, evaluate ourself. Use Psalm 51 as a model. The whole psalm is great, but I want you to listen to verse three through four.

For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Like if I'm thinking about that, I realize God, I know there are sins I'm not even realizing, but I don't want to hold them anymore. My sin is ever before me. I can overlook it, I can ignore it. I can try to Step around it, but it stays ever in front of me until you, God, take it from me.

Against you and you alone have I sinned. I'm really coming to the point, Lord, I'm dealing with this sin between you and me. What I've done to offend you, and I've done what is evil in your sight so that you are justified when you speak. You know what that means? That means, God, I'm giving you the sole place of judging by sin, going against what our culture believes.

66% of professing Christians saying that people are good people. They are quick to forget that. Even Isaiah said that our righteousness is as filthy rags. No, I'm not going around saying, maybe I'm horrible and despicable, but I can't say I'm good. Even Jesus said, why do you call me good?

There's only one who is good. When I'm not really evaluating myself based upon Scripture, James 4:17, the one who knows to do the right thing and does not do it to him is sin. If I do not come before the Lord as a helpless, indebted sinner, then how can I pray, Lord, forgive me of my debts? So what I do is I begin with what Henry Blackaby calls a sin inventory. When God reveals a sin, he said, you must repent.

But if, number one, my attitude is, well, I don't really have a lot of sin, I can't really define what sin is, then I've already lost from the beginning. I come to the Lord broken and open. I say, lord, you're the one who determines what a sin is and isn't. And Lord, I know that I can't even imagine how many sins I can't even recognize. Lord, I'm coming to you to evaluate myself.

But then I shift to the next part. When I pray, I need to recall Jesus sacrifice. See, what this does is it produces in us thankfulness. If I really, instead of being self deprecating, instead of being self loathing, I look at how despicable I am and say, this is really bad, Lord, you took this from me. You paid my debt.

You paid what I owe, which is my death. It's like when we were kids. This makes no sense to me that if, if I got in trouble, if I did something I shouldn't have done. And then my brother came in and said, you know what? I'm going to take his spanking for him.

It's kind of the same thing. One, it doesn't make sense. But two, he didn't do the problem or the wrong I did, I should be the one to pay for that. But for someone to step in my place and pay for it, that's exactly what Jesus did. We're not forgiven because I covered up with good stuff.

We're not forgiven because I pray some eloquent prayer. I'm forgiven because Jesus died on the cross. If I began to make forgiveness and secure forgiveness about what I've done, I've missed the mark. I've missed it totally. I'm forgiven because Jesus died on the cross.

First Peter 2:24 says, he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. First John 1:7 says, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sins. So what do I do? I must stand in that forgiveness. I can choose to wallow in muck and self condemnation.

I can sit here and make everybody think I'm the worst person on the face of this planet. Or I can get up quickly and stand on the rock of Christ. I don't want to make that sound cliche. I mean it like, get up out of the mud and stand on something firm. Be quick to go back to stand in forgiveness.

Or I can sit there and just say, well, you know, I know God forgave me, but. No, there is no but. He forgave you or he didn't forgive you, and the only reason he forgives you is because Jesus died on the cross. So recall his sacrifice. But then confess your sin.

It's a lost practice. Confess the things that you know you've done wrong. Confess the things that you know you should have done. Confess that you know that you don't know the things that you've done. Dallas Willard says it like this on confession.

We must accept the fact that unconfessed sin is a special kind of burden or obstruction. In the psychology as well as the physical reality of a believer's life, the discipline of confession and absolution removes the burden. I can sit there and keep holding the weight and say, well, you know, I'm just so horrible. Or I can say, lord, I've sinned. Here it is.

First John 1:9 says that we confess our sins. It's this call to confess our sins. And what's beautiful is he says, if we confess our sins in that verse, he's faithful and righteous. Stop right there. It's based upon his character that before we appeal to the promise, we look at his character.

He's faithful to us and he's truthful, righteous to us to Forgive our sin and cleanse us from unrighteousness. He cleanses us. Like, because I'm cleansed, now I can come into his presence. Because I'm cleansed, now I can approach him. And it's all because of what Jesus has done for me.

And it's not that he forgets it. Yes, we know that the Scripture says that it's cast as far as the east is from the west. That just means that the debt I owe is no longer there. The debt is ripped up, it's thrown away, it's burned, and it's no longer to my charge. Or Micah 7:19 that it says he will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.

As Corey ten Boone once said that it's thrown into the depths and God put a no fishing sign. Don't dig it up. If you're still dwelling under the shame and guilt of your sin, it's not because of Christ, it's because of you. Romans 8:1 says, Therefore there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. If I'm in Christ Jesus, the weight, the burden, the shame and the guilt of my sin has been removed.

I'm the one holding onto it, not Jesus. So the fourth thing I pray is I pray God, align my, realign my heart. Let my heart be in alignment with you. Hebrews 10:22 says this. Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure blood.

See, here's what I do. In that moment, I declare absolute confidence. I've evaluated myself. I've recalled what Jesus did to pay my debt. I've confessed my sins.

Now I get my heart right. I say, lord, it's clean, it's clear. Like, take all of the garbage out. You've promised to give me a new heart. And because you've given me a new heart, like David prayed in Psalm 51, create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit in me.

When that steadfast spirit is renewed, then I can back up into the Lord's Prayer. And being and hallowing God's name, praising his name is different. Asking God's kingdom to come is different. Asking God that his will be done in my life is different because my heart has been cleansed. Now let me ask you a question.

If you see your condition, you see the solution, you confess and release your sins to him. Your debt is clear and your heart is clean. That's where you're standing, Lord, forgive my Debts, if that's what you've done. Now let me ask a question. So how then can I justify harboring bitterness and unforgiveness toward my brother, my sister, my neighbor, or anyone else and still embrace what Jesus has done for me?

What this does is it causes us to recall another passage in Matthew in chapter 18, verse 21 through 35, where Jesus tells a parable of a man who owed a debt, a great, great debt, and he's forgiven of it. I mean, he would never pay it back. It's an exorbitant amount of money. But to show that his heart wasn't in the right place, he's unwilling to forgive another servant that owed him just a little bit of money, something that was very, very easy to pay back. But Jesus tells this story because Peter asks him, how often shall I forgive my brother if he sins against me?

Up to seven times. I mean, he had a formula in his mind. He says, no, I tell you, not up to seven times, but 70 times seven. See, the problem with Peter asking this question is it's a revelation of our hearts that if I come to Christ who has forgiven all of my sin, and I say to him, hey, where's the line here? Like, if this table represented a box and all of this box contained this, the sins committed against me, and I have the permission to take two pieces of paper or cardboard and divide it into another little box and say, well, these sins right here, they're justified, that I can harbor them.

These out here, I can forgive those. So, like, I might forgive somebody who throws trash in my yard, but I'm not going to forgive that bully that picked on me in high school. Like they're just two different things. I'm just gonna harbor that. I'm gonna hold onto that.

You see, what we do is no different in the world. We determine what is wrong, when it's wrong, where it's wrong. Because I'm really at the core, self righteous. Like, I have set myself up as the judge of sin. This is why the world today does not believe that there is a concrete definition for what is and is not a sin.

Because if I make it concrete, I. I'm not the judge of that. I take from God, I rob from God the ability to judge what is and is not a sin. And a lot of us don't even realize that. This is exactly Satan's strategy to divide people. In Second Corinthians, chapter 2, Paul addresses this when he's calling them to forgive a sinning brother.

And he says, this but the one to whom you forgive anything, I forgive also. Like, think about that. He's saying, look, I trust that if you say I forgive you, I forgive it too. But if I have forgiven anything, listen to what he says. I did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ.

Okay? So what he's doing is saying, I'm being committed and faithful to what Christ has commanded me to do. Guess what? You need to do the same. Where did he get that?

He got it right here. He got it right here. Forgive our debts as we also that also in that verse in Matthew chapter 6:12 is emphasizing also connected to that I have chosen in that moment of time to forgive the debt of my offender. And it's in simple past tense. As we're going to look at Luke's parallel passage in just a minute, like, not only does that mean if my brother comes to me and offends me, I must choose right then out of obedience to Christ, I will forgive this.

But Luke makes it present tense in the sense that I need to have the attitude of ongoing intentionality to forgive my brother. I loved this quote from RT France as he's observing this question that Peter asks about how often should I forgive? And he goes back to a story again of Cain and Abel. The escalation from 7 to 77 reflects the boast of Lamech in Genesis 4:24 quote, if Cain is avenged sevenfold, this Lamech was the descendant of Cain. He said, if Cain is avenged sevenfold, surely lamech is avenged 77fold.

He says this is reminiscent of Cain, giving added points to the conception of a concept of forgiving a brother. The disciple us must be as extravagant and forgiving as Lamech was in taking vengeance. It's a nod. It's looking back that if he's saying that it would be avenged 77 fold. Jesus, even one translation says 7 times 70, which is 490.

We must be extravagant, sometimes illogical in forgiving others. If we can be forgiven of all and in all, then Christ will provide us a way that we as well can forgive all of all. You see here's. But let me hear you. I want you to hear me say what I'm not saying.

I'm not saying that forgiveness means you go out and let an abuser or a thief keep taking from you. That's not what I'm saying. When someone breaks laws in this country, they should face justice. Period. Period.

Now I would pray then mercy that they might see the hand of God and bring them to a place of faith and repentance. But what it's not saying is that you should just let those abusers come right back into your room. I'll say this again at the end of this message, that you set an appropriate boundary with your abuser, with your enemy, and reconciliation does not mean that you have to let that person come back into your living room. You set a loving boundary. Not just a loving boundary toward them, but a loving boundary towards yourself so that you will not be harmed again.

So this is what we pray as we have forgiven our debtors. We must. As we see, if you look in Matthew back up to 5:23 through 24, we see a situation where someone realizes they've offended somebody else, even to the point that they may be drugged to court. So he says, go and make it right. And so here's why that's important.

If I'm not willing to go, you know what? I'm wrong, I need to go make it right. That then when somebody comes to me and says, hey, I've wronged you, how can I make it right? Normally, I won't let them do that. I want to hold on.

That bitterness and that unforgiveness somehow gives me a little bit of power. But when I practice reconciliation and restoration, then when somebody comes and asks me of it, I'm more likely to give it. And then in Matthew 5:43,44, Jesus really messes things up when he flips it over and says, you need to love your enemies. Pray for them. That if somebody takes your coat, give them your cloak.

If he says he, if they ask you to go one mile, give them two. If they slap you on one cheek, turn the other. Like he's saying, flip this upside down, flip it upside down. He takes away the right of revenge. And the reason he does that is because it's God's right for judgment and therefore justice.

We don't want revenge, we want justice. Then you go to Matthew 18:15, when you study what we usually refer to as church discipline. There's this whole idea that you're confronting somebody about sin, not offense. Offense is about emotions. Sin is about truth, that you're going and confronting them about their sin to draw them to repentance.

See, who knows that by a change of heart in you we just prayed, said, get your heart in alignment with God that it may even impact your enemy. James 5:20, as he's closing, his letter says, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death. And cover a multitude of sin. So how could we then pray this we have forgiven our debtors? Well, I think we pray, God help me to forgive my debtors, because sometimes I don't want to.

Sometimes there are things in my box of sin that I go, this really hurt. This really stunk. Lord, this affected my life. How can I let this go? How can I free them of the debt?

Listen to what Jesus spoke in Luke 11:4. Most likely could have been at the same time, but he says it this way and forgive our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. Luke's account of this teaching of prayer admits that sin comes with a price and that indebts people to us. So we must, in praying, God, forgive me, be willing to forgive others. So when we pray, when we pray, we need to consider others.

Matthew 5:44 But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Matthew just wrote those words before he wrote the Lord's Prayer. So what we do is, I think we need to make a list. I think when we're praying at the end of the day, specifically look back at your day and say, you know what?

So and so did this. And that really hurt. So and so did this. But make the conscious decision before you lay your head down at night. God, give me the grace and the strength to forgive, or at least choose to forgive.

Now, depending on the depth of the offense, it may take some time for. For your heart and your head to get in alignment. But in this step, when you pray, consider others. We're quick to pray for our family. Sometimes we'll pray for our friends and our neighbors.

But to pray for my enemies. How many of you have incorporated in your daily praying? If this is the model, Jesus taught us to pray for our enemies. But the problem is that when I named them and I named the offense, it brings up pain. Yes, it.

It makes you sad. Yeah, it can cause you stress and cause you to relive it. So when you do, here's another thing you do when you pray, lament your loss. Lament your loss. In other words, you don't want to rob or deny yourself of the process of these emotions playing out emotions like, for example, with grief.

Grief lays out before us the emotions we feel when we have a loss. Well, when someone hurts you, when someone robs you, that's grief. And so you say to the Lord, God, it hurts that so and so lied to me or talked bad about me, or they abused me in some way. God, I'm Wounded. Be honest with God, because he knows that.

But here's the difference. Move from grief and emotion to lament. Here's the difference. Lament then moves you to this place where you say, my hope is blank. God, I was abused.

My hope is healing.

Lord, my child has hurt me deeply. I want to forgive them and see that relationship restored. My hope is restoration. You know, what he does is it just makes it straightforward and raw. When you look at Lamentations 3, 59, listen to what it says.

Oh, Lord, you have seen my oppression. Judge my case. When you look at similar verses to this in the Book of Psalms, the psalmist never says, lord, judge my enemy first. He says, judge me and judge my case. A lot of times in our situations, we're just as guilty as the offending party.

Somebody says something about us, we say something back. Somebody gets snippy with us, we get snippy back. It's usually eye for eye, tooth for tooth, that Jesus addressed in Matthew 5. What we're doing and what Jesus did when he came is he flipped it upside down and said, you know what? God's the judge.

Let God deal with judgment. I'm wanting you to deal in the gospel because here's the truth. If you choose not to, if you don't lament your losses, biblically speaking, then what it does is it affects you. Psychologist Shawn Grover, a secular psychologist, gave five consequences to holding a grudge. Number one, you'll be spiteful.

You begin to wish suffering on other people. Number two, you become resentful. You believe you will benefit by exacting revenge, bringing pain for pain. You become revenge seeking. You begin to ruminate, and you begin to have fantasies about how you can hurt somebody else.

You become arrogant. And the problem with the arrogance is then you begin to think yourself perfect and everyone else needs to be punished for what they're doing wrong. And then it can lead to to pessimism. You begin to harbor resentment against many people, which warps your personality. Here's what else that it do.

You'll begin to project that onto somebody else. The person who suffers in unforgiveness is always you. When you say, well, here's my box, I got this little box inside my box. I can't forgive this. You suffer for it.

So what do we do when we pray? We need to release others. We need to release others. Let me give you hope in this moment. Romans 12:19 21 says, Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God.

What does that mean when I take revenge on Myself, I actually rob God of the opportunity to do it in a right and a true way. But he goes on to say, you know what? I'll repay Him. But what you need to do is feed him and give him drink. He flips it upside down.

But in showing that kindness, who knows what that will do in eternity. But here's the second reason. If you take your own revenge, you will be overcome with the very evil that you're trying to address and get rid of. Pray releasing others. And when you do choose forgiveness, don't try to sidestep it.

Don't try to justify it. I can tell you that you will find a way inside your box to, to justify every one of those little bitty horrible sins that somebody did against you. But when you forgive and you choose to release them of that debt, it is a freeing opportunity to see God's grace in such a different light. Matthew 6, 14, 15 this is the commentary, the only thing Jesus comments on in the Lord's prayers right here. For if you forgive others of their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you.

But if you don't forgive others, then your Heavenly Father will not forgive your transgressions. Is that a cause and effect? Not necessarily. It's a state of if it's possible that you don't do this, then he will not. This is a case of the future.

You don't have to Let the future be that. When I choose to embrace the finished work of Christ in my own life, I will find a freedom to be able to give to others in such a beautiful way and release them of their debt. You've heard people say before, if I win the lottery, I'd love to see how I could give that money away. Forgiveness is the greatest treasure that we have. It's the solution to the very problem we have and why we don't have life.

I'm saved because my sins are forgiven. And I have eternal life because my death has been paid by Christ. And so I will live forever. That's the essence of the Gospel. What greater gift can we give away?

Thomas Constable says, our horizontal relationships with other people must be correct before our vertical relationship with God can be. So if you're struggling right now in your relationship with God, it could be for some time you have been harboring unforgiveness towards someone in your life. Or maybe even because of that, you have caused intense pain in other people's lives. Here's what I know. If you practice unforgiveness at the minimal, especially people who are close to you.

Relationally, it's emotional manipulation, and in some cases it could even be emotional abuse that you would choose to hover that if your child says, I'm sorry, forgive me, you need to be quick to forgive. If your brother or your sister says, I'm sorry, please forgive me, be quick to forgive. If your spouse says, I am sorry, please forgive me, be quick to forgive. I don't read anywhere where Jesus said, hey, I need to go. Think about this before I forgive you.

And if that's his attitude, then let's do the same. Jesus said on the cross, on the very cross In Luke chapter 23, he looked down at the ones who crucified him. And probably, if you extrapolate that, the ones who called for his crucifixion and said, father, forgive them, they don't know what they're doing. So we pray, seeking restoration. Like because if I choose to not forgive somebody, my life is really going to be a wreck.

I want my life restored, so I choose to forgive out of obedience. But honestly, it might be the very thing that it takes for you to be restored to somebody else in a relational sense. Matthew 5:23 24 Again, this is the reverse. To love your enemy. Romans 12:18 reads, if possible, as far as it depends on you to be at peace with all men.

So in that I don't seek revenge against my enemy, that right is taken from us. No one, no Christian, has the right to revenge and vindication. It does not exist.

And if you need the reason, then get a picture of Jesus hanging on the cross and shedding blood for the sins that he did not commit. So we see this explicitly. Let me give you a few of these. Mark 11:25 when you stand praying, forgive. He didn't say, when you stand, pray and pray.

He said, when you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father in heaven will also forgive you. Your ability to embrace forgiveness is directly connected to how you understand the forgiveness you have in Jesus. Ephesians 4:32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as Christ did has forgiven you. Colossians 3:13 bearing with one another and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone again qualifies it the same way. Just as the Lord forgave each other you, why can't we be quick to forgive?

I love this statement by John Stott. He said, once our eyes have been opened to the enormity of our offenses against God, the injuries which others have done to us, and that they Appear sometimes extremely trifling. But if, on the other hand, we have an exaggerated view of the offense of others, follow what I'm saying there. That we look at other people are like they're really, really bad. It proves that I'm trying to minimize my own.

Here's what this is challenging me to do. Father, forgive my debts. As I also forgive the debts of others. I'm evaluating myself soberly considering the cost it took to forgive my debt. I'm open and honest about confessing those to get my heart in alignment with God so that I can change the way I see my myself, and then I can change the way I see others.

I pray confessionally seeking God Honestly, you can't skip this verse without getting honest with the Lord. So today some of you need to hear that in Jesus Christ, all of your sins are forgiven because all of your debt has been paid. Having that confidence makes a difference in how you stand in Christ and follow Christ. No condemnation. At the same time, standing in that no condemnation.

There is no offense or debt that God cannot help you to forgive. It gives you confidence that Christ is at work in you and changing you. When we're quick to forgive, we model the very gospel that when somebody comes to faith and repentance, Christ immediately takes them in and forgives them and they will more likely trust you. And if they trust you, then when they look to Christ, they see the benevolence of our great King. So I have asked Kevin Hurt, our pastor of discipleship, to come and share some advice about forgiving others and some promises that we can extend that will help us to be liberating in our ability to forgive.

Because if we're going to pray for God to forgive our sins in Christ, then we also must pray for God to give me the ability to forgive others. We cannot redeem others. We can't. Only Jesus can be redemptive. Only Jesus can pay the debt.

We just get to give that away because of what he's done in our lives. So listen to some great perspective on forgiving others.

Hey, you know, as we think about this matter of forgiving someone that we've heard about this morning, to be honest with you, that's probably got to be one of the hardest things in life. And what makes it even more challenging is when you hear you're to forgive, even like God has forgiven you. I mean, the Bible says forgive one another just like God and Christ has forgiven you. And really, when we think about that, we really kind of struggle, I think, because we often don't Think the way forgiveness really looks like in real life. In other words, we are told to forgive.

We know we should forgive, but we really kind of have no clue how we're doing it. So when I think about forgiving someone, and forgiving someone, even like God has forgiven me, I really need to ask myself this question. So how has God forgiven me? Well, what he has done is more like given us a promise. In the Old Testament.

He tells us, I promise you that I will remember your sins no more. And you might be thinking, well, does that mean I'm gonna stop thinking about the wrong that someone has done, never remember it again? And the answer is no, that's not at all what that means. What Jesus is saying to us, what the promise is in the Old Testament, is telling us that when God remembers our sin no more, he remembers them no longer against us or over us. He doesn't hold them over us.

He surely knows everything we've ever done. He doesn't get spiritual amnesia and forget what we've done, but he chooses and he promises that he will never remember them against us ever again. So when I think about really forgiving, like God has forgiven me and I'm going to forgive someone, I like to think of it in terms of a promise I'm making that person. In fact, I think there are three promises. When I tell that person I forgive you and I will no longer remember it against you or hold it over you, there are three things that really practically means one, it means I promise I'm not gonna bring it up to hold it over you.

I'm not gonna bring it up to tear you down again about it. That's the first thing it means the second, the second promise I'm gonna make to you is I promise that I'm not gonna bring it up to others to talk about you and to tear you down and tell them what you have done. And the third promise that I make, which is the hardest promise of all, is I promise you I'm not gonna bring it up to dwell on it in my mind and hold it over you. You see, we could really do those first two things pretty easily. Say, I'm not gonna bring it up to you and hold it over you.

I'm not, not going to talk to other people about what you have done. But when we don't bring it up to ourselves and we don't dwell on it in our own mind, that's where the real difficulty becomes. And the only way I can do those three things is to think long and often and Hard about how God has promised me the same thing. Kevin, I've forgiven you all your sin. I'm not going to hold it over you.

I. I'm not gonna bring it up and talk about it. I'm not gonna really dwell on what you have done. What I'm gonna remember is I promise you that I will forgive you. I will no longer remember it against you anymore. So maybe even though we're not in the room together today, you've heard God's word, you've heard what it's been telling us to do about forgiveness.

Maybe, Maybe right there where you're sitting is a time where you're gonna make that decision to absolutely commit, to follow that promise, to forgive others even as you have been forgiven. Is that going to be hard? Well, in your own strength, it's going to be impossible. But the God who forgave you is the God who will give you that same grace to forgive others just like he has forgiven you. So my prayer is that you'll let him have his way in your heart right there, and you'll begin to live out in real life that promise to no longer bring it up, to hold it over someone, no longer bring it up to tell others about it, to tear that person down.

And then when it comes to your mind, to remember how God has forgiven you, and you're not going to bring it up and dwell on it in your own heart and mind, if you do that, I think you'll find some incredible freedom and joy in your life when you forgive, even as God has forgiven you.

So today, if you've tuned in and you've listened to us and you're sitting here going, you know, I just. I've got a lot to process. That's a good thing. Well, that's a good thing. This should make us think and it should make us evaluate.

If you'd like to talk more about that, please feel free to email me at jamiebc email or call our church office at 706-886-9300. And we would love to set up a time to talk more about this because here's the caveat again that I want to give you. You can choose to forgive somebody and not let them back in your living room. A loving boundary sets the boundary so that you love your enemy, but you protect yourself. That's a hard tension to manage, but it's a necessary un.