Sermon Tone Analysis

REFLECTION TEXT:

I THOUGHT WE WERE FORGIVEN!

If I stand forgiven in Christ, why is Jesus telling to ask for forgiveness daily?

We’ll answer that this morning before we go.

Forgiveness is such a monumental experience to think through.

Just as we need daily bread to live - Forgiveness is indispensable to the life and and health of our soul!

The whole verse is in 2 parts this morning…Our forgiveness AND our FORGIVING

PATHWAY:

I’d like to touch on this dirty / four-letter word: DEBT

We’ll think through the thought, “I thought we were forgiven…why do I need to ask for forgiveness?”

Then we’ll look at the evidence of our forgiveness.

Forgive Us Our Debts?

I think we all know we need forgiveness when we “blow it”.

When you slip up and say something incredibly hurtful and mean-spirited.

If you consciously lie.

When you are meditating on things (rolling them over and over in your mind) that you know are wrong.

When you lash out, blow it…etc.

But what do we make of this sense of “debt” that Jesus uses?

Of all the descriptions the Bible gives to sin:

lawbreaking

deviation

shortcoming

rebellion

pollution (dirt)

missing one’s traget

ONLY the Lord’s Model Prayer views it is that of “unpaid debts”.

Jesus’ thought is that we owe God total, tireless loyalty—zealous love for God and men, all day and every day, on the pattern of Jesus’ own life and ministry—and our sin is basically failure to pay.

BIG PICTURE: SALVATION BRINGS FORGIVENESS

We all need forgiveness to begin a right relationship with God!

- We Need Forgiveness.

We all have rebelled against God.

We are guilty; without plea; with no means of reparation or satisfaction.

This is true of all men and women.

We have all sinned.

We are sinners by birth and by choice.

We are all condemned; and without forgiveness, we all must perish.

- Only God Can Forgive.

He is the lawgiver.

It is His authority we have rejected.

We are Rebels to Him.

Enemies to Him.

Only He dispenses life or death.

Human forgiveness would avail nothing.

- God Provides for the Forgiveness of Sin.

But God appointed His only Son as a sacrifice for sin.

God Punished sin to the utmost, when He laid our sins upon Him (Isa.

53:6).

Jesus took our sin and died, that we might have a full remission/pardon of them:

The Holy Spirit begins to do a work ON your “heart” showing you as guilty and in need of forgiveness.

Your salvation both transacts and manifests by repentance toward God, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ:

- God WILL Forgive.

God is ready to forgive sin, however deep the stains—however enormous—however aggravated—however long-continued.

He is ready to forgive all sin, and every sinner .

He is ready now to forgive.

NOW!

Seek the Lord while He may be found…call upon Him while He is near...before sin proves our ruin.

RUN TO JESUS!

The Christian lives through forgiveness.

This is what justification by faith is all about.

ARE YOU AMONG THE “US”?

HAVE YOU BEEN FORGIVEN?

BIG PICTURE: CHRISTIANS STILL NEED FORGIVENESS

REMEMBER, THE “US” here is…us, the church of the Living God!

After we’ve asked the Lord:

to make His name holy through us

to establish His Kingdom

accomplish His will

provide for our needs, not our greeds, as the ultimate provider and Father

we need to fact the fact that (as one writer puts it) “our feet are dirty.

As long as we have unconfessed sins in our lives, we will lose the fulness of joy and intimacy in our communion with God.”

Judge / Father

FORGIVEN OR NOT?

A problem arises here.

If Christ’s death atoned for all sins, past, present, and future (as it did), and if God’s verdict justifying the believer (“I accept you as righteous for Jesus’ sake”) is eternally valid (as it is), why need the Christian mention his daily sins to God at all?

(Stott contends) The answer lies in distinguishing between God as Judge and as Father, and between being a justified sinner and an adopted son.

The Lord’s Prayer is the family prayer, in which God’s adopted children address their Father, and though their daily failures do not overthrow their justification, things will not be right between them and their Father till they have said, “Sorry” and asked him to overlook the ways they have let him down.

What’s the big deal?

From one standpoint, Christians’ shortcomings offend most of all just because we have most reason (the love of God in Christ) and most resources (the indwelling Holy Spirit) for avoiding sinful ways

A Continual Need

A Continual Answer

Unless Christians come to God each time as returning prodigals, their prayer will be as unreal as was that of the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable.

ARE YOU HARDENED / ISOLATED…That’s not Bible!

John Stott says, “One of the surest antidotes to this process of moral hardening is the disciplined practice of uncovering our sins of thought and outlook, as well as word and deed, and the repentant forsaking of them” (Confess Your Sins [Waco, Texas: Word, 1974], 19).

BUT NOW - let us come to where the rubber meets the road.

Where the word becomes flesh…that is, where FORGIVEN morphs into FORGIVING...

BIG PICTURE: FORGIVEN CHRISTIANS FORGIVE OTHERS

Notice this incredible epilogue to the Lord’s Prayer:

Apart from the wonky word tenses in the English - it’s still quite a startling text/challenge.

This is not in relation to our personal salvation - then we’d be talking about works.

Rather, this is proper fellowship between the child and his Father.

Since we are forgiven, we forgive!

If we are struggling to forgive, we are threatening our intimacy with our Father

If we are actively, consciously resisting forgiving others; our soul may be in jeopardy.

This is not a matter of earning forgiveness by works, but of qualifying for it by repentance

The word here for forgive (in both places) is the word to “HURL AWAY”

UNFORGIVING CHRISTIANS BRAND THEMSELVES AS HYPOCRITES OF THE HIGHEST AND MOST VULGAR ORDER!

Look at the incredible illustration from our Lord, Himself in Matthew 18.21-35.

Matthew 6:15 captures the essence of this parable and its meaning for believers: “If you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.”

The sin of an unforgiving heart and a bitter spirit (Heb.

12:15) forfeits blessing and invites chastening.

Every believer must, by the help of the Holy Spirit, endeavor to forgive like Joseph in the OT: