In this sermon, Steve Hopkins emphasizes the importance of forgiveness as taught in the Lord's Prayer, specifically focusing on the fifth petition: 'Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.' Hopkins highlights that our primary relationship is with God, and through that relationship, we learn the importance of forgiving others as we have been forgiven for Christ's sake. He explains that sin is a debt to God that humanity cannot pay, but through Christ's sacrifice, this debt has been fully settled. The speaker references theologians like A.W. Pink and Matthew Henry to illustrate that without forgiveness, the blessings of life are meaningless. He stresses that forgiveness is both an act and a disposition that believers must extend to others, regardless of repentance from those who have wronged them. Furthermore, Hopkins discusses the distinction between forgiveness and reconciliation, noting that forgiveness requires only one party, while reconciliation requires both parties to engage. The sermon encourages believers to constantly renew their trust in God's mercy and to cultivate a forgiving nature towards others, reflecting the forgiveness they have received from God.

Before we stand for the reading of the Word of the Lord, Matthew 6, 9 through 11, I was also thinking this morning about how important, and I think it will really fit into the message today, how important it is for us to put time and effort into our relationships. And we just ask you everyone right now you know how are your relationships going? Relationship with your wife, relationship with your husband, relationship with your sons and daughters, sons and daughters, relationship with your parents, brothers and sisters, relationships with each other. How are those relationships going? And are you putting effort into them?

Because our first and primary relationship is our relationship with God. And Then if you're a husband or a wife, it's with your spouse and Then with your children and if your sons and daughters, it's with your parents it's with God first and then your parents and Then with your siblings and then with your friends and other folks or whatever in the church and God's people. So it's just so important that we spend time working on those relationships and praying about those relationships. But let's stand for the reading of the Word of the Lord. We'll read together Matthew chapter six verses nine and we'll go through verse 12.

After this manner therefore pray ye our Father which art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." Let's pray. Father as always God we ask that you would give the Spirit and empower, Lord, to work in the lives and the hearts of your people, oh God. We need you, Lord. We need a work of the omnipotent third person of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit, Lord, to open our understanding as we open your word and we pray this and ask this in Jesus name amen so let's be seated in the fifth petition of the Lord's prayer Jesus told us disciples when you pray we went through remember at the beginning of this year, three messages I think maybe on prayer. How many remember that?

Jesus didn't say if you pray, He said when you pray. And then He told us how to pray, right? Get alone with God. When you do this, this is just assumed. You're getting alone with God every day in prayer.

You're going to that place where you're alone with God and you shut your door. In other words, there's no one else there. And then you you pray to your Father who is in secret, and your father who sees in secret, the scripture says, Jesus said, will reward you openly. And how many remember me saying that if you have trouble in prayer, which we all do, it's the hardest thing, right, to really get that prayer life going. If You fall out of your bed, onto the floor, onto your knees every morning, and you go, I don't really know what to say.

Lord, I don't really know what to say. You know, so many times I just say this, I'm going to pray, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name." Father, I'm gonna pray that because Jesus said to, because Jesus said to. And then I just go through, when the words don't come, I just go through the Lord's Prayer and I pray after that manner. But the fifth petition of the Lord's Prayer, Jesus told us disciples, when you pray, pray, Father forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. A.W.

Pink, how many familiar with A.W. Pink? Okay, He said the fourth and fifth petitions of the Lord's Prayer should be especially linked in our minds. Think about this. For without pardon, that is without the pardon or forgiveness of sins, all the good things of this life will benefit us nada, nothing.

Pink uses this analogy of a prisoner who's sitting on death row in a prison, and he asks, what being fed and clothed, even with the best diet and the costliest apparel, is worth a man, quote, as long as he remains at the sentence of imminent death. Obviously none. Our sins constrict the channel of blessing as therefore, as often as we pray, give us. We should also pray, forgive us. Whenever we pray, oh God, oh God, please do this for my wife, please do this for my family, please do this for my sanctification, please do this for my children, oh God, hear my prayer for this person who's sick, hear my prayer for this person who's sick hear my prayer for this person who's suffering God hear our prayer My wife and I are prayer for our sons and for our daughters Oh God as we pray for them and we lift them up to you.

When we pray, oh God give us anything, we should also be praying forgive us. Forgive us. Forgive us. Humbling ourselves. If we trust God's providence to provide for our bodies, this is pink, should we not trust him for the salvation of our souls from the power and dominion of sin and from sin's dreadful wages." Matthew Henry comments in a similar manner when he says, Our daily bread Doth but fatten us as lambs for the slaughter if our sins be not pardoned.

Why don't we hear preaching like that today? I mean very rarely. Our daily bread only fatten us as lambs for the slaughter if our sins are not pardoned." Matthew Henry. Who doesn't love Matthew Henry? He might be run out on a rail in many churches today, talking in this type of way.

But he says, and so we pray, give us this day, our daily bread, and forgive us our debts. Now what about debts? We think, we tend to think of debts in terms of money only, don't we? Okay, when we incur debts they're typically financial in nature, and when we discharge those debts we typically satisfy our obligations in what? In dollars and cents.

In Luke chapter 11, however, when Luke records the Lord's Prayer, he uses the word sins instead of debt and forgive us our sins. And what we need to understand is that for every person ever born sin is a debt. Sin is a debt. It is a debt. Sin is a debt owed to God by every man.

The penalty of it. Every one of us was conceived in sin. Not that our parents were engaged in sin, we were brought in through the act of sin, but but that through conception we came into the world with a sin nature we came into the world sinners and we sin because we are sinners and Every one of us has been accumulating sin debt since the day we were born. Everybody knows that, right? Every person who's ever come into the world comes into the world under obligation to God, to their Creator, to worship Him, to obey him, but no one does.

Every one of us has failed to fulfill his or her obligation to our creator. The psalmist said we come into the world speaking lies. We begin to act according to the nature that is within us. We have a sin nature and we act according to that sin nature. We all come into the world rebels.

We all come into the world under obligation to reverence God, to worship Him, to love Him, and not a one of us has fulfilled our obligation. How many understand that? We haven't fulfilled our obligation. In our study of Romans chapter 1 years ago, we saw the Apostle Paul making it crystal clear that everyone knows God from the created order that's all about them. How many guys that preach on the street with us and hand out Bibles on the street with us You've heard that message preached over and over again, right?

I've heard Nate preach the message you've heard me preach preach this message. No one has an excuse for not reverencing God everyone knows cognitively of the of the one true and living God by the created order that's all about them and the internal witness of the conscience that he has given them within them. No one has an excuse for not reverencing God, for not loving God, for not obeying God, and for not worshiping God because God has revealed himself sufficiently to all men through the things that he has made even his eternal power in Godhead. The scripture says God has revealed himself so clearly to all people that all are without excuse. How many understand that?

Everyone is without excuse. To not fulfill the obligation to reverence the God men know is what? It's sin. To not fulfill the obligation to love and obey God, the true God that every man know by the created order about them is what? It's sin.

All men are obligated to reverence God, to love God, and to obey God, but no man ever born has fulfilled that obligation to God except God's Son, Jesus. And so the debt that we owe, that men owe, continually increases because all of sin, past tense, and all fall short, continually, that's ongoing, of the glory of God that is of God's perfect standard of righteousness. And justice demands payment in full. The justice of a just God demands payment in full. A note in my Reformation Heritage Bible says, quote, sin is a failure to fulfill our obligation to God, resulting in enormous debts to divine justice.

But just as sin is a failure to fulfill our obligation to God, resulting in enormous and I might add ever-increasing debts to divine justice, no man has the currency with which to pay it. No man has the currency with which to pay it. No man has the currency either within him or by his own efforts to satisfy his debt to divine justice or any part of it. Sin is a debt owed to God by every man that no man can pay. We're all debtors who are unable to pay.

Remember the analogy from Scripture. We're debtors who we don't have the ability to pay the debt that we owe. God demands Perfect obedience. He says, be holy even as I am holy, 1 Peter 1.16, and as law demands that we love him with the whole heart, a whole soul, strength and mind, Deuteronomy 6.5, but we aren't holy as he is holy. We don't love him with all our hearts and we continue to sin daily and our accounts are bulging with debt debts that we are utterly incapable of satisfying either in whole or in part Does that humble you it?

Humbles the Christian when we think about that. A debt we are unable to pay by our works. We can't pay it in full or in part. We're all guilty of sinning against God's holy nature and against His holy laws, and justice demands what? That we be punished.

What a blessing to the children of God is this petition. Look at this petition. The fifth petition of the Lord's Prayer is a prayer that looks to another, capital A. It looks to another. It looks outside of ourselves for what Martin Luther called an alien righteousness, a righteousness that is outside of us because there is no righteousness within us by which we may commend ourselves to God.

We can't stand before God on the day of judgment or we better not and say Lord I I I I did this I did that Jesus said many are gonna do that on the day of judgment and he's gonna look at them and say I never knew you I didn't have a relationship with you. No, how could finite creatures like us ever hope to satisfy our debt, our sin debt, to an infinitely holy God? We look to another, capital A, to pay in our place that great debt we are unable to pay the least part of. Praise God, from whom all blessings flow. The message of the gospel lifts the burden of guilt from the backs of God's people, burdened and wearied with sin, through the gospel.

For Christ, God incarnate, God in the flesh, the Son of God, come to earth and taking flesh has borne our sins and carried our sorrows and suffered the punishment we deserve in our place, paying that debt for his people on the cross in a matter of hours that we could not pay in an eternity of human suffering. Praise God! Praise God! Only one who is God and man could ever bear the load of our sins and satisfied to divide justice. We've sung it in our Trinity hymnals so many times, hymn 403, not what my hands have done can save my guilty soul amen not what my toiling flesh has borne can make my spirit whole not what I feel or do can give me peace with God Not all my prayers and sighs and tears can bear that awful load.

Thy grace alone, O God, to me can pardon speak. Thy power alone, O Son of God, can this sore bondage break. Thy work alone, O Christ can ease this weight of sin thy blood alone oh lamb of God can give me peace within amen it's all of him all of him solus Christus it's all of Christ and then in him 175 guilty vile and helpless we. How many remember this hymn? Spotless lamb of God was he.

Full atonement can it be. Hallelujah, what a Savior. Jesus, our substitute, made full satisfaction to the justice of God, paying the sin debt of His people in full at the cross that we could not pay. So we look at the text and it says, give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts Daily why daily? Why are we we told to pray?

And forgive us our debts Daily give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts. It's a daily thing because we sin daily. Jesus instructs his disciples to humble themselves daily before God, praying Father, forgive us our debts. True children of God are grieved by their daily sins and take them to God daily. When we pray and forgive us our debts, our trust, listen to this, our trust is daily renewed in the mercies of God who for Christ's sake in his once-for-all sacrifice cleanses us from all sin.

It's a daily renewal of our trust in the mercies of God. The life of the Christian is a life of repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Acts 20-21. Again, the life of the Christian is a life of repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ those who preach that repentance is a one-time event have no place in their prayer lives for the fifth petition of the Lord's Prayer. They throw it out the window.

And I would add many end up being weighed down with guilt. I grew up in churches that preached what they called rededication of life. And you know you walked out an aisle, you said the sinner's prayer, you got saved, and then when guilt was on your heart or mind or whatever, you would come down the aisle under conviction to rededicate your life. Things that are not seen in the pages of Scripture. You don't see these in the pages of Scripture.

Guilt would just continually grow because there was no understanding of a life of repentance and faith. Somehow down the line, the weekly communion of the Lord's table with its call to self-examination got replaced by these altar calls, these new inventions of man to act as kind of a relief valve for sin. Some of you didn't grow up in churches like that, I grew up in churches like that, okay. The fifth petition of the Lord's Prayer is a blessing to redeemed souls. Again, when we pray, forgive us our debts, our trust is daily renewed in the mercies of God who, for Christ's sake and His once-for-all sacrifice, cleanses us from all sin.

When God forgives us, He remembers our sins against us no more. Is that a wonderful thought? He remembers them against us no more. He hurls them away into the sea of forgetfulness. When sin is forgiven, it is, Matthew Henry writes, blotted out.

It's remembered no more. Our fellowship, praise God, with God that was broken in Adam was restored in Christ. Amen? When we pray, forgive us our debts, we're trusting that our infinite debts, which we are unable to pay to an infinitely holy and just God, including our daily failures, have been paid, satisfied in the full by Christ's infinitely acceptable atoning sacrifice on the cross of Calvary. When we pray, Father forgive us our debts, our hearts are renewed with the assurance that God does in fact and has in fact forgiven us all our trespasses.

Brothers and sisters, Christ settled the debts of his people at the cross by the sacrifice of himself once for all. And when he did, he said, it is finished. Sin debt paid in full to Telestai in the Greek No form no further payment can be nor ever will be extorted from any believer in Christ or required of us when we pray this we are praying Looking to Jesus in faith confessing our sins Trusting in God's promise that he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness first John 1 9 And we know that God is faithful to his covenant and he's faithful to his promises that he's given us to forgive us for Christ's sake. And we know that He's just to exact upon us no further charge for that which was already discharged by His Son on the cross has justified us in God's sight, declared us just in His sight, and no one can expect a further payment. Amen?

Now, second part. And even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us, likewise we need to forgive the debts owed to us by others. Are you holding anything against anyone today? Is there a grievance that you're holding against another person? Is there bitterness that's been stored up?

When you stand praying, Jesus said in Mark 11 25, when you stand praying, forgive if you have ought against any. If you have anything against anyone, forgive. That's what Jesus said. These are his words. When you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone.

Mark 11 25, that your father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses, which of course we understand being interpreted for the people of God whose sins are put away forever by the atoning sacrifice of Christ as chastening. You don't forgive others, well maybe we need some chastening in our own lives because God for Christ's sake forgave us everything and now we're going to hold something against someone else? How can we pray, Father forgive us if we're unwilling to forgive others. Husbands and wives, how can you hold something against each other? Brothers and sisters in the home, how can you hold things against each other or against your mother or your father?

Church members, forgive. Everyone forgive even as you have been freely forgiven, forgive. How can you hold on to a debt against your spouse knowing all that God has forgiven you? How could you? How could you hold something against your wife?

How could you hold something against your husband, knowing all that God has forgiven you purely for Christ's sake? How can you retain that debt? How could you live with unforgiveness in your heart toward your husband, your wife, your brother, your sister, your son, your daughter, your mother, your father? How could you go on living that way? Having this messed up kind of relationship because of your bitterness towards them and your unforgiveness toward that person.

One of the evidences that we have been forgiven is that we forgive. Those who have been forgiven are forgivers. Those who have never experienced the love and forgiveness of God don't really know how to forgive. They don't really know how to let go of it. They don't really know how to let go of it.

They don't really know how to forgive or let go of it. They can't let go of it. Can't let go of it. They've never experienced it many times for themselves. Colossians 3.12 says, put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved, vows of mercy, kindness, humility of mind, meekness and long-suffering, forbearing one another, forgiving one another.

If anyone has a quarrel against anyone you got something against anyone even as Christ Forgave you so also do ye plural Even as Christ forgave you so all of you do exactly the same John Gill's commentary on this passage back in the 1700s He writes of the elect of God there to continually be, quote, forbearing one another and forgiving one another all trespasses and offenses, so far as committed against themselves, and praying to God to forgive those trespasses and offenses as committed against him, as all sin is primarily an offense to God. If any man has a quarrel against any, Gill says, let his quarrel or complaint be what it will, ever so great or ever so just and ever so well-founded, yet let him put up with it and forgive it. Even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. What God has said to do for Christ's sake, says still John Gill, 300 and some odd years ago, what here Christ has said to do as mediator, he has procured the remission of sins by the shedding of his blood and as God he freely forgives our sins and fully forgetting the injuries done that is not remembering them against us and we should be the same not abrading he doesn't upbraid us with former offenses and that too with our without our asking without our asking Gil says and and before there's any appearance of repentance And so should the saints forgive one another as they expect to have an application and manifestation of forgiveness to themselves." Does everyone get that, what he's saying here?

Think about Christ's forgiveness of us before we even ask. This is believers. So should the saints before there's even any appearance of repentance. I mean, can you imagine a believer he drops into the fires of hell because, oh, you didn't repent of that last one right before you die, that car wreck. No, that's not the way God operates.

But he does bring us to repentance and will bring us to repentance. Our salvation, of course, is not based on our performance. Believers are forgiven all trespasses for Christ's sake and not on account of their performance in forgiving others. Our text is talking about the disposition of the heart of one coming before God in prayer, a disposition of forgiveness. And John Calvin comments here on this passage, if we're not harder than iron, this exhortation ought to soften us and render us disposed to forgive offenses.

Again, Gil, if while a man's praying it comes to his mind, this person committed this trespass against me. They did this injury to me, and I have a just reason to complain about it. But instead of complaining of it before God and calling upon him, God, to avenge his cause, he should immediately in his heart and from his heart forgive him. Listen to this, even though the person who has committed the trespass is not present to acknowledge his sin and ask his pardon. This points at a temper and a disposition of mind.

Well pleasing to God close quote. So brothers and sisters forgiveness is not only a transaction It's not only an act granted when someone repents of an offense and they've committed against you. It's also a disposition of the heart towards others before God. This is my disposition towards God, towards you before God, who has forgiven all my sins for Jesus' sake. Question, does someone who has sinned against me have to repent before I can extend forgiveness?

Not according to this passage. The word forgive means to to hurl away. Am I obligated to wait on someone to repent before I can hurl away their offense? From what I can tell from Scripture, forgiveness is already in the heart of the godly toward their, the one who's standing against them, before the offender even desires it many times. And I think many people confuse forgiveness with reconciliation.

Forgiveness requires only one party, reconciliation requires two. Everyone understand that? Forgiveness only requires one party. I can forgive someone and still not be reconciled with them because they haven't done what they need to do. But I can be have a disposition of forgiveness towards them before God.

Towards them before God. You can forgive someone Even if they don't want to be forgiven. Even if they don't think they need to be forgiven. Even if they don't think they need to be forgiven. Stephen said, remember, as he's being stoned, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.

As they were crushing him with rocks. That's a heart of forgiveness. His heart's desire was that God might not impute the sin to them, that God might not charge the sin that they were in the very process of committing against him to their accounts even as God for Christ's sake had not imputed Stephen's sins to his account. That was his disposition. That was his forgiving disposition of heart toward them before God, which showed that Stephen was not demanding their repentance as a condition for his forgiveness to be extended to them, even though they were not reconciled to him, even though there was no reconciliation.

So we need to not confuse forgiveness with reconciliation. Another example, Joseph forgave his brethren before they asked him to forgive them. Remember that in the Old Testament? They stole them into slavery. They lied and told their father he was dead.

And he hurled it away. He forgave his brethren and extolled the providence of God and using their evil to save their own lives. My heart is to be full of forgiveness for others no matter what's been done to me, even though that doesn't mean that person is reconciled to me or that I'm now obligated to restore the relationship or trust. Can you understand that? Just because I forgive, forgive this person, forgive you.

That doesn't mean I trust you now. That doesn't mean that we're completely reconciled, this person hasn't done their part, but I can have a disposition of forgiveness toward them, even as Joseph, even as Stephen. In his sermon, Reasons to Forgive, John MacArthur says, quote, sometimes people want to debate this. Well, are you supposed to forgive everybody even if they don't ask? MacArthur responds, yes, yes.

You forgive immediately. You forgive instantaneously. You forgive totally. You forgive completely. Whether or not you will have reconciliation and what that relationship will be in the future is a matter of that person desiring that relationship to be what it should be, but forgiveness that comes immediately.

I think that's scripture. I know there's some debate on that but I think that's scripture and I can't imagine living in any other way because I would constantly be You know living a life of saying this person done this to me and they've done that to me and they've done me wrong and That person did this and I'm holding on and I got this long string of you know stuff written down to that's miserable you talk about laying awake at bed at night not being able to sleep he done me wrong she done me wrong that guy didn't wrong that employer did me wrong that person contract did me wrong this person did me wrong they did me wrong and you never and it's just no forgiven They don't all have to come back and do whatever. I forgive and I forgive it all. In another message on forgiveness, MacArthur says, quote, for me, just as a personal testimony, for me the deepest pains come when people speak evil against me and want to destroy my reputation. He said, I hear about things that are just unbelievable, that are supposed to be true about me, just unbelievable.

And those are the things that pain me the most deeply. He says untrue criticisms and allegations and accusations and I find that those become for me the test of a forgiving heart. Will I forgive? And I ask God to give me grace to forgive. I don't want to carry a grudge I don't want to carry a bitterness for five seconds.

And so eagerly when I hear that This is MacArthur. I'm anxious to offer up a prayer, O God, put in me the heart of forgiveness so that I may commune with you in the fullness of fellowship and joy and not experience the chastening that comes when you don't forgive me. Temporal chastening. And he goes on, and may I remember that for everyone who sins against me, I have multiplied times sinned against you, God, and you have always forgiven me. And at no point in time has any of my sin caused me to forfeit my eternal life and nor should anyone else's sin cause them to forfeit my love and my mercy toward them." In closing, when we pray, Father forgive us our debts, even as we forgive our debtors, we come humbly before God, acknowledging that though we could not satisfy the least entry on the ledger of our sin debt, that Christ's sacrifice of infinite value has discharged all, and we have been forgiven all, and we come with hearts full of mercy and forgiveness for others before you God.

When we pray, Father forgive us our debts we trust that he has. And our heart is Father forgive all of us. Father forgive all of us. Forgive us all. Forgive us our debts.

And help us daily to be ever forgiving everyone, even as you, God, for Christ's sake have forgiven us. Amen. Let's pray. Father, We are all worthy of death, eternal death, a death that never ends. Divine justice required our eternal destruction, but you, O God, brought about the death of death and the death of Christ for your people, justifying forever in your side all who have faith in your Son.

And we thank you Father that the justice that was due us to your people was satisfied of the execution of judgment upon your own son Jesus. Two thousand years ago on that cross at Calvary as our substitute and we thank you Father that our sins were dealt with fully and our sin debt fully discharged on that cross, the cross of Christ. And we thank you that our iniquities are no longer counted against us for Christ's sake. We thank you God. And we pray that you would help us to not hold the sins others have committed against us, against them either, for we ask it in Jesus' name.

Amen. Amen.