The sermon by Peter Allison, titled "Praying for Forgiveness," delves into the fifth petition of the Lord's Prayer, focusing on the need for forgiveness of sins. He emphasizes that as sinners under God's condemnation, forgiveness is essential for salvation. The sermon contrasts Luke's version of the Lord's Prayer with Matthew's, noting the use of different terms for sin and debt. Allison explores the concept of federal headship, explaining how Adam's sin is imputed to all humanity, and similarly, Christ's righteousness is imputed to believers. He discusses the nature of sin, both original and actual, and the necessity of acknowledging and confessing specific sins to receive forgiveness. The sermon highlights the importance of understanding God's sovereignty and authority in matters of sin, illustrating how Jesus' sacrifice is the only way to satisfy God's justice. Allison also discusses the human struggle with guilt and the world's inadequate solutions, emphasizing that true forgiveness and the removal of guilt come through Christ. He underscores the importance of forgiving others as a testament to one's own forgiveness by God, explaining that forgiveness is a conscious choice to bear someone else's debt. The sermon concludes with a prayer for understanding and practicing forgiveness as God does.

Luke chapter 11. We'll read this passage again as we are working our way through this instruction that Jesus gave his disciples on how to pray. Now it came to pass as he was praying in a certain place when he ceased That one of his disciples said to him Lord teach us to pray as John also taught his disciples So he said to them when you pray say our Father in heaven Hallowed be your name your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us day by day our daily bread and forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.

And he said to them, Which of you shall have a friend? And go to him at midnight and say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him. And he will answer from within and say, Do not trouble me, the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot rise and give to you. I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs.

And so I say to you, ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives and he who seeks, finds. And to him who knocks, it will be opened. And if a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish?

Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If then you if then if you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? May His law be our delight and lead us to long for His salvation. Heavenly Father, please open Your Word to us.

Please grant us faith as we hear your word that you might bring life, that you might bring healing, you might bring a greater and deeper and more intimate knowledge of you, our Father, our Savior, our King, our Redeemer and Captain of our salvation. Ask, Lord, that you would sanctify on my lips that through this vessel of clay the riches of your word may be proclaimed through Jesus Christ. Amen. Please be seated. Please be seated.

Well, this is the fifth petition so called in the Lord's Prayer that we come to and forgive us our sins. For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. This petition represents our greatest need as sinful humans, our greatest need. For as you know, we are under, as sinners, under the wrath and curse and condemnation of Almighty God. And unless that judgment is removed from us, we perish.

And that's why God sent His Son into the world, so that we might not perish. And that we might not perish requires that this debt that we have, that our sins be forgiven. That the wrath of God that is against us be turned away, be appeased. Now in this petition, our forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. Luke, this petition is also a little different than Jesus gave it when he gave it in the Sermon on the Mount.

This instruction that he gave is very, very similar to what he gave on the Sermon on the Mount, but it's slightly different. And we saw the first difference was in The petition that we looked at last week, give us day by day, our daily bread. Very clear emphasis on the day by day by day. It's not a prayer that's given at the beginning of the year. Please give us our daily bread this year.

It's but day by day, please day by day we're to ask for our daily bread. This this petition is also a little different. Luke uses two different words here for sin, where Matthew uses the same word twice. Give us and forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. There's two different words there.

Whereas Matthew says, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, those who are indebted to us. It uses the same word. Luke uses the word for sin first there, which is the word to miss the mark to transgress the law that's what sin is first John 3 for whoever commits sin transgresses the law sin is a transgression of the law. That's what John tells us. Matthew 1, 21, and she, that's Mary, will bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, Yehoshua, for he will save his people from their sins or in Matthew 26 Jesus said for this is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for many for the remission of sins." Matthew uses the word for something that is owed.

He asks, Jesus says there, forgive us our debts. Debt is something where we have an obligation to pay. It's usually thought of in the financial world, if you borrow money from someone you have a debt. If you damage somebody's property, you have a financial obligation to repair that damage. That's a debt.

That debt is paid when you pass the money over that you owe or you make the repair. So in this request is two things. One is the acknowledgement that there is a debt that's owed. But there's also more fundamental the obvious one. It's obvious that We have sins That's that's not that's the implicit assumption here is that we have sins You know the ability to acknowledge our sin, to recognize our sin, it is itself a work of God's Spirit to convict us of sin and to give us the awareness that we stand condemned before a righteous God, and we need to confess and not to suppress or to hide or to excuse our sin.

Now we think of sin in a couple different aspects. And one of the aspects of our sin that we need forgiveness of is we call original sin, this corruption of our whole nature, this guilt that we have received from the imputation of Adam's sin to us. We might think that, well, the guilt of Adam's sin is not that it's imputed to us as descendants of Adam. Well, that's not maybe the same as actual guilt like the sin that we commit. But this isn't what Scripture teaches.

Romans 5 speaks of Adam as the federal head of the human race. Federal simply means representative. We've come to think of it as sort of a national oligarchy. But it's really the opposite. It's a representative.

A federal head is somebody who represents us. There are many such headships in our culture, in civilization. But one of the most fundamental, the very first headship was that of Adam, of the human race. The Bible says in Romans 5 that through one man sin entered the world and death spread to all men because all had sinned through one man. For by one man's offense many died, but by the free gift many are made alive.

Therefore as through one man's offense, judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation. Even so, in an exactly analogous way, through one man's righteousness, or one man's righteous act, the free gift comes to all men resulting in justification. For as by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners, so also by one man's obedience many will be made righteous." It says that death reigned from Adam to Moses even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of him who was to come." Saying Adam is a type there of Christ who was to come. And through Adam's disobedience, Through one man's disobedience, many men were made sinners. That's speaking of the imputation of Adam's sin to all the human race.

Now this might raise a number of questions in our mind, just how God could justly impute sin to all the human race. How could we be made guilty before we were even born? Or hadn't sinned yet? See, that's what the Bible says. Now, let me remind you, before we go very far down this road that this is how we are also made righteous.

Adam was a type of Christ and in our salvation, in our justification, the righteous act of Christ, the righteousness of Christ, his obedience is also imputed to us. And this is what it means to be in Christ. See, we are all either in Christ or we are in Adam. If we are in Adam, Adam's sin is imputed to us because he is our federal head sin. If we are in Christ, his righteousness is imputed to us, his obedience is imputed to us, and we are made righteous.

See, God is, this is what it means for God to be sovereign. We didn't ask what country we were born in. We didn't decide what family we would be born into. We didn't decide what city we would be born. We didn't decide whether we'd be born into a wealthy family or a poor family, into a big family or a small family.

We didn't decide whether we'd be born in the jungles of Africa or the jungles of New York. We didn't decide whether we'd be born in the Texas Hill country or in a floodplain. We have no control over any of those things. God is sovereign and He has ordained all of these things. And God in His sovereign wisdom has ordained that all who are descendants of Adam would either sin, stand, or fall with Adam in the human race.

He made Adam the representative head. We live this all the time and we don't really think about it, but we all have to bear the responsibility of the things that our leaders do that our rulers do because they are the covenant head of over us and in so you remember the story of Saul where he sinned against the gibbianites because Joshua made a covenant with them not to destroy them and Saul did. Saul went and attacked them and because of that breaking of that vow, that was a vow that Joshua made. Saul didn't make that vow, that was made hundreds of years earlier. But that vow was obligatory upon the nation because Joshua as the head the representative head the federal head Made that vow with the gibbianites and so when Saul Transgressed against it God brought judgment on the land.

And when David prayed to the Lord to learn the reason, that's what God told him. There was a consequence of that. And there were people, the nation bore corporate guilt because of Saul's sin as their federal head. You remember that there were people who were given to be executed by the Gibeonites To make atonement to make restitution for for the death that Saul brought on their land unjustly That's a very powerful Argument that's right right in the Bible that nations are responsible for the sins of their rulers because those rulers are the federal heads of those lands. And Saul had waged an unjust war.

He had attacked people and killed people that were not right for him to kill. Yes, the federal, the civil magistrate has the power of the sword, but it is, that power can be used, wielded unjustly. And when it's done, when that power is wielded unjustly, then there is corporate guilt upon the land. And I think that's what we're seeing in our nation today, is that we have become like Saul and aggressor nation. We wage war in all sorts of countries around the world.

We topple governments. We assassinate people. We fight open battles, covert battles and open battles, in lands that have done nothing against us, worthy of war. And these are unjust wars. And this guilt is oppressive, and it's cumulative.

And we see that in the thousands of veterans that are taking their lives every year. This is, I believe, one of the evidences of this guilt. That they know that they have been involved in unjust wars, killing unjustly. And you can't do that without the guilt of blood guiltiness on your hands. And striving, I don't know what the exact numbers are, but it's a high, horrific number of veterans who've been involved in these unjust wars that are killing themselves out of their own guilt.

And so families bear their guilt and live out the consequences of decisions that their parents make, for good or for bad. Families bear the result of what fathers do as heads of their homes, covenant heads, because marriage is a covenant. The Bible says a husband is head on that home. And so homes, families bear that consequences of the actions. And so as a human race, We bear the guilt of Adam's sin.

You know God ordained that fall without being the author of sin. And that That's another thing that can be hard for us to get our heads around, how God does this without being the author of sin. And I don't know that we can fully comprehend and fully understand, but there are some things that we can remember that help to explain what is happening. And one thing we have to remember is that what God, that God has authority that we don't have. And we see, and we recognize this all the time, if our, If somebody that's very old dies peacefully in their sleep, Do we say that God murdered them?

No, we don't there. There was no violence there. We we recognize that We are all sinners that we are that we are will die as appointed unto men wants to die because we stand in the wages Right as we've all learned here this past week, or it was two weeks ago, the wages of sin is death. And so when that elderly person dies in an advanced age in their sleep, it is God that took their life. But that wasn't anything unjust that God did.

But we certainly don't have the authority to go and do the same thing. We couldn't go in and take their life away. That would be murder. That would be a horrific sin. You see, the exact same thing God does and we don't do.

God has authority to do that. He's the sovereign. He created life He gives us our life He gives us our breath. We're alive. Each one of us here is this morning is alive because God has given breath and life to us He doesn't have to He's you would be perfectly just to not give us any breath, to not have even created us.

But the fact that he did create us, that he did give us life, that's him being gracious to us. Didn't have to do that. He doesn't have to continue us living. But the fact that he does, it's gracious. And so if he withholds something that he's under no obligation to give, like he withholds our life, then there's no injustice with God.

But if we do that, if we take somebody's life, that's murder, that's a very heinous, very, very wicked thing to do because we do not have authority to take life. You see, authority is a central issue in all of life. It's central in the scriptures. The Pharisees asked Jesus, by what authority do you do the things that they're doing? And that was a legitimate question, and it may not have been asked with legitimate motives, but it's a legitimate question, and Jesus answered it.

He said, well, he actually said he would answer it if if they would answer him one question but it's a legitimate question it's one we need to ask all the time by what authority do we are we doing something Do we have authority to do what we want to do? We need to be asking that of elected officials. We need to be asking that even in the church here. By What authority are we doing the things that we do? Because we need authority to do anything that we do.

All authority, remember, comes from Christ, Jesus told Pilate. And you would have no authority unless I gave it to you. And so we need to ask. We need to ask, that is a good question, by what authority do we do things? And so the difference, there's a big difference then between the authority of God to do things that we have no authority to do.

And so God can, for example, God ordained the kidnapping and selling of Joseph into slavery. God ordained that through his brothers. That was a wicked thing that God ordained, that the brothers did, but it wasn't wrong for God to do it. It wasn't unjust for Joseph to receive. It was an injustice for his brothers to do it, but it is not unjust on God's part to put Joseph where he put him.

Let me see, I think if we understand that, if we really understand what it means for God to be sovereign, then it makes understanding these biblical concepts of the imputation of Adam's sin and God ordaining sinful acts in men Helps us to understand how these things fit together And so by this covenant with all mankind, Adam's sin is imputed to us and this brings a very real guilt. A guilt that brings very real judgment. I mean We see this when babies die. Babies that are only days old or hours old or weeks old. They're not even born.

They haven't physically themselves done anything worthy of death. And yet they die. Babies die. Innocent babies die. They die because they were conceived in sin.

They are guilty of Adam's sin even as we are. And see we have a need to be declared not guilty of the sin that has been imputed to us as much as we have a need to be declared not guilty of the actual sins that we commit. David says in Psalm 51 that he was shaping in iniquity and conceived in sin. I think this is something that we need to explain to our children as well. And it doesn't hurt them to see us confess that they are to confess to the Lord that the guilt of our sin and the fact that we have passed on to them a corrupt and sinful nature.

And then of course there are the actual transgressions of the law of God that we commit. We're the ones that we're all familiar with and wish we weren't so familiar with them. Even as believers. This is the battle that every believer wages every day. The battle that Paul describes in Romans 7 when he says, For the good that I would, I do not.

But the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do what I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law that when I would do good, evil is present with me, for I delight in the law of God after the inward man. But I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am, Paul cries out, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind, I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. This is Paul as an apostle, as a regenerate apostle, describing this battle that we all face with sin, where we actually sin. And he's pointing out that this is our sinful nature that still remains with us. It doesn't have dominion over us as it did before, but it's still present and we still battle with it.

And so we need daily then to ask God to forgive these sins that we commit. And it's good to pray specifically. You know, sometimes it's a very hard thing to do. We sit down to pray and we can pray, forgive me my sins. We're willing to say, yes, I'm a sinner, like we all recite this morning.

But to actually confess specific sins, our specific sins, that's much harder, isn't it? And we have to think about that. Our pride gets in the way. But this is what Jesus is teaching that we we have sins and we need to confess and ask his forgiveness specific sins that we need to confess And in praying to forgive us our debts as Luke writes, or forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have debts against us, we are acknowledging not only our sinfulness, but we are acknowledging that we owe something. Because of our sin, we owe something.

We have an obligation, an outstanding obligation, Like a book that's due at the library That's an outstanding obligation a payment on a mortgage is an out is a debt an outstanding obligation and that debt remains until it is paid in full. Sometimes we might think of our life as a highway, and we're going down, and sin is where we slide off the road, and we need to be put back on the road. But it's more like sliding off the road and smashing a hole into somebody's house. We don't just knock on the front door and say I'm sorry, please forgive me We have an obligation if we've knocked a hole in their house. We have an obligation to fix their house And that obligation that's a debt and it remains until we fix it And our sin is the same way.

It incurs an obligation that remains until it is paid. And it isn't paid simply by saying some words. It's paid when damage that was done is recompensed to the owner. And in the case of our sin, we are debtors to the justice of God. We owe something that we do not have the means to repay.

The wages of sin is death, eternal death. See, We are requesting God to acquit us from the guilt and the punishment of sin. Forgiveness is to release somebody from the liability to suffer punishment from the obligation to pay a debt. That's what forgiveness is. And it cannot be forgiven by words.

If somebody borrows $100 from you, And then they come back and they say, I can't repay this. I've lost the money. Whatever. And they ask you to forgive them the debt. You can say, yes, I forgive you the debt.

Does that mean the debt is not paid? Think about it, right? No. Doesn't mean the debt is not paid. Who paid the debt?

You did if you forgave them the debt. You paid the debt. You paid that $100 instead of them. You see a debt has to be paid by somebody. Words alone cannot remove an obligation or payment of a debt.

Somebody has to pay the debt. What is our debt? What is owed? In our case, our debt is God's unmitigated wrath for all eternity. And So when we ask God to pay this debt that we can't pay, because we can't pay it, we cannot pay the debt that we owe.

No amount of suffering for some time, finite time, can ever pay that debt. It's an infinite debt to us. We can't pay it. We have sinned against a God who is holy, who is eternal, who is infinite. And in our human limitation we simply cannot repay.

You see, if we could satisfy the wrath of God by suffering for some finite amount of time in hell, then Christ's death wouldn't be necessary. Right? Because we could pay the debt we owe. We could suffer some amount of time and then our debt would be paid. And Christ wouldn't have to die.

Does that make sense? If we could pay the debt that we owe, Christ would not have to die. We could just suffer, maybe a long time, for really bad people, for serial murders. But after some amount of time, we could pay the debt. But if that was the case, Christ would not have to die.

All he would have had to do is come to earth and live a perfect life as a man, as an example, and then go back to heaven without any suffering. And his righteousness could be imputed to us, and any debt that we owed for our sin we could pay. But we can't because Christ had to die. Jesus prayed in the garden, Oh my Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. But it wasn't possible because we're not able to pay the debt.

Just like we're not able to count the natural numbers, you know, one, two, three. We just cannot count all the numbers. Luke 9.22 says, Jesus said, The son of man must suffer many things. The son of man must suffer many things. This wasn't just one option out of a couple of different options.

This is the only option for our debt to be paid. The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be slain and be raised on the third day. Must. Paul explained and demonstrated this to the Thessalonian Church in Acts 17-3. When he first visited them, he said that Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead.

Christ had to suffer. He must die. Because Christ is the only sacrifice good enough to satisfy the wrath of God for our sin. See, when we begin to think that in our finite human body that we can begin to pay a debt against an infinitely holy God, we seriously underestimate the holiness of God, the greatness and the majesty of a holy God against whom we have sinned. If you kill a police officer in the state of Texas, it is more severe punishment.

Because that is an office. There is authority there. And that's right and good. But there is no comparison to a sin against an infinitely holy God, the Sovereign, who created out of nothing the heavens and the earth, who orders the affairs of men and nations, who directs the movement of every molecule and every electron, who stretched out the heavens and numbered the stars. This is a wisdom and a power far beyond anything we can even begin to comprehend.

And this is the God against whom we've sinned. It's a debt we can never repay. And so we come then to ask God's forgiveness. Somebody has to pay that debt. Because God is a just God and if that debt is not paid, then God's justice is not satisfied.

And so in asking God to forgive our sin and discharge our obligation, we are asking Him to accept the blood of His Son instead of ours. We are asking for that wrath to be poured out on His Son Jesus Christ in our place. Because that debt has to be paid. And if God forgives us and relieves us of this charge, is that obligation, then God Himself is paying it. And so Christ's sacrifice then is the basis, the only basis, for escaping the punishment of hell for eternity.

It is Christ's righteousness that is the basis for our receiving any good thing, including everlasting life. And that God can do this. That God can pour our sin upon Christ and make him pay the debt of our sin. And that he can give to us everlasting life even though we are sinners on the basis of Christ's righteousness. This brothers and sisters is the heart of the gospel.

It's the wonder of the gospel. It's the beauty of the gospel. It's why the gospel is the gospel. It's why this message is good news. But there's nothing much good about it if we don't see the greatness of our sin.

And so it's only as we see the greatness and the magnitude of our sin against the holy God that we see the greatness of God's love and begin to appreciate more what His forgiveness is toward us. This is what the sacrifices of the temple illustrated. On the day of the atonement, after the animal was killed, the priest took the blood into the holiest of holies and sprinkled it on the mercy seat. The seat that sat above the ark that contained the law of God. The law that had been broken.

The problem of sin has to be solved in the against God has to be solved in the presence of God. Now in praying this prayer of for God to forgive our debts, we aren't coming like a criminal before a tribunal to ask forgiveness by an entreaty, by simply a plea. That would be contrary to God's justice. Remember God can't simply make some words up and say you're forgiven. There is a debt, a real debt that has to be satisfied.

But we are coming And we should come as those children who are invited by a loving Heavenly Father who delights in mercy. Because just as much as the wrath of God is revealed from heaven, the Gospel presents to us a God who abounds in loving kindness and tender mercy, who delights to show mercy, who is honored, who is glorified in the showing and the demonstrating of mercy to us. And so we're taught, remember, to come as children to a Father who delights in mercy. And to come as those possessing a confident hope of forgiveness. Because God has revealed Himself as a God who stands ready and willing to forgive us, to pardon us.

He is gracious. He's kind and he's ready to pardon. He is our God and he will abundantly pardon, the scriptures say. And so we ought to come then as his children. Not as convicts who have no hope of mercy, but as his children who have been given these great and precious promises that he is a merciful God.

That he delights in showing mercy. And He especially delights in showing mercy to His children. Now, in asking for forgiveness, we are also asking for Christ to remove our guilt. When we are guilty, our conscious accuses us. It makes us feel bad.

It bothers us. And it can bother us a lot. Now, assuming our conscience isn't seared, so that it doesn't experience guilt. And some people may feel guilt even though Christ has forgiven them. I mean, that's a matter of faith, to believe God's gracious promise that as we confess our sin, He will forgive us.

But guilt is still very real. Yes, there can be Seared consciences and people that have a weak faith that may doubt that forgiveness. But guilt is real. And not everybody has this guilt, in some form or other. And people wrestle with this guilt.

Now the world tells us different ways to deal with it, to try to deal with it. One of those ways is to just reduce your expectations. Don't hold such high expectations of yourself. Lower your moral requirements. After all, who gave us those requirements?

Why do you have to hold yourself to such a high standard? Just don't feel guilty. Don't hold yourself to these moral requirements. Get rid of old fashioned standards that are imposing guilt on yourself and then you won't feel as guilty. So in other words, their solution is to get rid of guilt by getting rid of the law.

Because the law does condemn and that's half right. There is that guilt but we can't get rid of the law. And so people try, it also will turn to drugs, alcohol maybe, to get drunk. Psychotropic drugs to dull the mind to this ever-present pervasive feeling of guilt. Mental hospitals for the most part are filled with people trying to assuage their guilt.

They have not dealt with it biblically. They have not received forgiveness in Christ. They haven't confessed their sin. Maybe they're still denying they have it. Mental hospitals, for the most part, are filled with people trying to assuage their guilt unsuccessfully.

And so they go there to get psychotropic drugs in an effort to remove the guilt that is ever weighing and pervasive upon them. Or people try to remove their guilt by doing good deeds to make up for it. They think of all these things that they have done or one thing that they have done and so that they turn around and they look to do something good. Well that's great that they're doing something good. But all the good deeds that any of us could ever do can never make up for one ounce of guilt for one sin that we've committed.

Guilt can only be taken away in Christ. And he does. He does. He removes the guilt of our sin. As we ask him and as we confess that sin, confession is the answer.

Confession is the answer to the world's problem of guilt. Confession and repentance and forgiveness in Jesus Christ. And oh what a blessing it is to know the forgiveness of our sins and the removal of the guilt of our sin. See repentance and forgiveness are linked. Peter told the Jews in Jerusalem in Acts 3 in his sermon, repent therefore and be converted.

Repent and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. We are also in this requesting that Christ, that God would fill us with peace and joy in giving to us daily more and more assurance of that forgiveness. Paul says in Romans 15, May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. David prayed in Psalm 51, Restore to me the joy of your salvation. And so with these promises, we are encouraged and we are given confidence that when we come with an antipenitent and repentant heart to confess our sins and ask for God's forgiveness that that God will indeed forgive us and that and this assurance of forgiveness we are given here in this text.

We are given a sign of assurance of our forgiveness. It doesn't flow, it flows from the promises of Scripture as we believe the Word of God, that He is faithful and just to forgive us. But it also flows from the testimony of our own spirit, of our forgiveness of those who have sinned against us. See, our Forgiveness of people, that's not the basis, that's not the ground by which we can expect God to forgive us. No, we've talked about that.

It's only Christ's work. Our forgiveness of others is not the basis. We can't say, well God, I've forgiven these people, so please forgive me. No, But Christ is here teaching us that one sign that God has indeed forgiven us is that we are enabled to forgive others. Because the power to forgive others is a supernatural power.

It only comes from Christ. And we see the Holy Spirit working in us, that fruit of being able to forgive others. Jesus is saying we can have confidence that God the Father is forgiving us our sin. As we forgive those little sins against us, we can have this assurance that God will forgive and has forgiven the great sins against Him. Now what does it mean to forgive?

What does it mean for us to forgive sin? I want to spend a moment on this because this is, after all, one of the confidences, assurances of our forgiveness. Well, forgiveness is, first of all, it's not a feeling. It's not a warm, fuzzy feeling towards somebody that wronged us, despite their sin. In fact, we may feel rather upset at the wrong or grieved at the loss vexed even it's not forgiveness of some of sins against us is not excusing the sins it's not saying oh that's no problem it's okay well not if it's might be a sin that isn't okay might be a big sin.

Sin is not okay. Sin is actually inexcusable to so for us to say it's not an excusable that that's not forgiveness forgiveness is to say we both know that what you did was inexcusable but since God has forgiven me so much I can forgive you a little of what you've done against me. The little that you've done against me. Now we can struggle to forgive sin in others. Forgiveness is also not forgetting it.

It's not some... That's a passive thing. With the passage of time, we may forget sins, especially if we aren't thinking about them. It may fade from our memory, but that's not forgiveness. Forgiveness is an act of decision.

It is choosing to pay somebody else's debt. Forgiveness is us choosing to pay someone else's debt. If somebody sins against us, a small part of their debt is owed to us. The vast majority is against God. David said, against you and you only have I sinned.

And so when we are sinned against, there is a debt that's owed us. We can either take payments on that debt or we can make payments on that debt. Forgiveness is when we make the payments on the debt that is owed to us. Payments are exacted from other people on debts that are owed to us when we become aloof and cold toward them, When we give up on the relationship, when we withdraw from a relationship, and we don't want to be, we want to not allow them to see our favor. That's exacting a payment by refusing to release the obligation, by lashing out, by dwelling on the wrong, by bringing it up in a relationship, or by simply cutting off a relationship.

As someone said, unforgiveness is a poison we drink hoping the other person will die. Forgiveness can be lengthy. If There is a very great sin that's been done against us. It may have ongoing consequences for many years in fact. Forgiveness then means that we're going to be making payments on that debt that's owed to us maybe for a long time.

Forgiveness is not remembering and that's different than forgetting. You can't forget something if you try you're only going to remember it more. If you try to forget something right you're thinking about it, and you're you're actually going to remember it more. You can't forget something. That happens passively.

But you can not remember something and that's different. It doesn't mean that you forgot about it. It means that you're not bringing it up and consciously mulling over it. So you're making, in not remembering something, you're making a deliberate choice not to mention, not to think about, or not to mentally rehearse a sin against you. And that often will lead to forgetting about it, but it doesn't necessarily happen right away, and it doesn't necessarily happen if it's a very big sin.

And so basically, forgiveness could be summed up as we won't dwell on the event, we won't bring it up and use it against that person, we won't talk to others about it, and we won't let the incident stand between us or hinder our personal relationship with that person. That's the essence of forgiveness. It doesn't release the offender from making restitution. Sometimes that's necessary, sometimes that's even the loving thing to do, especially if there's a pattern of sin or it's a debt that's greater than we're able to pay. Now of course we can't do this in our own strength.

We can't. When we're sinned against our natural tendency is that we want to exact payment. And it's only the grace of God that enables us to forgive, to make a payment on somebody else's debt that is owed to us. That's only the grace of God. And as we see that grace in us, that grace truly working its way out in us toward others, then we can be encouraged that God has forgiven us.

And that's the promise, that's the hope that Jesus gives to us in His teaching on prayer. Let us pray. Our Almighty Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have forgiven our iniquity and removed it from us as far as the East is from the West. And we are aggrieved at and dismayed at how hard it is for us to forgive others. We take your forgiveness for granted because it is so rich and so free and so abundant and so quick.

Yet Lord, we struggle to do the same for our neighbors, our brothers and sisters. So we ask Lord that not only would you forgive our iniquity but that you would also teach us what forgiveness is that we may be able to forgive those who have sinned against us In Jesus name we ask, Amen.