Rev. David Holwick ZG Lord's Prayer series
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
October 13, 1996
Matthew 6:12; Luke 7:39-43
|
I. Trespassing signs.
A. Apply to everyone but me, due to my adventurous spirit.
1) Example from our family:
Wandered past one at a rest stop, when Rebecca pointed
it out.
One of the disadvantages of kids learning to read.
2) You may never trespass on someone's property, but you
continually trespass against God's law.
B. Presbyterians vs. Baptists.
1) I learned Lord's Prayer in a Presbyterian Sunday School.
a) They say "debts" in prayer, from Matthew's version.
1> To this day, I sometimes stumble at that point.
2> (Sue Melrose graveside service, with divided
prayer)
b) Not a reference to credit card overload.
1> Derived from Aramaic concept.
2> "Debt" is a common expression for impact of sin.
2) Baptists and most say "trespasses" in Lord's Prayer.
a) Luke's version; probably from Aramaic.
b) In Bible, to trespass is to miss the mark.
1> In other words, to sin.
3) Therefore both expressions mean same thing.
II. What we owe God.
A. God is holy and demands perfection.
1) Whenever we sin, a debt arises between us.
2) However hard we try, we cannot erase this debt.
a) The cost is too high.
B. We must see ourselves as sinners. Luke 7:39..
1) Most people don't.
a) Dieting documentary on PBS - scientists thought
overweight people had different metabolism.
They gained weight when eating same amount as rest
of us.
Conclusion was due to self-reporting tests.
A new technique called "double-labeled water" finds
exactly how many calories they are consuming.
One dieter reported, in good faith, 850 calories of
intake.
The test showed it was more like 3,300.
When told this, her estimates of intake increased.
We don't mean to be dishonest, but we do it to justify
ourselves.
#3893
2) The more spiritual you are, the more you realize the gulf
between yourself and God.
3) Realizing our need makes us appreciate what God has done.
C. What we cannot do, God has done.
1) God's forgiveness is a passionate movement of strength and
mercy toward us, the offenders.
2) He cancels our debt, which provides an opportunity for:
a) Repentance.
b) Restoration of the broken relationship.
3) The New Testament tells us, "You were bought at a price."
a) That price was the life of Jesus, given up on a cross.
b) Only through Jesus can our debt be cancelled.
III. The timing of forgiveness.
A. Future Judgment Day.
1) Some believe we are not forgiven until we die.
2) Ancients anticipated this, and came up with systems
of merit and penance so they would be ready.
3) They hoped to be forgiven, but had no assurance they
would be.
a) Many sinned their whole life, then repented real hard
at the end.
B. At conversion.
1) Many verses speak of our forgiveness by God as accomplished.
a) Once-for-all, at justification.
b) Some verses say are sins are not only forgiven, but
forgotten.
2) But we do not cease to sin after we are saved.
a) Unless we are Methodist.
b) And few of them claim it!
C. On a daily basis.
1) This is in view here.
a) Lord's Prayer is a continual prayer of believers.
2) Every day we should confess and ask for forgiveness.
IV. Forgiveness is something we need.
A. Our emotional health can depend on it.
James Boice was once talking to a Christian psychiatrist about
the problem of forgiveness and the need people have for it.
The psychiatrist said:
"As far as I am concerned, most of what a psychiatrist does
is directly related to forgiveness.
People come to him with problems.
They feel guilty about their part in these problems.
They are seeking forgiveness.
In effect, they confess their sins to the counselor and find
that he forgives them.
Then a pattern is set up in which they can show their change of
heart in tangible ways toward the other person or persons."
We have a great need to be forgiven by people.
This is actually only a shadow of the far greater need we have
to be forgiven by God.
The head of a large English mental hospital once said,
"I could dismiss half my patients tomorrow if they could be
assured of forgiveness."
#3891
B. Pray for it, believe it, accept it.
1) We should desire forgiveness as much as we want daily bread.
2) When we ask for it, accept it.
a) He promises it.
b) When we doubt, we live in turmoil.
In his autobiography, Country-Western singer Willie Nelson
recalled his boyhood days attending a small Methodist church.
"I was one of those kids who kept going down front when the
preacher called for converts at the end of each sermon,"
Nelson wrote.
"I'd see somebody next to me start to the front, and well,
there I'd go again.
I joined the Methodist Church at least thirty times when I
was a kid.
Every time I'd do something bad, I'd go join the church again.
I'd walk down to the front and renounce my sins and ask Jesus
Christ to come into my heart.
And all of a sudden I had a new slate in the eyes of the
Church.
Then I'd slip off and smoke a long strip of cedar bark rolled
up in a newspaper -- and suddenly I was back facing the
fiery furnace again."
"Each time I went to the front and rededicated my life,
I wanted to leave my sins with God and walk away clean.
I felt I shouldn't have gotten off so easy.
I mean, the Church had let me off, but I hadn't let
myself off."
Sometimes the hardest person to forgive is ourselves.
We are set free in Christ.
We are forgiven through Christ.
#2750
V. God wants more than a blank slate.
A. He forgives us for a purpose.
1) It is not so much as our goal, as preparation for a new
life.
2) God wants us to move on and grow.
[Illustration added spontaneously]
Movie of backgrounds of 3 Chinese girls. ("Joy Luck Club")
True story - mother was in China, fleeing Communists.
Had twin daughters in carriage.
Was exhausted and suffering from pneumonia.
Lost strength, put babies under a tree with jewelry.
Went back on road, collapsed.
Taken to a hospital, then evacuated to United States.
B. Confess, then repent.
1) Forgiveness is the first step in being transformed.
2) God wants to mold us into disciples.
3) Whatever is not acceptable in us, he wants to change.
VI. Searching questions.
A. What do you need to be forgiven of?
B. Do you accept God's forgiveness?
1) Has it changed you?
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
I. Jeremias. p.192
A. The only prior condition for the disciples' prayer is a
readiness to forgive.
1) Willingness to forgive injustices suffered is to be
boundless.
a) It even includes our enemies.
b) (Praying for them presupposes forgiveness.)
2) If we are to ask God for forgiveness, we must also be
prepared to forgive. Mark 11:25, Matt 6:14f, 18:35
B. The disciples of Jesus know that they are caught in guilt and
sin and also know that only God's pardon, the greatest of
his gifts, can save them.
1) They request this gift not just for the hour of the Last
Judgment, but now, here, today.
2) Unusual in that petition refers to human action (only time
in Lord's Prayer)
a) Shows heavy emphasis Jesus placed on forgiveness.
C. Relation of our forgiveness, and God's.
1) Does ours precede God's?
2) Is it the model for God's forgiveness, or its justification?
a) Aramaic - we are passing on God's forgiveness.
II. Discipleship Journal, #62. "Forgive us our debts" p 33, R. Kent Hughes
A. Robert Louis Stevenson story about non-speaking sisters.
1) Matt 6:12 is an explicit prayer for forgiveness.
2) It is also a prayer for a forgiving spirit.
B. A prayer for a forgiving spirit.
1) Augustine: If we pray with an unforgiving heart, we are
actually asking God NOT to forgive us.
a) He called it "the terrible petition".
2) Forgive debts means forgive sins, made explicit in 6:14-15.
a) Jews taught forgiveness. (parallels given)
b) Also parallels in NT. Matt 5:7, Jam 2:13, Matt 18:32-35,
Matt 6:15
3) Views of eminent Christians:
a) Wesley and Oglethorpe.
b) Spurgeon: "Unless you forgive others, you read
your own death-warrant when you repeat the Lord's
Prayer."
c) C.S.Lewis:
"No part of his teaching is clearer: and there are no
exceptions to it.
He doesn't say that we are to forgive other people's
sins providing they are not too frightful, or
provided there are extenuating circumstances, or
anything of that sort.
We are to forgive them all, however spiteful, however
mean, however often they are repeated.
If we don't, we shall be forgiven none of our own."
4) If we will not forgive, we are not Christians.
a) When God's grace comes in our hearts, it makes us
forgiving.
b) If I refuse to forgive, I have never understood the
grace of Jesus.
5) This petition is for religious people.
a) We can be faithful in church, live a life of negation,
and hold a death grip on our grudges.
b) We need to take an inventory and ask if we really know
Jesus.
1> Bitterness and hatred can still linger or recur.
2> Not about people who struggle with it.
c) If we are Christians, we can and will ultimately forgive.
1> It requires no elaborate reasoning.
C. Health benefits of forgiveness.
1) Forgiveness helps us monitor our spiritual health.
a) We are always more conscious of wrongs done to us than
the ones we do to others.
b) Relationships are hurt.
c) Self-pity takes root.
1> Depression follows.
2) Many health benefits from a forgiving spirit.
a) We are never more like God than when we forgive.
b) We are also like Jesus. Luke 23:34
D. A prayer for forgiveness.
1) We must see ourselves as sinners.
a) Most people don't.
b) Confession of sins is especially for believers.
1> Should be done on a daily basis.
2) We are to do two things:
a) Ask God to forgive us.
1> We should desire it as much as we want daily bread.
2> Ask for forgiveness through blood of Jesus today!
b) Forgive those who have wronged us.
1> We must do it for the sake of the church. Eph 4:32
2> It is also a witness to the world.
3) Forgiveness needs to begin now.
Copyright © 2024 by Rev. David Holwick
Created with the Freeware Edition of HelpNDoc: Full featured Help generator