Forgiveness in Fellowship (Matthew 6:12)

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Confessing our sin restores fellowship!

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So, with that being said, please open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 6. We've been studying through the
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Sermon on the Mount. In chapter 6, Jesus is dealing with the hypocrisy of the
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Pharisees. They are concerned with everything outward, external, that you can do in terms of helping other people, in terms of what your prayer looks like, in the show that you can demonstrate to other people.
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And Jesus is exposing that their heart is not truly worshipping God. And so, we are to the portion in the
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Sermon on the Mount where Jesus is modeling to us how we ought to pray. Jesus is instructing how to pray from a heart that loves
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God in spirit and in truth. So if you would, look with me at Matthew chapter 6 starting in verse 9.
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Jesus says, So let's go to the
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Lord in prayer this morning and ask for His blessing. Heavenly Father, we praise
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You for all of who You are. You are holy. You are transcendent. And Lord, I just pray that we are captivated by who
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You are this morning. And I pray that You would give us ears to hear, that You would allow us to have truth, to be edified, to glorify
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You in all that we do. Pray these things in Your name, Amen. So this
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Lord's Prayer, Jesus is giving us bullet points to hang our hat on, right?
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He's giving us a model of what prayer should look like. Not that we should just pray this with repetition upon repetition, but He is showing us how we ought to approach our
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Heavenly Father in prayer. So that's why He begins by saying, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be
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Your name. And so He stresses the word Father here because we are His children, right?
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He's talking to the children of God. We have been given the right to have sweet fellowship with our
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Heavenly Father. And like I said earlier, He is transcendent. He is set apart and He is holy.
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This should be the disposition of our hearts when we go to the Lord in prayer. It shouldn't be something that we flippantly do.
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Oh Lord, I'm having a problem. Please help me here. No, you are going to the Heavenly Father, right?
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Who is holy and He needs to be given reverence. And so Jesus then goes to say,
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Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We have to understand that God is sovereign.
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He reigns supreme. And so we must approach Him understanding that He is going to accomplish all of His will.
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So when we are praying God's will to be done, this is our hearts and our minds conforming to His will.
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He is changing us. And last week, Pastor Nathan preached on this next petition that Jesus gave.
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Give us this day our daily bread. Nathan went into showing that our every need in life, all of our physical needs, we are dependent on God for those.
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And I love the contrast that he brought up. We are sinful people and yet we know how to love on our kids and provide for them.
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How much more will our Heavenly Father take care of His children? He will take care of all of our basic needs of life.
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He will provide for us. He will take care of us in His own timing and it will be perfect.
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And so our Heavenly Father not only provides our physical needs, but He also provides for our spiritual needs as well.
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And so that brings us to our primary text this morning. Look with me at verse 12. Jesus says, and forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors.
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So I've titled this sermon this morning, Forgiveness in Fellowship, because as we're going to see, it's forgiveness that is so important to the
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Christian life. That's important to our vertical relationship with God, His forgiveness and seeking that.
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And it's also important for our horizontal relationships with one another. So that word forgiveness means to release or a dismissal of something.
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And so we have to understand about the gospel and in the Christian life is we have forgiveness in Christ.
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That means that we have been released from the penalty of our sin. It has been a complete dismissal of all the charges that are brought against us.
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Right. Pastor Nathan mentioned earlier Romans 8, verse 1. There's now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus.
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And so let that renew your hearts this morning. We have been totally forgiven. And so when
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Jesus says, forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors, this term debt and debtors is also another term for sin.
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We have to understand sin is not just something that we've messed up. Right. Well, I messed up again today.
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I guess I need to ask forgiveness for that. It's so much deeper than that. Sin means that we have offended
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God and God is holy. And so a lot of times people have a low view of what sin is.
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Sin is a very big deal. Sin is what actually separates us from God. And so when he mentions the word debt or debtors, he's really referencing sin.
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So in Luke's account of the Lord's Prayer, we see that this is being used interchangeably. There he says,
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Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our sins.
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For we forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And so that Greek word for sin is hamartia.
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Sin means to miss the mark. Okay. And so this is like an archer's term. I think of a bullseye and you have an archer that tries to shoot the arrow and misses the bullseye.
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He's missed the mark. And as we talk more about sin, sin is not just falling short of the glory of God.
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That is definitely one way to understand that we've missed the mark. But sin is also transgression, right?
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It's actually going past the parameters of what God has for us. Oftentimes, I see a sign that says no trespassing.
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And a little bit in me wants to, you know, go see what's going on out there. But the idea is you're not supposed to go past this certain line.
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And so sin is both missing the mark by falling short or crossing that no trespassing sign.
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And we understand that God has given us his law because he loves us. He's given us his word to guide us in every aspect of life.
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And so sin, once again, is so important to understand because when we have broken
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God's laws, that is severed relationship and fellowship with him. Scripture tells us very clearly that this is actually man's desire to go in his own way and rebel against the creator.
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In Genesis 6, we read that every intention of the thoughts of man's heart was only evil continually.
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And I've had some people say, well, that was a long time ago back in the flood. We live in a time where it's different.
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And I actually believe that we are, the man's heart and thoughts, thought life, is just as evil today as it was back then.
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Jesus said, it's what comes out of a person, that is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man comes forth evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.
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That is a very, very extensive list. And he concludes by saying all of these evil things come from within.
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They are what defile a person. And so I want to just really express the severity of sin.
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And man loves that from the heart. The apostle Paul put it this way, there is none righteous, no, not one.
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No one understands and no one seeks after God. And what's amazing about that quote is he's actually quoting the
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Old Testament. So man's depravity is true in the Old Testament time. And we see that it's just true, just the same today.
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And it's true. And so man has a heart problem. Man has a sin problem. And this is what we have to understand is the gospel is the only cure to man's sin problem with God.
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We deserve to be punished eternally because of our sin before a holy, perfect, and just God.
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But we need his forgiveness. And I'm here to tell you today that there is forgiveness in Jesus Christ and his gospel.
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It is the gospel of Jesus Christ. He offers us complete forgiveness of our sins and restores us to a right relationship with God Almighty.
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And so in order to receive this forgiveness of your sins and your trespasses, we are commanded to look to him in repentant faith.
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That's what you heard Pastor Nathan say earlier. It's by faith alone. We can't look to ourselves and the things that we can accomplish in our performance.
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If we do that, that is identical to all the false religions of the world saying, you can do it.
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Just pull yourselves up by your bootstraps and that will earn you favor with God. Jesus says, no, I've done all of that for you.
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Look to me and me alone and put your trust in me. And then we will receive complete forgiveness of our sins.
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This is the gospel message. I want to read to you again. Romans 8 once says, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, which
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I hope you ask yourself. Okay, so being in Christ is very important. That happens at the moment of faith.
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That is the moment that all of your sin, past, present, and future are totally forgiven.
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And you will no longer feel the wrath that is due towards you because of what
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Jesus did. Not because what you can do or somebody else has done, but Jesus is the only savior.
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And so in light of this verse, verse 12, this deals with our vertical relationship with God.
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Once again, we read, and forgive us of our debts. And so as I was thinking on this,
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I wanted y 'all to think with me about, okay, well, if we are Christians and Jesus is talking to children of God, and we are already saved and have our sins forgiven, then why do we need to continue to ask
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God to forgive us of our sins? Isn't that already dealt with at Calvary? What would be the point, right?
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He's taken care of everything. And so please make careful note of this. At the moment of faith, a person is positionally declared right before God.
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That term, positionally, is key. This is a legal term. Our legal status is changed forever.
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We are no longer guilty and condemned, but we are righteous, justified, just as if we've never sinned.
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So that's what happens at the moment of faith is our justification, right? And the legal aspect of our sin is totally done and taken care of.
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That's why there's no condemnation that awaits us. But in the Lord's Prayer, Jesus is not talking about our positional status, but our relational status before God.
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The moment we are justified by faith, we are adopted as children, and we now walk in relationship with God.
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Before we were in Christ, there was no relationship with God because sin completely shattered that.
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But now as His children, we walk in sanctification, growing in holiness, and becoming more and more like Christ.
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We know that Jesus is referring to Christians because of how He prays corporately, right? He said, our
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Father in heaven. Who is able to call God Father but His children? And so Jesus is talking to the children of God, the true citizens of the kingdom of heaven.
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And so I want to continue to develop this thought more of, okay, well, since we've had our sins dealt with at the cross of Calvary, we have been positionally declared righteous before God.
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Why is it that we need to continue to confess our sin within sanctification?
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I think it goes back to the severity of sin. Remember, sin is a very big deal to God.
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And it is our sin that hinders our walk with the Lord. It is our sin that harms our fellowship with Him.
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And so look back with me in your Bible to verse 11. Jesus, this is what Pastor Nathan spoke on a lot last week, give us this day our daily bread.
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He is showing us how our physical life is completely dependent on the Father supplying what is necessary.
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Things that are necessary are things like food, things like clothing, and having shelter.
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Our heavenly Father will provide those things for us. And that's why we shouldn't be worried or anxious about the future.
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God is going to take care of us. That's why Jesus said in Matthew 6, 33, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all of these things will be added to you.
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I love what James 1, 17 says, speaks of the gracious hand of our loving Father. There we read every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and is coming down from the
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Father of lights. Every day we go to our heavenly Father in prayer and we express our need for Him to supply us of those needs, knowing that He will always keep
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His promises. And we do this daily. This is a daily pursuit. We need physical needs every day.
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And so that's what's important to understand. Verse 11 is about God supplying our daily physical needs.
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And here in verse 12, we look to God knowing that He will supply our daily spiritual needs.
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And so God provides the means. He gives us these things like clothes, but it's our responsibility to put them on.
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God gives us food, but it's our responsibility to eat the food, right? And so God has provided us spiritually.
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He's made provision spiritually by always and at any moment being able to go to Him in prayer and confessing our sins to Him.
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That's our responsibility, right? Just like the food and the clothes, we have to eat and we have to put on the clothes. God has provided the means to always be ready to go to Him in prayer, but it's our responsibility.
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When we are made aware of our sin, we flee to the Father. We don't hide, right? We go to Him and we confess our sin and He restores that fellowship.
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And so I believe that right there answers these questions we've been asking. Jesus is instructing us, those who are already saved, to continue to ask forgiveness of our sins so that we grow in sanctification, living in close fellowship with our
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Heavenly Father. So with that being said, please turn with me for a moment to 1
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John 1. There, we're gonna see that the Apostle John teaches us more about what this close fellowship looks like in the life of the
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Christian and it produces something, right? This gets me excited. It produces great benefit in our walk with God.
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So starting in verse one, 1 John 1, we read, "'That which was from the beginning, "'which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, "'which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, "'concerning the word of life, the life was made manifest, "'and we have seen it and testify to it "'and proclaim to you the eternal life, "'which was with the
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Father and has made manifest to us, "'that which we have seen and heard, "'we proclaim also to you, "'so that you too may have fellowship with us.
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"'And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father "'and with his Son, Jesus Christ.'" And please key into verse four.
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"'And we are writing these things "'so that our joy may be complete.'"
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Now with that passage, hopefully you see many things that relate back to the Lord's Prayer. But I want you to first notice the word fellowship in verse three.
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The Greek word for fellowship is koinonia. Koinonia means sharing in common with one another.
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This is a joint participation. And hopefully the word koinonia sounds familiar to us all because most
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Lord's Day after the service, we have a koinonia feast, a wonderful time where we get to build relationships with one another and encourage each other in the faith.
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And we get to share stories about what it's looked like in the world. And sometimes we get beat up pretty bad and we get to have joy with koinonia and fellowship with the saints.
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And so koinonia is a word that's used over 20 times in the New Testament. In Acts chapter two, we see the first time that koinonia fellowship is used, that they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
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What I love about that is that is what we are doing right now. That's why shortly after the sermon, we go to the
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Lord's table together. We share in this wonderful fellowship, this communion with one another and our triune
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God. So Christian fellowship is a huge aspect of the
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Christian life. Believers are to come together in love, faith, to encourage one another.
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That is why Jesus has been praying corporately. I want us to be reminded of what he says.
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Our Father in heaven, give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
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And so the result of this koinonia, this fellowship with the Father and the Son and the saints produces joy, right?
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Verse four, that our joy may be complete. Jesus said something very similar in John chapter 16.
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Jesus said, ask and you will receive that your joy may be full. I have said these things to you that in me you may have peace.
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And you may say, Jeremiah, I'd really like some more peace and joy in my life, because that is exactly what fellowship with God and the saints has to offer.
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But remember, what hinders that fellowship? It's our sin. Sin is severe and that happens in our lives daily, right?
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So we need spiritual provision daily in our lives. And so I want you to imagine for just a moment,
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I want you to think about a cold winter day where you're standing in the house looking outside through the window and it's really cold outside and you can hear the wind blowing and you can kind of feel how chilly it is.
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It's very frigid. But you see the sun beaming brightly and you can feel its warmth going through the window and you're basking in its glow.
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And then suddenly you close the curtains. Instantly the warmth stops and it becomes cold.
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Now I want you to think, why is it now cold, right? Because you can no longer feel the sun's warmth.
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Does that mean that the sun has stopped shining? No. It's because something has come in between you and the sun and in that moment, the curtain is closed and then when it opens, you can feel the warmth again.
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And so the reason why I wanna paint this picture is because the curtains closing is like sin in your life and in your fellowship with the
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Father. Unconfessed sin closes the curtains on that koinonia, closes the curtain and then now you feel that spiritual coldness, right?
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You no longer have that joy and that peace. And so this happens when we stubbornly refuse to repent and go to the
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Lord in prayer and confess our sin to him. But praise God that he does not leave us there.
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He has made provision in our lives to restore that fellowship back with him. And so here in 1
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John 1, look down with me at verse seven. John goes on to say, but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another in the blood of Jesus, his son cleanses us from all sin.
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Now if you remember, we are positionally declared right before God and there is no condemnation credited to our account.
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I believe here in 1 John, we're talking about the sphere of justification, right Keith? Many of our adults are studying 1
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John on Wednesdays. And so I know y 'all have had the privilege of getting to understand that this type of cleansing is totally done in full.
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We have to remember that we are still walking in our relationship with the Lord. So we still need a daily cleansing from our sins.
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Look with me at verse eight. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
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If we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
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Dear saint, we must war against sin by continually confessing it to our heavenly father.
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This is going to be a daily pursuit and our heavenly father has made provision for that.
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This is exactly what our Lord and his prayer has been instructing us. Our father in heaven, forgive us of our debts, our daily sins, and he will continue to cleanse us, meaning that he will purify us and restore that koinonia.
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Now, a lot of times, and I'm guilty of this, that confessing sin is not just saying, oh, I messed up God, right?
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Just please, you know, almost like a tip of the hat, like, please forgive me of this. No, confessing your sin means that you are broken of what you have done.
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You are in agreement with God, with what he has revealed to us in his word, and we now look back to him broken, right?
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A lot of times it's tempting when we sin to flee and run the opposite direction. That sounds a lot like Adam and Eve at the very beginning.
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Remember, they sinned. They disobeyed God and they hid themselves because they were guilty and afraid.
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That should not be us. We should be like King David. King David said, I acknowledge my sin to you, and I did not cover up my iniquity.
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My sacrifice, oh God, is a broken spirit and a broken contrite heart, God, you will not despise.
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And so, dear saint, when you sin against God, it is, it severs your fellowship.
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It closes the curtain on your fellowship with God. Run to him, flee to him in prayer, knowing that he is just and will always forgive you.
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He will cleanse you. This will grow us in our sanctification. And so at the core of confessing our sins to God is that word repentance.
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Now, repentance is a little tricky because repentance means to change your mind with the desire to now live in a new direction.
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And it's confessing. It's admitting that we have done wrong. And so confessing our sins to God requires repentance.
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Now, please make note of this. Confession without repentance is only words.
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But real soul -searching repentance and confession means that we are coming to grips with what we have done before God, who is holy, holy, holy.
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And that should break our hearts and our spirits when we have engaged in such a way to offend him.
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But we can have that joy and that peace restored when we go to him in prayer.
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So confessing our sin has a lot to do with our vertical relationship with God, right?
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He's provided those spiritual means. But confessing our sin is actually a big deal horizontally with one another as well.
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James 5 .16 says, therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.
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Now, contrary to what a lot of people think, this is not going to a priest to confess your sin.
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The context of James chapter five is talking about the fellowship of brothers and sisters in the faith.
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This is in the context of sharing your struggles with one another, your battles and your wars against sin.
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And you pray with one another. You're holding each other accountable. And I love how he says that you may be healed.
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There is so much spiritual healing when you invest precious time with the saints. And that is the aim of our soul care groups, right?
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This is a time of wonderful fellowship where we get to hold each other accountable and build these gospel -centered foundational relationships, engaging in deep discipleship to talk about the times that we've lost against sin or we've had triumphs and praise.
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And it's always to the glory of God. And so I hate to break it to you, but sooner or later, you are going to say something or do something to offend one of your brothers or sisters in the faith.
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It will happen. That is in our nature. But when you do that, you need to go to them and confess your sin and ask for their forgiveness.
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And how do we need to respond when a brother or sister comes to us asking our forgiveness? Paul says in Ephesians four, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as Christ has forgiven you.
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And so I hope you see that confessing sin always entails repentance. And that is key for our ongoing relationship with God the
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Father. And it's also important as we engage with one another, we model forgiveness in fellowship.
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So if you would turn back with me to Matthew chapter six, back to our
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Lord's prayer, where Jesus once again said, and forgive us our debts, right?
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He's talking about forgive us our sins. And the principle here is he's talking to the children of God. When we sin against him, we seek relational forgiveness to restore that koinonia to then receive peace and joy.
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And right this, we have a new nature. We desire to do these things and we desire to model that forgiveness when we come in contact with other people.
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And so that's why the second part of verse 12 says, as we also have forgiven our debtors, right?
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Jesus is talking about those who have sinned against us. Now what's real interesting about Jesus's bullet points in this model prayer, these petitions, is this one, the second part of verse 12, he actually expounds in greater detail immediately after the
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Lord's prayer. Okay, I think that's very interesting. Look with me at verses 14 and 15. He's talking about the same principle of forgiving those who sin against us.
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Verse 14 says, for if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you.
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But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses.
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Now, I wanna caution people, have how important context is.
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Because if you were to just look at these two verses alone, away from the context, away from the rest of the
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New Testament, the entire rest of the Bible, then people are going to conclude and have concluded this way and teach that you cannot receive
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God's forgiveness unless you forgive others. Now we see that there is an element to that, but our positional righteousness and forgiveness of God does not depend on our good works of forgiving other people.
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Okay, do you see how much this is important? This is talking about relational forgiveness.
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If I do not forgive somebody who sinned against me, that's going to hinder my vertical walk with God.
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So that's important to keep in mind. We are the children of God, citizens of the heaven.
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So we go to him in prayer, even when we are struggling to forgive somebody that's offended us.
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And so we see that direct connection. Colossians chapter three really shows us that direct connection that we have horizontally with one another and vertically with God, bearing with one another.
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And if someone has a complaint against you, forgive one another as the Lord has forgiven you.
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So you must also forgive. Now I've talked with some other people that says, okay, it says, as the Lord has forgiven you, right?
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We are saved by going to him in repentance and faith and confessing their sin. So some people say, okay,
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I'm only going to forgive people if they come to me and confess their sin and they're really repentant.
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They really put on a good show. They have to really show me. That's not what's being talked about here, right?
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We have to understand there is a big difference between one another in here and God.
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God is holy. He is without sin. So the way we come to God is on his terms with a repentant heart and a heart of humility.
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And so when we sin against one another, it is different, friend. When someone sins against you, you are not blameless like God.
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And so you cannot demand repentance and confession like God in order to forgive.
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Here's the idea. When somebody sins against me, in my heart, I forgive them. I forgive them immediately, okay?
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Now, sometimes that's really hard, but I don't want you to lose me here. That doesn't mean that we are immediately restored with them, okay?
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That takes both parties coming together, talking about that sin and making it right.
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But when someone offends you, because of the great sin debt that Christ has already forgiven us, we can instantly forgive them.
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This is really important in understanding restoration, right? Think about all the times that you sin against God, day in and day out.
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When we are faithless, he is faithful. You have acquired such a big sin debt in your life, and it's gonna continue to grow the more you live.
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Forgiven, positionally declared right before God. So think about if God has forgiven me of such a great sin debt, when someone sins against me, that's minor.
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In comparison of what God has done for us, that's why Christians can show love to the unlovable, right?
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Because we were unlovable. We were dead in our sins and our trespasses against God. That's why we can show forgiveness even in the hardest of circumstances.
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Why? Because what God has done in my life. So I don't want us to think, though, that just forgiving somebody means in your mind thinking, okay, well, what they did to me was not really that bad.
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That's not what I'm saying. Sometimes people have really done evil things against you or one another, and we have to acknowledge that as being so.
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Forgiving them is not trying to downplay that in any way. I think about Joseph and his brothers.
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Remember, they threw him into a pit and they sold him to merchants to take to Egypt. Joseph did not say at the end of Genesis, well, what you guys did,
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I guess, wasn't that bad after all, so let's just forget about the whole thing. That's not what he says. He says, you meant evil against me, meaning that what you did was awful in the sight of God, and I still have wounds from that to this very day.
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But I also love how Joseph rested in the sovereignty of God. He said, but God meant it for good.
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He had purpose, and he will be glorified from what has happened. And the story of Joseph, I love how it all comes to the end.
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We do see that Joseph forgave his brothers, and the brothers were broken over their sin.
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They confessed what they did, they repented, and they were truly brought together in restoration.
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A beautiful picture of what it should look like in the life of believers. And so forgiveness is still really, really hard at times, and I believe that this is even a difficult concept for the disciples, and so if you would, turn with me in a few pages to Matthew chapter 18.
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And so Jesus is teaching the disciples here what forgiveness ought to look like with one another.
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Jesus just got done talking with the disciples about church discipline, for when a brother who does sin, and there's unrepentant sin, they're going to have to go through a process, but it's not to be mean.
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It's because we actually love them to bring them back into the fold and restore fellowship with one another.
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Look with me at Matthew chapter 18. Let's start in verse 21. We read, then
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Peter came up and said to Jesus, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?
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As many as seven times? Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but 77 times.
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So I just wanna pause real quick. Notice the struggle in Peter's mind. He's basically saying, Jesus, how many times are we gonna have to go through this process of showing forgiveness to somebody that sins against us?
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Well, Peter, I think, probably thought he was very generous by saying seven times.
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I think Jews at that time thought forgiving somebody two or three times was all that was necessary.
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And so Peter, and every time I'm critical about Peter, I'm just like, Jeremiah, you would have done the same thing.
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Just keep that in mind. But Peter is saying, hey, we'll forgive him double of what's required, but surely that will be enough.
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And so I love what Jesus says because he's very poetic. He says, I do not say to you 77 times.
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Other translations say 70 times seven, which is 490.
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Jesus is telling us, no, you should not respond with a limited forgiveness.
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Keep in mind that you are forgiven of this immeasurable debt between you and God. Jesus is essentially rebuking
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Peter, saying, do not have a limited forgiveness in mind. Remember, when somebody sins against you, boom, in your heart, forgiven.
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You're not restored with them yet, but in your heart, you forgive them. And so Jesus is not limiting our forgiveness, but he is saying without measure.
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And so we know that this is his meaning because then he gives a parable immediately afterwards.
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Look with me at verse 23. We read, therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wishes to settle accounts with his servants.
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When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him 10 ,000 talents.
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And the equivalent of that today would be about $6 billion. Can you imagine being in debt $6 billion to somebody?
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It's just, that doesn't really happen from normal interactions with people. But that's this man's debt to this master.
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Verse 25, and since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold with his wife and his children, all that he had in payment to be made.
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So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, have patience with me and I will pay you everything.
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And so the master, out of pity for him, he sold the servant and released him and forgave him of all the debt.
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But when that same servant went out, he found another fellow servant who owed him 100 denarii.
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So just kind of to have in your mind, he owed the master $6 billion and he had someone else that owes him about $12 ,000.
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Right? That's an incalculable debt. And then you got a really tiny debt over here. And how did he treat him?
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He says, he seized him and began choking him, saying, pay what you owe. So his fellow servant, does this sound familiar?
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Fell down and pleaded with him, have patience with me and I will pay you. But he refused.
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And he went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow servant saw what all had taken place, they were greatly distressed.
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Then they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, you wicked servant.
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I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And shouldn't you not have mercy on your fellow servant as I have had mercy on you?
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Verse 34, the master in anger, delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt.
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And so Jesus says, so also my heavenly father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.
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I think the major takeaway from this parable is that it is unthinkable. Better yet, it is impossible if someone has truly experienced this grace and mercy and forgiveness of God of all your sin to then turn around and not from the heart be willing to forgive your brothers and your sisters.
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It's impossible. Because if you have experienced that great debt forgiven, then you desire, we're not gonna do this perfectly, but you desire to show that same love and forgiveness to one another.
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So I want you to be encouraged with these things that God has not only provided for us physically, but he provides for our spiritual needs daily as well.
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Our heart should go flee to the father saying, give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors.
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That is beautiful. And as I was thinking through these applications, I thought, you know, this actually relates to the
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Lord's Supper very well. Because the Lord's Supper is a time of koinonia, right, with one another.
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But this time is so important, this time of fellowship with the saints that scripture actually warns us not to come to the table in an unworthy manner.
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This is a time to examine your hearts. Maybe somebody has wronged you and you haven't forgiven them yet.