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There's a lady who was a secular humanist. She was interviewed by a Christian on TV in 1988, Marganita Lasky. Here's what she said. She was a famous novelist, writer, and here's what she told the interviewer.
What I envy most about you Christians is your forgiveness. I have nobody to forgive me. And that is the essence of Christianity, dealing with our sins. Let's go ahead and turn our Bibles to Matthew chapter 6 this morning, beloved.
And we are back in the Lord's Prayer, the disciples' prayer, if you will, dealing with the fifth petition, forgive us our debts, or forgive us our trespasses. As we get back into the Sermon on the Mount, it is a fascinating passage.
It should excite you as we go through it, because it is filled with theological truths. It is our Lord Jesus Christ's own words that we study. I think you'll agree with Augustine and Luther, who would say there's nothing more precious in all the Bible than the Lord's Prayer.
And here we have Jesus Christ teaching us how to pray, implying that we need help when it comes to prayer, that we don't know how to pray on our own, that we need help from the God-man to teach us exactly how to approach the Father in prayer.
And so we come to the Sermon on the Mount, many weeks in the Sermon on the Mount, and many more to go. But here we're focusing in on these words in Matthew 6, called the Lord's Prayer. Six petitions. If you look at the text, the first petition we looked at weeks ago was, Hallowed be your name.
The first three, remember, talking about God's glory, before we're concerned with our own good. Number one, hallowed be your name. May your name, may your lovingkindness, may your wrath, may your mercy, may your forgiveness, may everything about your name be hallowed.
It's all about you, God, and your glory. A great portal, as one man called it, into the presence of God. Still with the glory of God in focus, the second petition, your kingdom come. Following that, your will be done, number three.
Again, it's all about God, and when you pray, even in the toughest situations, with family, and friends, and health, and work, and issues in life, when we're taught by our Lord to pray to the Father, it is God.
I'm concerned, or I should be concerned, about your kingdom, your glory, your name. But certainly God is a good Father. He wants us to come to Him with our human needs as well. And that would be petitions four, five, and six.
Petition four, give us this day our daily bread. When it comes to food, when it comes to shelter, when it comes to everything we need, temporarily, we are to ask our Father for that. Then number five, forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And that's where we want to focus today, forgiveness. Even Christians need forgiveness. True? Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors. Well, we're just going to look at that particular verse today.
So to give you an outline, here's what we're going to look at. We're going to look at several misconceptions that this verse helps us deal with. It could be false views of God, or false views about sin, or man, or something else that if we think about this section of the Lord's Prayer, it will help us think properly.
So we'll call them several misconceptions. If you want to know the number, I have twelve, but we're never going to get there. So several misconceptions for this week, maybe, and for next. These are theological misconceptions.
These are conceptions that we might think about improperly unless verses like this, and specifically this verse, will help us say, I want to think properly about God and man and everything in between.
Misconception number one, this prayer comes naturally to Christians. This prayer comes naturally to Christians. If we did this naturally, then why would God command us to pray this way? Pray then in this way.
We are prone to pray in a different way, a natural way, not supernaturally guided by the Scripture. Forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors. There's a man named Bob George, and he says, Christians ought never to pray this, because Christians are justified by the work of Christ.
They stand before God uncondemned. They stand before God justified, and therefore you should never pray, forgive us our sins, because we've been forgiven for all of our sins. Jesus said to his disciples with a command, when you pray before the Father, as you've addressed the needs of God's glory, or the desires to have God's glory magnified, then you're to pray for your sins to be forgiven.
We are to pray, you are to pray, God, please forgive me my debts. Why should we pray this? Spurgeon has a rebuttal for those who say, you know, I don't need to pray this anymore. Here's what he said, it's classic.
Dear one, look at your own heart. I will have no argument with you. Take the bandage off your eyes. You are about as full of sin as an egg is full of protein. Among the rest of your many sins is this rotten egg of an accursed pride about your own state of heart.
A state of heart that doesn't say, God, I know I'm your father. I mean, I know you're my father and I'm your child, but I've still sinned. Please forgive me. This is a command. If you go back to verse 9 of Matthew 6, pray then in this way.
When you approach deity, when you come before the great God, we are commanded by God to pray this particular way. Remember, the whole context is the Pharisees and the scribes approached God in a way where God was not a father.
God was not close. God was not a caring father. He was some kind of non-father, ogre. This is the way we're to pray. Other people don't have a father, but since we have a father, we come to the father knowing our own sin and we say, Great God, please forgive me.
Please forgive me. And the word, by the way, to forgive, there are many words in the Bible for forgiveness, but this word means I'd like you to send away. There's an issue between us, the father and the child, and that issue that I've caused, that I have sinned, would you just take that away?
Would you send it away? I've committed a sin against you, God. I have a spiritual debt against you, and would you just remit that? Would you just send it away? The legal use of this word is to release from a legal bond.
It's also used to release a woman from marriage. It is also used to acquit a criminal of criminal proceedings. And so, God, would you remit this? Would you release this? Would you just send this away?
Would you deal with it? And, of course, we know theologically, based on the rest of the text of Scripture, that it is done because Jesus himself has paid for it. And so, God, would you just cleanse me?
Would you just get rid of this? I know justice has been satisfied at the cross, but please get rid of this debt that I've committed against you as a child would a father. We're a debtor to God for violating his laws, and so please get rid of this debt.
The word debt is just a figurative word for this sin to get rid of. Luke calls this debt a trespass. We have violated the laws of God, and we know where there's a penalty, and there's a chastening because we're children, and so, God, please forgive me.
Arthur Pink said, We owe a debt of obedience unto our maker and governor, and through failure render the same on account of our rank disobedience. We have incurred a debt of punishment, and it is for this that we implore a divine pardon.
And so, when we think about life, we think about prayer lives. We should pray this because we're told to. Number one, the first misconception is, this prayer comes naturally. That's not true. It comes supernaturally, as it were, as God would command us.
Why would God command us to do something we naturally do? Misconception number two. Not only does this prayer come more than naturally, here is the misconception. So, we'll say it in a negative way, so we have to think about the positive side.
Misconception number two. This prayer has changed as scientific discoveries have rendered it obsolete. This prayer has changed as science has known more than the Bible has. And what I mean by this is, if you don't think you've sinned, but you think you just have a disease, if you don't think you have a debt, a figurative debt before God, and you just have kind of a syndrome, if you don't think you've broken God's holy laws as a son or a daughter, but you just kind of had a boo-boo done before God, then you don't pray things like this.
I love this Danish proverb. Blame is a lazy man's wages. And so, this prayer helps us not come to God with all kinds of, I'm blaming someone else. Forgive us our debts. Robert Half said, the search for someone to blame is always successful.
And we're not to do that when it comes to our own sins. We're to acknowledge them before God. I don't know who wrote this, but it's under unknown author probably for a reason. If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.
Turn to James chapter one with me as we address this. We don't need to blame people anymore because we have an advocate. We have Christ Jesus to stand in our place. Why blame anymore when we're called a child, we are children, and therefore we don't have to say, these are my rights to stay in the family of God.
We have been purchased at a price. And so now as we stumble and sin and commit debts before God, we just admit them as sin. We confess them and we agree with them, 1 John says. But I want us to know even as Christians, James chapter one verse fourteen, that we are the ones that make ourselves sin.
It's not the devil. It's not the demons. It's not your friends. It's not your wife. It's not other people at church. It's not your environment. It's not your Italian temper. It's not your heredity. It's not the wife that God gave you.
It's none of those things. You make yourself sin. My old professor, George Zemeck, said, you made you do it. And this is exactly what James does. And so think about it. The father-son relationship. The father-daughter relationship.
You don't go to your father and say, you know, I've committed this sin, and therefore I know I'm going to get kicked out of the family. No, you say, since I'm in the family, I've committed this against you.
You've provided for me. You're kind to me. You've done everything for me, and I've done this against you. And could I please have your forgiveness? Forgive me. I did it. James 1, verse 14. Each one is tempted when, mark this well, beloved, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.
Who made you do it? You made you do it. Can you imagine David, King David, a man after God's own heart. What would he have said to the Lord? God, I sinned with Bathsheba because you gave me these desires for women.
God, you should have had Bathsheba out there bathing providentially with a full baptismal robe on. You know, God, being a king is very, very stressful. God, by the way, the serpent back in Genesis, the serpent made me do that.
To Bathsheba. I mean, when we look at other people and how they blame, you're laughing because it's funny, isn't it? Until we then end up saying, oh, by the way, you know, I didn't treat my wife very well because I didn't feel good.
I had a headache. I'm sick. We, left to ourselves, blame. Sometimes, even with the ultimate blame, I'm human. Somehow that God created us in a fallen state. The text is clear. By his own or her own evil desire, dragged away and enticed.
Each one, do you see the text? It's a universal experience, but each one, individually, has been assessed this way. Each man is tempted. Each man is enticed by his own evil desire. It reminds me of Jesus in Mark chapter 7.
For from within, out of man's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man unclean.
We all have our own bents, our own propensities. Do you see the text? By his own evil desire. And some have different propensities. Some have different bents. They're bent different ways. But the text is clear.
It's our own selves that make us do it. Proverbs 19, a man's own folly ruins his life. And now look at how James, using Greek literature like a Hebrew would almost, says we're dragged away and enticed.
Dragged away is like a person grabbing a lion by the mane, a dead lion by the mane, and dragging it away. That's that word, carried away or dragged away. Seizing Paul, they dragged him from the temple.
Here, lust is so powerful, it just carries us away if we're not ready. And also look at this other mode of operation, enticed. This is the word where we get bait. Have you ever gone fishing? And you look in your little can of worms, and what kind of worm do you pick if you want to catch the good fish?
I don't know much about fishing, but when I want to pick a worm, I pick the plump, juicy worm to put on there that looks real good, that covers up all the hook. And I just take that worm and just thread it on that thing so it just looks nice.
Anticipated pleasure of the fish. By the way, the text here is interestingly present tense. Ongoing, luring sin. A continual problem. Be on guard. So what do we do? We realize when we look at Matthew chapter 6 that sin is our own fault.
We have no one else to blame. So we come before God. Don't say things like this. Dear Lord, please forgive me of that sin. But by the way, I never would have sinned if you wouldn't, by your own providence, put me in that situation.
And by your own providence, kept me up late at night with the kids crying. By your own providence, put me in that financial situation. By your own providential decree, put me in that situation. So I had to sin.
That would not be a good thing to do. When your own children come to you and say, by the way, these are all my excuses for why I did what I did. Is that pleasing to you as a father or a mother? Or would you rather have your children just come to you and say, I did it.
I'm guilty. I have not lived like an Abendroth. But I'm sorry. I'll make amends. I want to ask your forgiveness. Do you think you have it in your heart to forgive me? Now doesn't that please a parent?
Much more. We remember we are justified by Christ already. We don't have to make an excuse for our judicial standing. We are children. So when you ask for forgiveness, just say, God, I agree with you that I have sinned.
Please cleanse me. It makes it so much easier. Moody Monthly said, Man calls it an accident. God calls it an abomination. Man calls it a defect. God calls it a disease. Man calls it an error. God calls it an enmity.
Man calls it liberty. God calls it lawlessness. Man calls it a trifle. God calls it a tragedy. Man calls it a mistake. God calls it madness. Man calls it a weakness. God calls it willfulness. So friends, isn't it good of our Lord where we can just go to Him and say, I'm your child.
I have sinned. Please forgive me. It should be refreshing to us. A personal sin against a personal God who takes it personally and yet personally forgives. Misconception number three. Our first misconception is, this prayer comes naturally.
It doesn't. Second misconception is, this prayer somehow is out of date because we don't have the latest physician's desk reference, DSM -4. But number three, God reluctantly forgives. That's the third misconception.
That God is stingy. He doesn't really want to forgive. He's just forced to by His own kind of nature. No, not at all. The text says in Matthew chapter six, forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors.
Jesus Himself has taught us. Paul has taught us that God, yes, is just. God, yes, is strict. God, yes, is a God who is holy. God is much more than that. He's full of grace and mercy and compassion and He is willing to forgive.
He's ready to forgive. C .S. Lewis was asked, what separates Christianity from every other religion? People were arguing about it. In a typical C .S. Lewis fashion, he said, what's all the rumpus about?
Why is Christianity unique? That's easy, he said. One word, grace. The rich, great, manifold, abundant, exceeding grace of God. If you have your Bibles, turn to Ephesians chapter two just for a moment and I want to show you and remind you what you already know, the great grace of God, the great mercy of God, the love of God where when we go to this great God, we're acknowledging.
When we go to ask for forgiveness, it is already established that God is full of grace and He's ready to forgive. He's willing to forgive. And Jesus knows it, therefore He says, pray to your willing father for forgiveness.
What good father wouldn't grant forgiveness? I mean, even sinful parents like myself, when a child comes up and says, please forgive me, I know it's incumbent upon me to ask for forgiveness. Not everybody in our lives operates that way.
Matter of fact, when I get pulled over, this is my trick to try to get out of speeding tickets, I know we have some ministers of the gospel who wear badges and guns here, but I just do the same thing every time.
I don't know if they have grace and mercy, but I'm going to do the same thing every time. I get pulled over. Hands, ten and two position. Right? No guns, not trying to do anything. Officer comes over.
Sir, I know your wife was making you speed. Sorry, that's not what he said. Sir, you're going too fast. And I always say the same thing. I'm guilty. Guilty as charged. I did it. Because I figured they all have these excuses.
A thousand excuses. Officer, I'm guilty. And what I'm appealing to is I'm appealing to the person who maybe has a little mercy, and that he's going to give me some kind of warning. I'm not going to give you what you deserve.
I'm going to just run your plates, make sure everything's fine, good to go. And nine times out of ten, I don't get a ticket. I haven't got a speeding ticket since I lived in Massachusetts. Twelve years.
Or maybe one. It's all those CBD books that were pushing down on my accelerator. But I'm appealing to him and his mercy, but I would never think in my wildest dreams that I'm going to appeal to his grace.
That he's going to go, by the way, I'm not going to charge you, I'm not going to give you the ticket. And by the way, here's a few tickets to the Bruins game. Front row. Good for you. Well, I just know he won't do it.
I mean, maybe he would one day. I don't know. I don't know if I've ever been bribed by a policeman. But it's kind of like I have a brother-in-law in California, and he's a policeman there. And I said to him, if I ever get pulled over, could I use this line on another policeman?
My brother-in-law, Chris Colwell, is an officer here. He's a sheriff in Scotts Valley. Does that help me or hurt me? He said, that would be a good thing to say. Probably help you. But I know, point is, they're supposed to give me justice.
They enforce the law. Rarely, and maybe often, here or there, they might say, okay, mercy. But I know as I appeal to the officer, he's not in the grace -giving business. That's not his job. That's not his nature.
That's not what he's paid to do. But when we go to God, Jesus tells us, listen, you don't have to justify yourself. God the Father knows who you are. And you just come and you know who He is. Yes, just.
Yes, merciful. But He's gracious. That should help motivate you. Pray to a God who would forgive. You say, my father on earth was never like that. Well, friends, that's why we're to pray to this Father who's in the heavenly places.
Look at Ephesians chapter 2. This should entice you to ask this great God for daily cleansing. Daily foot washing, as it were. But God, after the horrible indictment of man in chapter 2, verses 1 to 3, but God being rich in mercy.
Just look at the words to describe God. Rich in mercy because of His great love. So it's not just mercy, but rich in mercy. It's not just love, but great love. And He's proved it with which He loved us.
John Kirshner said, love? Love? Impossible. Mercy? Maybe. Perhaps He could even spare us. What is there, though, to love? Hate? Yes, there's plenty of hate. Maybe He once loved us. Or maybe He could have loved us what we once were.
But we're beyond love. No. The Bible says He loves. He loves. The Son of God loved me and gave Himself for me. Galatians chapter 2. To what point? Ephesians 2 .5. Even when we were dead in our transgressions, He made us alive together with Christ.
And then everybody say it out loud together. By grace you have been saved. Sinai with all its lightning and thunder have all been absorbed by Christ and we stand before God knowing He's a good God who forgives us.
He wants to show this great grace beyond the cross. Did you know that? Verse 6. And raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. For what reason? Verse 7. You ought to underline this in your Bibles.
In order that, with the purpose that, in the ages to come, the eons and the decades and the thousands of years to come, He might show, He might display, He might broadcast the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.
At Calvary certainly, but even beyond. We know God is gracious and merciful so we say God forgive us our debts. Number 4. Fourth misconception. The fourth misconception is that this prayer teaches us about the goodness of mankind.
The goodness of mankind. Kind of tied into number 2, but I wanted to make it specific. This prayer teaches us about the goodness of mankind. First of all, the first misconception is this prayer is an optional, it's commanded.
The second misconception is somehow this is beyond us in science now because we've evolved to such a high state of being. Number 3, this teaches us that God is more than just. He's gracious and loving.
Number 4, this prayer teaches us about the goodness of mankind. It doesn't teach us about the goodness of mankind at all. It doesn't teach us the goodness of mankind at all. Let's turn our Bibles just quickly to 1 John chapter 1.
I want you to see it in your Bible as we're to forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors. 1 John makes it very clear that we're to continually ask for forgiveness. Yes, we've been justified, but we need our feet washed on a regular basis.
Asking for forgiveness as Christians should be as regular and as often as daily. I could ask you the question, how often do you sin? How often do you need to ask for forgiveness? I could ask you the question, have you asked for forgiveness this morning?
Have you sinned this morning? We know the fall is true. We are realists, and we come to 1 John chapter 1, and you can just see the way this beloved apostle writes. Verse 8, if we say we have no sin, if we say somehow we haven't missed God's mark, we are what?
Deceiving ourselves. The truth isn't in us. We have though been enlightened, and the truth is in us, and we have the truth teller indwelling in us, and we know better. And so what do we do? Verse 9, if we agree with God about our sins, we confess our sins, He's faithful and righteous, our just, to forgive us our sins.
He doesn't say, by the way, I punished Jesus for all your present, past, and future sins, and so therefore with double jeopardy, I'm going to punish you again. No, He's faithful and just, to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. And here's something I want to tell the congregation this morning. The more you mature as a Christian, the more often you're going to pray, God, please forgive me my sins.
Not because you're sinning more, but because you think you're sinning more. Now let me explain that. When you first get saved, you realize that you were sinful, and you ask God for forgiveness, of course.
But the more you grow in Christ, the more you realize that you have these sins of omission, these sins of commission, these transgressions, these trespasses, these particular falling short sins, these kind of iniquities, and you realize, you know, I didn't even think this was sin before, and now I realize this is sin.
I'm not loving God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and so I think I'm sinning more now, even though you're sinning less, but you're just recognizing it more. I meet Christians all the time, and they say, I might have to get baptized again, because how could I be a Christian back then, with all the sins?
I wasn't a Christian then, because I'm sinning more now than I was then, ten years ago. What's the answer most often? The answer is, you're growing. You're growing, and you're realizing that the truth is dwelling in you.
You're not deceived, and you're saying to yourself, I am growing, so I recognize my sins more, even though I sin less. It's a beloved thing to have happen. John Hannah said, the closer one comes to Christ, in one sense, the more miserable he becomes.
We believe in sanctification. God declares us as just based on the work of another. We believe in glorification. Perfect bodies, perfect minds, no sin in heaven. By the way, this is just free, I want to throw it in just for fun anyway.
You're not even going to have a free will in heaven, friends, because you want to have free, you want to freely sin in heaven? You can't do it. No free will in heaven. No freedom to sin. Perfect righteousness.
Perfect bodies. Oh, what a day of blessing that will be. No forgiveness of sins in heaven. We believe in justification, declared righteous. We believe in glorification, but we also believe in sanctification, and until this year, I used to say, sanctification is like California real estate.
It just keeps going up and up and up, gradually. J .C. Ryle said, the plain truth is that a right knowledge of sin lies at the root of all saving Christianity. Dim our indistinct views of sin are the origin of most errors, heresies, and false doctrines of this present day.
Christians need forgiveness too. Misconception number five. Misconception number five. This prayer teaches you that there's nothing worse than sinning against other people. This prayer teaches you that there's nothing worse than sinning against other people.
Is it bad to sin against other people? Something that you should be proud of? Oh, I sin against other people. This is wonderful. Great. We can sin against other people. Did David, when he committed adultery with Bathsheba, sin against Bathsheba?
Yes. Did David sin against Uriah when he killed Uriah? Yes. Did David sin against the nation, Israel, because he was supposed to be a righteous king? Yes, but there's something far worse. This prayer is directed in Matthew 6 to God.
Forgive us our debts, because every sin is not just against a person, or David's case, a nation. It's also against a thrice holy God. Turn with me. You already know where I'm going. Psalm 51. Please turn there.
There's something worse than sinning against people, and it's sinning against God. And David knew that. David knew that there were other things going on in his life, and he had killed a man. He had robbed from a man.
But when we pray this prayer, Jesus knows where to go first to God. Then certainly make amends with those you've sinned against. I'm not saying you ought not to do that. I'm just saying that there's someone that you've committed sin against to a higher degree.
Psalm 51. My particular text, the NES, even gives us the background of this psalm found in verse 1, from the choir director, a psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came to him after he had gone in to Bathsheba.
And so here comes Psalm 51. By the way, this is a great prayer if you've fallen into sin, or you're a sinner, or you commit sin on a regular basis. Here's a model. Here's almost like an exposition of Matthew 6.
Jesus takes Psalm 51 and crunches it into a few words. But here's the exposition as it were. And look at what a wonderful model prayer we have. Be gracious to me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness.
Not out of Thy lovingkindness, but according to Thy lovingkindness. According to the greatness of Thy compassion, blot out my transgressions. Blot out my rebellions. And look at how He uses these words for sin.
Wash me thoroughly from my, not just transgressions, but now iniquities, things that are twisted and crooked, gone astray, perverse things. Wash me from those. And then, with typical Hebrew language of adding up these things for the force of it all, and cleanse me from failing to meet Your standard.
God, I have such stains on my heart and on my body that only Your fuller's brush can cleanse. He could have said, I'm the king, I'm above the law, rewrite the laws. He could have said, blot out Bathsheba and all her family and Uriah's family too, so no one ever knows.
But hear this man after God's own heart. He says, be gracious, show me favor. God, You're going to have to do it. Because the sin against Bathsheba, the sin against Israel, and the sin against Uriah was mainly against God.
So God, You are going to have to be generous in Your lovingkindness towards me. It's going to have to be Your compassion. And so what does He say? Blot out my transgressions. Wipe them out. The text literally says, destroy them.
Exterminate them. You call the exterminator over and say, I've got termites. Kill them all. And He says, I want you to exterminate my transgressions. Just get rid of them. Blot them out. Obliterate them from your memory, God.
What does He say also? Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. Wash and clean. Literally the text, it's wonderful, beloved. Multiply to wash me. Over and over and over. Cleanse me. That word cleanse is used to cleanse a land full of corpses.
That word cleanse is used for an altar that's got a bunch of blood all over it. Cleanse me. I have a question for you, beloved. Why did it take so long for Nathan to come and point his finger at David?
Nathan could have showed up right away. But there was a lengthy time between David's horrible sins and Nathan coming. I think the answer lies right here. It's God's providential goodness. So he would realize, David would realize, the crushing conscience guilt of this kind of sin.
Verse 3, no matter where David turned, he couldn't get away from that sin. Those sins. For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. I know. The text says, I think of them often, continually.
Very early I think of those things. I wake up in the middle of the night and I have haunting sin in my life. Sound familiar? I've felt that before. There needed to be an interval between David's sin and God sending Nathan so people could feel the weight of sin and there's no way else to get rid of sin until you say, God, Your grace is going to have to get rid of it.
I'm not going to have an excuse. I'm not going to save circumstances. I'm not going to blame Your laws. I think of Proverbs 28, 13, He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper. But he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion.
So then we come to verse 4. You know this is where I was going. God is the one that we've sinned against. Jesus, therefore, would teach us, so go to God. Against thee, the new American standard says, against you, you only, I have sinned.
How can He say you only? Because it's mainly against God and it was God's law that says, don't commit adultery. It was God's law that said, don't commit murder. Against thee, thee only. You see the emphasis?
I have slipped up. I've sinned. Look at what He calls it. He knows it's an offense towards God. He knows how aggravated the crime is. He knows how premeditated it was. He knows how enormous it was. And I have done what is evil in thy sight.
The culture might think it's right. The community might think it's right. The church might think it's right. But I know in thy sight, it's evil. Listen to Isaiah 65, 3. A people who continually provoke me to my face, God says.
David said, I can't see my sin aright until I see it against you. After David was confronted by Nathan, 2 Samuel 12, 13, David responds to Nathan, I have sinned against... Nathan said to David, the Lord has taken away your sin.
You shall not die. You deserve to die, but you're not going to die. Joseph knew it when he said to Potiphar's wife, there is no one greater in this house than I. And he has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife.
How then I could do this great evil and sin against you? Sin against your husband? No, the text says, and sin against God. David said, I'll take what's coming to me. I know I'm still your child, verse 4.
So you're justified when you do speak and blameless when you do judge. God, I know you're going to be blameless. I know you're going to be clear. Whatever you do, I'll take that. When we pray, we know we've sinned primarily against God.
Alright, number six. Sixth misconception. We'll just do maybe one or two more. Sixth misconception. This is going to be very fast. This prayer teaches you that you're better than Judas, that you're better than Herod, that you're better than Jezebel, and that you're better than Hitler.
Put that one in for shock value. Is it shocking? Does anybody here think, left to themselves before salvation, that you are better than Jezebel? Better than Stalin? Better than Lenin? You just fill in the worst person you can think.
And you say, you know what, I'm better. No, because every sin is against this thrice holy God. And you can tell how bad your sin is, not because how bad the sin itself is, but against the one you've sinned against.
We have no claim upon God the Father, just like Stalin had no claim upon God the Father. The only claim we have is God's unmerited favor, which is called grace. Grace has no obligations. Grace doesn't owe anything.
And so we stand before God as a sinner and unclean until He extends His scepter out to us and says, come into my presence based on the scepter of Christ Jesus. I don't think we realize how bad we used to be, because we think we're better.
How can John Newton then know when he wrote the epitaph with his own hand before he died? He wrote this. What's on your tombstone? John Newton, clerk, once an infidel in Libertine, was by the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had long labored to destroy.
It's all grace. We are what we are by the grace of God. We aren't better than any sinner who's ever been born. Listen to Paul. 1 Timothy 1, I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, and I was better than Herod.
I excelled more than Pontius Pilate. Caesar, compared to me, was good. Is that what he said? Even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor, yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief.
And the grace of our Lord was more than abundant with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus. It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all.
Isn't that Luke 18? The Pharisees over here and the tax gatherers over here, the publican and the Pharisee, and here's this publican and he says, Lord, have mercy on me. What? Because there's somebody worse than I can think of.
He says in Greek literally, have mercy on me, the sinner. The sinner. When we pray this prayer, it should be in our craw very often that left to ourselves without the grace of God, we could have been worse than any of those people I just read.
I don't know if you're visiting today and maybe you're an unbeliever. Maybe you said, I never need to pray these things. God's not my Father. Well, then I offer to you today forgiveness found in Christ Jesus.
The risen King who died a sacrificial death in Calvary. And I think in your deepest heart, you long for forgiveness. Marginita Lasky said, I don't have somebody to forgive me. There's one person's laws who you've offended and there's one person who has come and died on the cross to save sinners like you.
And I think this final illustration talks about the need people have for forgiveness, not just in their family, but before God. The story is told. Spain. A father and his teenage son had a relationship that was broken, strained, irreconcilable differences.
The son runs from home. His father went out to search for his son. Sound familiar? Finally, in Madrid, in a last-ditch effort to reach out to his son, he put an ad in the newspaper. The ad read, Dear Paco, meet me in front of the newspaper office at noon.
All is forgiven. I love you, your father. The next day at noon, in front of the newspaper office, 800 Pacos showed up looking for forgiveness and reconciliation with their father. Reconciliation between sinner and God is found in the person of Jesus Christ.
And you ought to believe in him for forgiveness. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we as a church have been taught many things from the scriptures in the last few weeks. We would pray for our current president, George Bush, and the president-elect, Barack Obama, the senators who are currently in office, those who are resigning to be in the cabinet, and those who are going to be newly ruling.
Pray for the congress, congressmen and women. Pray for the mayor, selectmen, even of West Boylston. And we would ask, Lord, that you would grant them wisdom, righteous decisions, that you would grant them full forgiveness found in Christ Jesus as well for those who are not your children.
And Lord, for us, we would say individually, and even corporately, forgive us our trespasses. Forgive us our debts. Lord, we have incurred at Bethlehem Bible Church a debt that we could never pay. You've given us so much teaching, so much training, so many books, so many Bible studies, so many seminars.
Yet, Lord, we fall short. And we would confess it's no other reason than our own sin. Would you be so merciful and so gracious to forgive us our sins, to cleanse us? We're thankful that you're faithful and you're righteous and you won't punish us after you've punished Jesus at Calvary.
And Lord, would you turn us into the church that we ought to be? Would your spirit help us to think properly, to do properly? We can't do it on our own, and so we'll need your strength and your power provided by your spirit to do that.
Lord, I'd also pray as we wait for next week's message that if there are irreconcilable, allegedly, differences between husbands and wives here, spouses that don't even attend the church, parents that don't attend the church, even inter-church people that are having problems, I pray that you would grant us forgiveness, that you would grant us the ability to forgive others, that you would grant us the humility to go and ask for forgiveness to those that we have sinned against.
And Lord, we are so thankful that when we look towards heaven, there are many things that we won't be able to do, and one of those things is not sin. And yet we're thankful for this word, we're thankful that you love us enough to tell us the truth.
Thank you for forgiveness found in Christ Jesus. In his name we pray. Amen.