1 Robert Vannoy, Lord’s Prayer, Message #4 “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” If you recall the beginning of the series, I mentioned in Matthew chapter 6, when the Lord gave the prayer that has become known as “The Lord’s Prayer” to his disciples, he did that saying, in Matthew 6:9: “After this manner, therefore pray ye.” Certainly I think that in the Lord’s Prayer, there is much for our instruction both with respect to things we should pray for as well as how we should go about it. The Lord’s Prayer, when you subject it to careful study, is an extremely rich passage of Scripture. It is a very carefully constructed prayer, I have discussed something of that in all of the messages. You get basically three beginning petitions concerning God: his name, his kingdom and his will. And then you come to three petitions that concern our needs: our daily sustenance--our daily bread, our forgiveness of sin, and our deliverance from temptation. There is also an opening to the prayer and a conclusion of the prayer. It is a carefully constructed prayer. I’d like this morning to center your attention on the fifth petition, which is in Matthew 6:12, “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” This is the second of the three petitions that concern our needs: “forgive us our sins as we forgive others.” I would like us to consider that petition under these three headings. If we truly pray this petition “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,” I think we do three things. First, we acknowledge our guilt before God--“Forgive our debts.” Secondly, we request God’s forgiveness--“forgive us.” And thirdly, we extend our own forgiveness to others--“as we forgive our debtors.” So first of all, we acknowledge our guilt before God. Most concretely, through the prayer, in all sincerity, it is first of all confession. It is a confession that we are debtors, that we are guilty before God. I think if you reflect on our own confession of sinfulness and of our guilt before God, particularly as God’s children. I think that very often, that confession comes perhaps a bit too easily. If and when it does come there is something basically wrong with the confession. I think it’s possible that when we understand the biblical teaching concerning the depravity of man and sinfulness of man and how all men descended from Adam by natural generation of sinful man by2 nature itself, you become aware of that. Theologically, we are aware of the implications of that, and then we can say, perhaps very easily and readily, “I am a sinner, there is no good thing in me. My heart is deceitful and desperately wicked.” In so doing we can become immune to the seriousness of that confession. The confession can become rather common place, taken for granted and rather trivial. We might not feel any worse than anyone else. We are aware that we all share in that fallen human state, but we don’t feel any worse than anybody else either. How often do we say in all earnestness as Paul did, that “we are the chief of sinners.” Isn’t it possible that sometimes we take comfort in the fact, that sin is part of the human condition. Then that very fact, perhaps, sometimes in a very subtle way when we confess our sins, it can be a subtle form of self-justification, “Oh really, I’m no worse than anyone else, we’re all sinners.” Therefore we confess our sin in a rather brief and insincere way. So we must question, when we confess our guilt before God, are we really being honest? Or are we simply easing our conscience, with a sort of superficial kind of confession of guilt? I think we ought to reflect on that. We often unthoughtfully attach a phrase to the end of our prayers “and forgive us our sins.” I think so often we don’t really take that too seriously. Do we perhaps even forget to ask forgiveness in our prayers, because we are so intent on asking our petitions. So it is a matter of our own guilt, our own sinfulness. Does it even enter into our prayer life? You notice further that this word “debts” is in the plural, an acknowledgement of our guilt before God, “forgive us our debts.” But it’s in the plural, it’s not seen in general. I think it is when we persist in a sinful action that we’re often prone to easily ask for forgiveness for sin in general, and never get into the specifics. To get to the specifics requires reflection on our own conduct. It requires effort, it requires time, it requires sensitivity to the works of the Holy Spirit in our lives, it requires the knowledge of Scripture of what God requires of us. So that we can come before God and not simply ask for forgiveness of sin in general but be specific. Ask for forgiveness for this act, for this fault, for this word, for this deed, which was not what it should have been. I think that often, even now confession of guilt before God can become dishonest and self-protective, a form of fooling ourselves into facing that we3 humble ourselves before God when really at least for a degree retain something of our own self-righteousness. Now when we truly pray “forgive us out debts,” in the fullness of the meaning of that, we will be seriously and honestly concerned with our guilt before God. We will be fully aware of how basically selfish we are, and how often the good that we do is done with the wrong motives. Our prayer will then be one of the honestness of David in Psalm 51. Psalm 51 is a great psalm. David cries out with the awareness of his sin and pleads for the mercy of God: “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned. Hide thy face from my sins, blot out all my iniquities. Create a clean heart in me.” That sort of spirit should characterize our own confession of our guilt before God. So first of all, when we truly pray that petition we will acknowledge our guilt before God. Secondly, we request God’s forgiveness. You notice that the petition is with God, the Lord taught his disciples through pray to ask for God’s forgiveness. When you reflect on that I think it becomes immediately apparent that only God’s children can pray this prayer. Remember the prayer began, “Our father