Praying for Forgiveness

1. 0:00Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 51.
2. 0:12What does the fifth petition mean?
3. 0:15Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
4. 0:18Means, because of Christ, The Lord's Prayer is absolutely special.
5. 0:40that we take for granted. The first petitions of the Lord's Prayer teach us to give Him glory, to frame our prayers correctly, to invoke the name of the Lord, to enjoy our Father, to praise Him,
6. 0:53to advance His kingdom, to seek for His will in our lives. But it's been rightly said that the Lord's prayer also helps and teaches us how to pray as it covers every single need of
7. 1:05our lives. The important needs of us physically, emotionally, psychologically, all of those sort of things. And here in this particular petition, in the fifth
8. 1:15petition of the Lord's Prayer, I believe we come to something so special and that really shows how good God is to us. There's been great discussion in
9. 1:27Christianity of whether the Christian, as the Christian, needs to continue to come before the throne of grace and ask for forgiveness.
10. 1:35Hasn't he already been forgiven? Hasn't Jesus done that when he said it finished. In the truth of justification, that's absolutely true. Our sins have been
11. 1:45acquitted. We have been washed. We have been justified once and for all. We don't move out of that state of justification when we are acquitted and forgiven by God. He has washed us from all of our sins.
12. 1:59The challenges in the life of sanctification, in the life as a Christian, think of Peter who needed his feet washed.
13. 2:08We defile ourselves.
14. 2:10We still struggle with sin.
15. 2:12I think that's one of the most confusing things for me as a pastor at times, for my parishioners.
16. 2:18It's the sense of, Why don't I seem to make more progress in the Christian life and holiness?
17. 2:24Why do I seem in my sanctification often to be stifled?
18. 2:28Where is the help that I need?
19. 2:31Here the Lord in the Lord's Prayer, in the fifth petition, gives us, and think about this, calls us to continue to pray for our sake.
20. 2:39Lord, forgive us our debts.
21. 2:42Because in the course of our lives, we are continuing to defile ourselves.
22. 2:46We're continuing to struggle against sin.
23. 2:49This is Romans 7.
24. 2:51"The things that I don't want to do," said Paul, "at times I find myself continuing to do, "O wretched man that I am."
25. 2:57And this leaves a lot of anxious, and burdened hearts before the Lord.
26. 3:02People really struggle with whether the Lord still loves them because of their ongoing problem with sin.
27. 3:08And at times, they begin to question justification.
28. 3:11The Lord does not want us to do that.
29. 3:13In sanctification, he's given us a great blessing to come before the throne of grace to pray to Him and ask Him to forgive us our debts and not hold against us the continued struggle against sin,
30. 3:30the sins that easily ensnare us, to not hold those things against us.
31. 3:35It burdens us.
32. 3:36It distresses the sincere conscience.
33. 3:39And I think this is one of the great blessings where the Lord is continuing to call us to come before the throne of grace.
34. 3:48Like David, you love truth in the inward parts.
35. 3:52We have nothing to hide.
36. 3:54We bring that to the Lord.
37. 3:56We come to the light.
38. 3:57We confess those sins, 1 John 1 and 2.
39. 3:59confess your sins, He's faithful and just to forgive you your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. That will continue to be needed the whole course
40. 4:11of your life until glorification. And so the Lord's Prayer is offering us this great avenue, calling us to come before our Lord to enjoy His forgiveness, to enjoy His gospel love, to enjoy His cleansing, to
41. 4:28confess those sins and receive forgiveness.
42. 4:31We have to be realistic about the Christian life.
43. 4:33As the Heidelberg Catechism says, "Even the holiest of us only make a small beginning in this new obedience."
44. 4:39What about the least holy? If that's the case, then we need to be praying this. We need to come back to our Lord. We also need a purifying of our consciences, as
45. 4:50the book of Hebrews says, so that we would know ourselves, that we would have the assurance ourselves by the Spirit of God, by the grace of God, as we come to the Lord in prayer, that he has answered us and washed us.
46. 5:04Now, the second part to this petition says this, forgive us just as fully as we are fully determined is evidence of your grace in us wholeheartedly to forgive our neighbors.
47. 5:18This is...
48. 5:19very important for the Christian life in sanctification.
49. 5:25Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches on the Lord's Prayer.
50. 5:28And of all the petitions right after Matthew chapter six, he says, "But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you your trespasses."
51. 5:39Now the petition of the Lord's Prayer said, "Forgive us even as we forgive our debtors." There's an assumption there that's made, and I think that the reason
52. 5:50Jesus singled out this particular petition right after the Lord's Prayer is because it's the great test to the genuineness of our Christianity, but it's also the great proof that we have truly been forgiven ourselves.
53. 6:06In other words, I don't think people without the Holy Spirit in the New Covenant ministry, think about the beauty of the New Covenant, the giving of the Spirit, I don't think people
54. 6:16can forgive without the Spirit in the way that we're being called to here by the Lord. In the New Covenant, He gives us the Spirit. The evidence of
55. 6:25that in our lives as we claim a gospel, as we claim God's love, as we claim we've been washed, as we go to the Lord and He forgives us, the evidence of that will be shown in that we want to extend that
56. 6:39very same disposition, that very same love, that very same forgiveness to our neighbors when they offend us. We should be as eager and ready to forgive just as
57. 6:52our Heavenly Father is for us. That's a beautiful truth that the Heidelberg catechism is capturing here and I want to encourage the Christians listening to this. "You have a Heavenly Father who loves you. He
58. 7:05has called you to trust in the once-for-all sacrifice of the Son who has justified you freely by grace through faith alone. In your continued struggle
59. 7:14with sin, don't lose heart. Continue to go to your Father who's merciful, gracious, long-suffering and compassionate. And who will 70 times 7 forgive your sins? That's why he calls
60. 7:26us 70 times 7 to forgive our neighbors, because we've been loved that way.
61. 7:39you

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