MATTHEW 6:12-15
And forgive us our debts, as we also have
forgiven our debtors.
And
do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Yours in the
kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
For
if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also
forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not
forgive your transgressions.
INTRODUCTION
Last week we learned
that when we pray, “Give us this
day our daily bread,” we are
telling the Father we will walk with Him one day at a time. Think of those who
are stressed out with anxiety because they face the problems of tomorrow before
tomorrow comes. Is it not true that most of the problems you worry about never
happen? So Jesus prescribes a beautiful way for you to live. When you pray, “Give us this day,” you are expressing the ultimate confidence
in God. So far we have dealt with four petitions. The first petition you
worship God: “Hallowed be Your
name.” In the second petition you
seek to live by His kingdom principles: “Your kingdom come” in my
life on earth. Third, you ask for guidance: “Your will be done.”
Because you must have physical life to have spiritual life, the fourth petition
is: “Give us this day our daily
bread.” Having prayed this prayer
then you are ready to confront the sin in your life.
IV. IN PRAYER SEEK GOD’S FORGIVENESS
FOR YOUR SINS V. 12
The fifth petition is: “And forgive us our debts, as we also have
forgiven our debtors.” This
petition is concerned with the sins that hinder your fellowship with the
Father. When you pray, “Forgive us
our debts,” you are not begging
for salvation as the non-Christian who feels the guilt of hell. When you pray, “Forgive us our debts,” you are praying as a child of the Father who
has not lived up to your Father’s expectation. You are saying, “I am sorry” to
your heavenly Father so your fellowship with Him is restored. “Forgive us our
debts” has nothing to do with your salvation or your relationship with the
Father. Recall that I said last week that unless you are a true Christian you
could not say this prayer. So you do not pray this prayer in order to be saved.
Many mistakenly think this prayer is asking God to make them Christians. When
you pray, “Forgive us our debts,” you are already a Christian who calls God
“our Father.” You are already a child of the King; you are in the kingdom. Let
me set the record straight here. When a Christian sins the sin does not ruin
your relationship with your heavenly Father. Your sin ruins your fellowship
with God, but the relationship is still there. If you do something against your
earthly parent that does not mean you are not his or her child. The
relationship is still intact. However, what you have done has affected your
fellowship with your parent and so you cannot go to him/her for help. You are a
member of your father’s family by birth. Disobeying your father does not break
the father/child relationship, but the fellowship between father and child is
broken. The relationship is intact but your father is disappointed. You become
a child of the heavenly Father by the new birth through Jesus Christ. Just as
your earthly father is crushed when you go wrong, so God’s heart is broken when
His children disobey Him. No wonder you feel guilt when you sin against God.
You have let your Father down. When you pray, “Forgive us our debts, you are
asking your Father to restore your fellowship with Him. Therefore, forgiveness
is as indispensable to the life and health of the soul as food is for the body.
Sin is likened to a debt because it deserves to be punished. But when God
forgives your sin, He remits the penalty and drops the charge against you. The
model prayer teaches us that God’s children do not always do His will. You
pray, “forgive us our debts,” for the little things you sneak around to do, as
well as the great rebellion that breaks God’s heart. A debt is an obligation. If you borrow money you have an obligation to repay
it. If you back into someone’s car you have the responsibility to repair the
fender. If you sin against God you have an obligation to Him.
When you get so mad that
you slap your child that is sin against God and against your child. God
forgives your anger, but what about your child? You have an obligation to seek
forgiveness from your child.
When you tell a lie it
hurts your self-esteem, it hurts another and it offends God. When you tell a
lie, the fine print means you are obligated to go apologize to someone. If you
cheat on your spouse, you hurt yourself, you break one of the commandments and
you have broken your obligation to your spouse. So you pray and ask God to
forgive you of your debt against your wife. When you pray, “Forgive us our debts,” God may use this prayer to reveal a hidden
sin or a sin you were not aware of. That sin may have blocked your ability to
talk to God. Sin denies God’s purity; it dirties us. Sin ignores God’s honor;
it embarrasses us. Sin disobeys God’s command; it condemns us. Sin violates
God’s law; it makes criminals of us. Sin corrupts God’s health; it sickens us.
Sin steals God’s blessing; it robs us. Sin disrupts God’s peace; it makes us
guilty. The addition of the words as
we also have forgiven our debtors
does not mean that our forgiveness of others earns us the right to be forgiven.
It is rather that God forgives only the penitent and that one of the chief
evidences of true penitence is a forgiving spirit. Once your eyes have been
opened to see the enormity of your offense against God, the injuries, which
others have done to you, appear by comparison extremely insignificant.
To forgive completely
requires one of the most difficult of all adjustments, but Jesus describes it
so simply. Just as you need forgiveness, so you must forgive others. Maybe you
were abused and abandoned. Can you forgive the abuser? Maybe you were a victim
of injustice and oppression. Can you forgive those who inflicted the pain? You
thought it was love but the object of your love has found another person. Can
you ever forgive that person? Jesus knows our hurts and wounds. Through the
tears, God’s love begins to heal. That is why forgiveness is complicated but
simple. And it is always the direction God wants your heart to turn, not
revenge or hate. Forgiving others bears witness to the power of God over the
worst that life can deal. Therefore, we must be quick to ask God for
forgiveness and we must also forgive our debtors. The truth of the matter is
that when you forgive others their debts, you are no longer their debtor;
neither are you God’s debtor. You are free, but unforgiving spirit puts you in
bondage.
V. IN PRAYER FIND GOD’S VICTORY IN
TEMPTATION V. 13
Living the Christian
life is not a Sunday school picnic. There are dangers in your walk with Christ.
There is an enemy that wants to destroy you. There is a possibility that you
may fall. God, however, wants you to be a winner. God wants you to be in the
winning team. He wants to help you avoid the dangers and snares of life. When
you ask God to “Lead us not into
temptation,” you are asking Him to
guide your step along a moral pathway. This is the sixth petition. The previous
petition, “Forgive us our debts,” focuses on past sins, while this
petition, “Lead us not into
temptation,” focuses on future sins. The previous petition focuses on actual sins; this petition focuses
on potential sins—those that might happen, but in fact might not occur at all
if God answers this prayer. God Himself does not lead us to temptation (James
1:13). God does not tempt anyone. It is our propensity to sin that causes us to
fall into temptation. God tests us but does not tempt us. Life is a test. We
are like a little boy living in a world of many signs that say: Wet Paint. Our nature wants to touch them all. Life is not only a test, but it is
also a choice. Whenever you are tempted you have a choice to resist or give in.
When you think about looking at pornography, you have a choice to feed your
sinful nature or not to look. You can choose what you will think, what you will
do. When you hear a juicy bit of gossip, you have a choice either to ignore it
or enjoy and spread it so that it destroys the character of another person.
When you face an illegal way of making money in your business, you are faced
with a choice. You can say everyone is doing it so I must as well do it; or you
can say I am a child of God so I cannot cut this deal. So when you pray, “Lead us not into temptation,” you are recognizing that life is a test that
leads to a choice. When you pray, “Lead
us not into temptation,” you give
evidence of a changed attitude toward sin. When you pray, “Lead us not into temptation,” you recognize what sin can do to you and
you tell God you do not want to go back into its bondage.
When you pray, “Lead us
not into temptation,” you are like
a night watchman who discovers a blazing inferno in the warehouse. He does not
try to fight the fire himself, but runs to call the fire department to fight
the fire. You also call for God’s help to face your own fires of temptation.
When you pray, Lead us not into
temptation,” you might want to
add, “Help me to run as fast as I can get away from temptation” (just like
Joseph). When you pray this prayer you exercise the humility of self-distrust.
You know that in yourself you can fall, so you ask God to lead you away from
temptation so you won’t fall. Because you don’t trust your mouth, you take
precaution in what you say (Rom. 3:13). Because you don’t trust your feet, you
take precautions where you go (Rom. 3:15). Because you don’t trust your eyes,
you take precautions what you see (Rom. 3:18). Because you don’t trust your
mind you take precautions what you read (Rom. 3:11). Because you don’t trust
your heart, you take precautions what you desire (Jer. 17:9; Matt. 15:17-20).
When you have prayed the
sixth petition, then you are ready to say the seventh: “But deliver us from evil.” Behind these words that Jesus gives us to
pray are the implications that the devil is too strong for us, that we are too
weak to stand up to him, but that our heavenly Father will deliver us if we
call upon Him (1 Cor. 10:12-13).
A minister parked his
car in a no-parking zone in a large city because he was short of time and
couldn’t find a space with a meter. So he put a note under his windshield wiper
that read: “I have circled the block ten times. If I don’t park here, I’ll miss
my appointment. Forgive us our
trespasses.” When he returned, he
found a citation from a police officer along with this note: “I have circled
this block ten years. If I don’t give you a ticket, I’ll lose my job. Lead us not into temptation.”
Jesus both taught and
modeled a freedom in prayer that dared to ask almost anything, fully knowing
that the Father will do what is best. Jesus wants you to place your trust in
God during trying times and to pray for deliverance from Satan (the evil one) and his deceit. All of us struggle with temptation. Sometimes it is
so subtle that we don’t even realize what is happening to us. When you pray, “Deliver us from the evil one,” you are turning your protection over to God.
You are not giving in to the threats of your opponent. You have refused to live
in fear of the evil one. You ask God to shield your life.
VI. IN CONCLUDING YOUR PRAYER YOU GLORIFY
GOD AND ACKNOWLEDGE HIS POWER V. 13B
When you wrap up your prayer in awe and
worship, concentrating on the who instead of whats, wheres, whys, and whens God rewards you with the knowledge that you are in the presence of
complete provision. Praise the Lord! The essence of this prayer is that the
focus of prayer is always to be on God, always looking upward, outward, and
forward.
Your prayer, “Yours is the kingdom” is an expression of God’s ability to grant
your request. Many people believe in God, and know He has worked in the past.
However, they are not sure He can do anything now. They close their eyes to
pray, but peek to see how He is doing, or to see if He is doing anything at
all. They always want to help God, as though He is not able to answer by
Himself. However, when you conclude your prayer with, “Yours is the power,” you are telling God that you believe He is
able to do it all by Himself. You end the Model Prayer as you began it—with
praise and worship. Remember, when you worship God no matter where you are, He
will come to receive your praise (Psalm 22:3).
Forever and ever is a wonderful way to end your worship. This affirms that God’s kingdom
principle will not change, nor will they be cancelled for bad weather, as might
a plane or flight reservation. The phrase, “Yours is the glory forever,”
reminds us that when our prayers are answered it is for God’s will, by God’s
power, and for God’s glory. True Christian prayer therefore is always a
preoccupation with God and His glory.
You cannot say “our” if you live only for yourself. You cannot
say, “Father” if you don’t endeavor each day to act like
His child. You cannot say, “Who is
in heaven” if you are laying up no
treasure there. You cannot say, “Hallowed
be Your name” if you are not
striving for holiness. You cannot say, “Your kingdom come” if you
are not doing all in your power to hasten that wonderful event. You cannot say,
“Your will be done” if you are disobedient to His Word. You
cannot say, “On earth as it is in
heaven if you will not serve Him
here and now. You cannot say, “Give
us this day our daily bread” if
you are dishonest or seeking things by unlawful means. You cannot say, “Forgive us our debts” if you harbor a grudge against anyone. You
cannot say, “Lead us not into
temptation” if you deliberately
place yourself in its path. You cannot say, “Deliver us from evil” if
you do not put on the whole armor of God. You cannot say, “Yours is the kingdom” if you do not give the King the loyalty due
from a faithful subject. You cannot attribute to Him, “The power” if you fear what men may do. You cannot ascribe to Him, The Glory” if you are seeking honor only for yourself, and you cannot say, “forever” if the horizon of your life is bounded completely by time. Finally, when
you crown your prayer with “Amen” you are saying to God ‘so be it” or “let it
stand” or “my prayer stands before God on the basis of who He is.” Verses 14
and 15 are self-explanatory. Grudges and unforgiving spirit are stumbling
blocks to your prayer.
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Arlington, TX 76001
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