Mat 6:12; Come and Confess Your Entire Debt – You Are Forgiven.

Class Outline:

Sunday September 1, 2024

Intro: Believers, forgiven by means of the blood of Christ, are not suddenly exempt from the sin problem. We continue to sin. Are we to try and stop? Are we to just let it go and hope for the best? Are we to confess and move on? Are we to ask for forgiveness? What are we to do about our sin problem? Does Scripture tell us precisely, and if so, what will be the result of our obedience to it?  

 

MAT 6:12

'And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 

 

Several of the expanded, so-called easy reading Bibles translate “debts” as “sins.” That is not what Jesus said.  

 

Matt 6:12

and forgive us our sins, 

as we have forgiven those who sin against us. (NLT). 

 

Debts - opheilemata - debts. 

 

You are in debt to God.

 

God has us see our sins as debts, which includes everything we do and do not do. 

 

Sin is designated variously in Scripture: sin, transgression, disobedience, ungodliness, offense, iniquity. Word differences are found in Greek as well as English. 

 

Sin has many variations: eyes, flesh, pride.

 

It is impossible to gather up all its evil and express it in a single word. But Jesus finds one - debts. 

 

God does not want you to live any day with sinful debt uncancelled, but He also does not want you to forget that you are very much in debt to Him, and at times, that will make you somber (PSA 51:17; ROM 6:20-21).  

 

Debt also calls to mind a large class of sins which we are prone to forget - sins of omission. 

 

Sins of omission are all the things we should have thought, said, and done as God’s servants, but did not.

 

Sins of omission rival in number and immorality wrongdoing, but they surpass them in the power to elude our conscience. 

 

As we forgive our debtors (everything sinful people have done to you and everything they have not done but ought to have).

 

Greatest commandments: love God and neighbor. Forgiveness is in love, which is the prime requisite of our character, and therefore it is imperative that we know the love of God which surpasses understanding, EPH 5:1. 

 

We cannot seek God’s forgiveness while simultaneously not forgiving all others. 

 

The unforgiving do not see their own sin nor their need for forgiveness. 

 

Two-fold principle: We cannot (should not) say this petition without knowing the depth of our need of it and understanding the greatness of the gift. We cannot see our own debt, and therefore our need, if we cannot forgive others. 

 

As we forgive it brings the reality to mind that God has done to forgive me of my entire debt - my wrongdoing and my lack of doing. I have to remember my sinful self if I am going to forgive all others of all things. EPH 4:31-32; COL 3:13. 

 

We cannot pray as one person and live as another. 

 

The greater your sin against God appears, the smaller will appear the sin of others against you (LUK 7:47). 

 

It is not that our forgiveness sins the forgiveness of God but that our unforgiveness cannot accept the forgiveness of God. 

 

We do not see the magnitude of our own sin when we cannot forgive others. 

 

Added benefit, when people will not forgive you, you will seek it for their sake, for in love you long for them to be forgiven. 

 

It is a question of are we asking enough from God. We are to see the fulness of our debt as best we can. 

 

Test or application: 

 

If you are bitter towards someone there is too little desire for your own pardon. 

 

If you have too vivid a consciousness of the debts of others against us, you have too low and estimation of God’s claims on us. 

 

If you cannot forgive and forget then our own debt is not affecting you as much as it should. God’s mind is not your own when sins are in view - you distance yourself from God. 

 

And even of this failure, God pardons you. He would not have you live with a single debt uncanceled. 

 

MAT 18:33-35

'Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, in the same way that I had mercy on you?'  34 "And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him.  35 "My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart."