Hi, this is the Human Proclaim podcast, The Messages of John Fonville. You're listening to season 4 called Pray This Way: The Divine Pattern of Righteous Prayer. Here's message number 11 called Forgiving Others. Go ahead and take your Bibles and turn to Matthew chapter 6. And so we're continuing to study the Lord's Prayer, and we want to look at The fifth petition again this week and the second half of it.
The fifth petition, the second half of it in verse twelve. And so, what we have been learning week after week after week is simply this: that the main problem with the scribes and Pharisees' prayer life. was that They had a wrong image of God. They had a wrong understanding of God the Father. They didn't know God is Father.
And so as we look at the context of the Sermon on the Mount and the context of the Lord's Prayer, we see that the Pharisees' image of God. Their image of God was of God as a harsh demanding, reluctant taskmaster. Who had to be persuaded by works to give blessings and response to man? And they did not view God the Father as a gracious, forgiving God whom Jesus was revealing. Jesus reveals to us a gracious Father who forgives sin.
And that's not at all the view of the scribes and Pharisees. And so the Lord's Prayer then focuses on seven major themes, all of which center on God the Father. And the fifth petition, which is in verse 12, shows us that righteous prayer focuses on the forgiveness of the Father.
Now, if we were left to ourselves. Any prayers or any praying that we might try to start or to perform would both start with ourselves and it would end with ourselves because our natural fallen tendency is to be completely self-centered. And as J.I. Packer makes observation, that self-centeredness knows no bounds. And this is definitely true when it comes.
to the confession of our debts to God, the confession of our sins. We are all born into this world curved in on ourselves, and nothing is more foreign to our fallen heart. than to confess our sins to God. and to confess our sins against one another, The confession of sins is particularly difficult for decent, upright Americans and religious church attenders. Good moral people find it hard to accept the fact that they are by nature in debt to God and stand in great need of the forgiveness of that debt.
The truth is, because of our self-centeredness, we would never confess our sins and ask for forgiveness without the intervening grace of God in our lives because. The confession of sin, the request for the forgiveness of sins. is only something that a Christian does. This prayer, the Lord's prayer, and particularly this petition here is a family petition. It's a family prayer.
It is the request or prayer of an adopted son in the kingdom. And so the fifth petition serves as a reminder to us of the fundamental need that all of us have, namely the forgiveness of our sins. The cancellation of our infinite unpayable debt to God the Father. And so Jesus teaches us to pray. He says, our Father in heaven, Forgive us our debts.
as we also have forgiven our debtors, And so, this is the great need that we have. And we learned last week that we, as believers, not only, but the fourth petition, give us this day our daily bread, our physical, temporal needs, we not only need that to live, but we ultimately need to live the forgiveness of our sins because the Christian lives. through the forgiveness of sin. And so Jesus teaches us to ask for the forgiveness of our debts. And God the Father, in His generosity and goodness, out of His love for mankind, He grants that through His Son.
We saw that this past week in the first part of this petition, forgive us our debts. Jesus taught us that we have an insurmountable, irremediable debt that we owe to God. And God, the Father through Christ, has paid that on our behalf. And so we saw the good news that all who are in union with Christ have no debt relationship to God whatsoever. The church is a debt-free zone.
The Christian life is lived and conducted in an economy of grace where all is paid. And so all the forgiveness of our sins are freely remitted by the Father through the Son.
Now, the forgiveness of all of that sin, listen. In salvation, God not only forgives all of that debt. But the forgiveness of sins comes with it and results in a new way of life. You see, debtors make really bad lovers. Have you ever had anybody who's in debt to you?
Financially. They're not probably your best friend. Debtors make really bad lovers. And the great commandment, Jesus said, is to love God and to love your neighbor perfectly. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.
That is our duty before God. And so, to love God, we have to have our debt canceled, and that's what God does vertically, He cancels all of our debt. And so therefore it endears our hearts to love him. We love because he first loved us. Listen, we love because he canceled all our debt.
But this brings us to the second half of this petition. Because, as I said, the forgiveness of sins not only frees us from all debt to God, but it results in a new way of life.
So, the second half of this petition, look what Jesus teaches us to ask. He says, our Father in heaven, forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. When we sin, we not only become indebted to God, but we also become indebted to our neighbor. And when our neighbor sins against us, they become debtors to us. Whoever sins against you, your wife, Sins against you, your husband sins against you, your children sin against you, your neighbors, your coworkers, your extended family members, whoever it is, when they sin against you, they are in debt to you.
They owe you something. And so you see, the great commandment is to love God and to love our neighbor perfectly. And our sin is that we have not only failed to love God, sin of omission. But we've also felt to love our neighbor sin of omission. And here Jesus teaches us to ask the Father to cancel our debts.
And in turn, to cancel the debts, we ask we cancel the debts that others owe to us. In other words, Those who have broken the sixth commandment against us, we don't hold that over their heads. This is dealing with the sixth commandment because remember in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is teaching us how to actually keep the law now that we're in the kingdom. And so, what Jesus is teaching us here, and it's absolutely vital to understand, is this before we look at anything else. Is that the second half of this petition?
Jesus is not telling us the cause or the basis of God's forgiveness. Too many people look at this and they read it like this: they say, Um forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.
So some teachers, popular teachers, say God's forgiveness is conditioned upon your forgiving of others. If you don't forgive others, God will not forgive you. That is not what Jesus is teaching here. Not even remotely close. Let me give you a couple of reasons why.
First, The whole context of the Sermon on the Mount tells us that we do not earn God's forgiveness. The whole context of what Jesus is teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer as part of the Sermon on the Mount, teaches us that none of us earn God's forgiveness. The Father's forgiveness of our debts is as much a gift as his entrance into his kingdom is a gift. The one in Genesis 3:24, who drove us out of his kingdom. That's what it says.
The Lord God drove the man out. The one who drove us out of his kingdom is the one who also graciously brings us back into his kingdom. You don't bring yourself back in. And the one to whom we are indebted is the one who forgives all our debts freely. Second.
The second half of this petition is an aspiration. That is, We are aspiring to imitate our Father in heaven. It is not a limitation. Because if it was a limitation, none of us would be forgiven because none of our forgiveness is perfect. R.C.
Sproll says, quote, I will be in deep trouble if God provides forgiveness for me only to the degree that I am willing to provide it to others, end quote. We'd all be in big trouble. Jesus is not teaching that God the Father will forgive us only in proportion to the way in which we forgive those who have sinned against us. You see, if we're asking the Father, if Jesus is teaching the way people say he's teaching, but he's not, but just for the sake of argument, if we are asking the Father, To forgive us only in proportion to the way in which we forgive our debtors. Then we are asking for our destruction because God will condemn even the smallest sin.
And I don't think Jesus here is praying, teaching us to pray for our destruction. Third. Our forgiving of everyone who is indebted to us Does not make us deserving of the Father's forgiveness. Listen to Luke 17:10. Jesus says, When you have done all that you are commanded, Setting.
Quote, we are unworthy servants. We have only done what is our duty. Point taken, post fall, God owes us nothing. We are the ones Jesus teaches who are indebted to the Father and owe him everything. He is not indebted to us.
In and of ourselves, we can never satisfy the righteous demands of God's law by our own efforts. Jesus has already taught us that in the Sermon on the Mount back in Matthew 5, 17 through 18. Jesus says, He is the one who has come to give perfect obedience to the law of God on our behalf, and he says to accomplish all of it. He alone has fulfilled the law. He alone has accomplished all righteousness for us.
So, therefore, that means this. God the Father does not receive satisfaction from us. He receives satisfaction from his Son. The forgiveness of our debts cannot be based on our merits, because we have nothing but demerits. We have amassed, Jesus says in the first half of this petition, an infinite, irredeemable debt.
Here's the fourth reason. Fourth, our forgiveness cannot be the cause of God the Father's forgiveness because I've already said our forgiveness is imperfect.
Okay. And so the forgiveness of our debts has to be based solely on the merits of Christ, which are given to us, reckoned, imputed to us by grace through faith in Christ alone. Just here's a couple of examples from scripture. Later in Matthew 26, verse 28. Jesus declares, This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.
Notice whose blood's not in there. Yours and mine. My blood can't forgive anybody's sin, and neither can yours. That is a sacrificial death on behalf of someone else. Ephesians chapter 1, verse 7.
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace. Colossians 1, 13 and 14, Paul says that it is in the Father's beloved Son that we have, quote, redemption, the forgiveness of sins. It is Jesus who paid our ransom price. It is Jesus who paid our debt. It is Jesus who canceled our debt before the Father.
He alone satisfied the justice of God that stood against us. In and of ourselves, through our living, through both sins of omission and commission, we have built up an infinite treasury of wrath and judgment. But listen, in Jesus, we have been freely given an infinite treasury of merit. And it's all based in him. And so the first thing we have to understand concerning this second half of this petition is that our forgiveness is not the cause of God's forgiveness.
That is not what Jesus is teaching here. So what is Jesus teaching in the second half of the petition? Jesus is teaching, listen very carefully. The logical necessity not the conditional necessity of good works. He's revealing what kingdom living looks like in those who have been graciously forgiven by God the Father.
Those who have been graciously forgiven all of their debt by the Father will love their neighbor, and that love for neighbor is expressed through the forgiveness of their debts. Forgiveness, you see, Jesus teaches, not only involves our relationship with God, but our relationship with others. We not only have obligations that we owe to God, but we also have obligations that we owe to our neighbor and that our neighbor owes to us. The only reason we can enter the kingdom of God is because we are forgiven, right? And then Jesus says, such gracious forgiveness leads us to forgive others.
And so the second half of this petition is simply expressing the evidence or the fruit of genuine saving faith. It is simply the proof that God has forgiven our sins. The second half of this petition teaches us to imitate the goodness of our Father who forgives sinners of an infinite debt. In other words, you can say it like this: it's simply an expression of family traits, like father, like son. That's what Jesus is teaching.
This point is so important. Look at Matthew chapter 6, verses 14 and 15. This point is so important, Jesus tacks on an appendix to the Lord's Prayer at the end of it. And he says in chapter 6, verses 14 through 15, For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
I like what St. Claire Ferguson says. He says, The man who mouths the words, forgive us our debts. but will not forgive others their debts, has not begun to understand the weight of his own sin. You see, Jesus elaborates not only here in chapter 6, verses 14 through 15, the second half of this petition, but if you flip over a couple chapters, flip there now, to Matthew chapter 18.
Beginning at verse 21, Jesus elaborates further on this truth in the parable of the unforgiving servant. And in this parable, Jesus highlights the fact that we receive mercy in the face of an enormous debt of guilt before God. And so any debt that others have before us is trivial by comparison.
So Peter comes to Jesus, and in verse 24, he asks Jesus the question, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him up to seven times? And Jesus answers Peter's question by telling him this parable. He tells the story of a servant who owed the king 10,000 talents. And so the debt of 10,000 talents in our day would be the equivalent of $6 billion of financial debt. That is an unrepayable debt, irredeemable debt.
And so in view of this debt, Which could not possibly be repaid. Look at chapter 18, verse 26. The servant fell on his knees, imploring him, have patience with me, and I will pay you everything. And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But look at how the servant, the unforgiving servant, responds.
Look at verse 28. But when that same servant whom the king forgave a six billion dollar debt, ten thousand talents, But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. And seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, Pay what you owe. That's what it is. People owe you something.
Pay what you owe So his fellow servant fell down just like he did with the king, and pleaded with him just like he did with the king. Have patience with me, and I will pay you. He refused, and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, They were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to the master, that's the king, all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him, and said to him, You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.
And should you have had mercy and should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you? and in anger his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt.
So also, my heavenly Father will do to every one of you. If you do not forgive your brother, From your heart There are three contrasts that we want to note here about this parable. Here's the first. The first is that the forgiving king is contrasted with the unforgiving servant. The second is that the unforgiving servants' enormous debt.
is contrasted with his fellow servants' small debt. The third contrast is the extraordinary kindness of the king. in contrast to the extreme cruelty of the wicked servant. The wicked servant didn't even speak to the uh his fellow servant before he first choked him. That's quite unforgiving.
as quite merciless. And so the unforgiving servant owed the king six billion dollars. Whereas his fellow servant only owed him twelve thousand dollars. Six billion versus twelve thousand. The point Jesus is driving home is the disproportion between the size of the debts.
Jesus teaches in this parable that we owe God the Father infinitely more than what men, our debtors, owe us. The unforgiving servant's refusal to forgive his fellow servants' lesser debt, even though the king had forgiven his irredeemable debt, the point is, is reveals the servant's true wicked character. The unforgiving servant's unwillingness to forgive his fellow servant. And to show mercy was evidence That he had not been transformed by the forgiveness and mercy that his master had given to him. The unforgiving, wicked servant, in other words, didn't show even the slightest evidence.
Of a desire to extend forgiveness to his fellow servant. In other words, there was not even a little spark of evidence that he'd ever been converted. And so the main lesson that Jesus is teaching in this parable is this. Those who receive the Father's forgiveness will be open to bestowing forgiveness to others to bring about reconciliation. The point is, if we receive mercy, we must show mercy.
This is exactly what Jesus teaches back in Matthew chapter 5 in the Sermon on the Mount. He says in Matthew chapter 5, verses 23 through 24, where he's teaching in context, verses 21 through 26, on the sixth commandment: don't murder your neighbor, anger, which is unforgiveness. He says, if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go first, be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering. Jesus is teaching in this parable that if we take into account how infinite our debt is to God, we will see how small are the offenses or debts with which our neighbors are indebted towards us. And so we come back to the fifth petition in the Lord's Prayer, and we see that Jesus is simply emphasizing that those who have been forgiven will forgive.
The two parts of the petition are inseparably linked together. Listen again to Sinclair Ferguson. He says, The man who knows his debt before God. And turns to him for forgiveness, is the recipient of such grace that he cannot but share it with others. Since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another with the love of forgiveness.
Graham Goldsworthy, the nature of the gospel is such that our reconciliation to God is real only if it is shown in the willingness to forgive others. To show mercy and forgiveness to those who offend us stems from the conviction that nothing that others can do to offend us can compare with our sin against heaven. This is even more vivid when the offending person is a Christian brother or sister. To withhold forgiveness from them when we know they are forgiven and accepted by God is an almost blasphemous placing of ourselves above God.
So, Jesus is teaching that our forgiveness is simply the sign or evidence of genuine saving faith, which leads us to forgive our neighbors. He's not teaching that good works, forgiveness, is the condition for salvation. Forgiveness is not a means to an end. Good works do not save you. Forgiveness, listen, Jesus says, is part of the end itself.
You were saved by grace through faith in order to do good works, Ephesians 2.10, which God prepared beforehand that you should walk in them. Paul says that even the good works, forgiveness that we give to others, is a gift of God. All things in the kingdom of God are gift. And so This is what Jesus is teaching us. Having been justified by grace alone, believers then take up the obligations not to get saved because you're justified, but obligations out of gratitude.
And gratitude is expressed through the forgiveness of debts that your neighbors owe you. It's just simply what James teaches in James 2.26, for as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. In other words, we are justified by grace through faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone. That faith is always accompanied by good works. Good works flow from justifying faith.
And so Jesus is teaching that a disposition to forgive will be present where there is genuine justifying faith, where God has forgiven debts. You see, it's very, people make a huge mistake here. It's wrong to think that salvation only consists in the forgiveness of sins. Salvation does not merely consist in the forgiveness of sins and deliverance from eternal punishment. Salvation includes both the forgiveness of our debts to God, but also accompanies with it genuine inner cleansing that comes from the renewing work of the Holy Spirit.
In salvation, the Holy Spirit brings about the creation of a whole new way of life. He brings about the ethics of the kingdom of God. And the ethics of the kingdom of God are evidenced by the fact that members, subjects of God's kingdom, forgive one another's debts. And that is a gift produced by the Holy Spirit. But trusting in Christ simply for the forgiveness of sins, but not also from the power of your sin, is a presumption.
It is not faith. You can't pick and choose. the parts of salvation that Christ freely offers. Christ is not divided. You can't believe in half a Christ.
When God the Father gives you salvation through Christ, forgiveness. will be a part of that salvation that is granted freely by grace.
So the point is: is this that we do not receive the Father's forgiveness because we forgive our debtors? We forgive our debtors because we have received the Father's forgiveness. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also. has forgiven you. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God, and knows God.
We love because He first loved us.
Now, before we conclude with this second petition, there are two objections. I want to quickly look at and answer and take up an answer. The first objection is: people say, well, forgiveness is not real in those who retain a reconciliation of injuries done to them.
So forgiveness can't be real. The answer is that there is a difference between forgetting and forgiving. It is impossible to forget all of the injuries and offenses done to us. I shared a story last week about a grade injury and offense done to me when I was in the 10th grade. That made me miss my whole sophomore year of basketball on the varsity team.
Collarbone stuck up in my throat with every ligament my shoulder torn. It is impossible for me now, many years later, I'm not going to tell you how many years later, to forget that injustice. I think about it all the time. You're not going to forget the injuries done to you, the offenses done to you. You cannot simply bury all of the sins committed against you.
Even our Father in heaven retains perfect recollection of every sin you and I have ever omitted or committed against him. He can't forget them, he's omniscient. But he does, for Christ's sake, forgive them. He cancels all our debt. Tim Lane, teaching on forgiveness, listen to what he says.
He says, you know, in Jeremiah 31, he will remember our sins no more. God will remember them no more. He says the word remember in this passage does not mean memory, it means covenant. A covenant is a promise. When God forgives our sins, He does not forget that they ever happen.
Rather, He makes a promise not to treat you as your sins deserve. He chooses to absorb the cost himself in the person and work of our Redeemer, Jesus Christ. And so, the forgiving of our debtors does not mean that we no longer remember the sins they committed against us. Rather, like our Father in heaven, like Father, and like Son, imitation of family traits. Like our Father in heaven, we choose, because we have been forgiven such an enormous debt, we then choose not to treat our debtors as their sins deserve.
Because we have been forgiven an infinite debt, we can listen, we can forgive those who sin against us. We can choose to no longer hold their sins against them. We can do it not only because we have been forgiven, but because we have been empowered by the new Holy Spirit in us, who's given us a new nature, to make it possible to obey. You can obey the sixth commandment. We can choose not to bring up their sins against them.
We can choose, because of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, to stop mulling over and over in our minds with bitterness to use their sins against them for the purpose of revenge. We can't do that. This is what it's like to live in the kingdom of God. And so being Tim Lane, listen, Tim Lane says, being aware of the constant temptation to make the person who sins against us pay. Keeps us vigilant against the indwelling sin in our own hearts.
This is why the author in Hebrews, listen to what the author in Hebrews writes, in Hebrews 12 verse 15, he says, see to it that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many are defiled. We have to keep in mind also this: that forgiveness is both an event as well as an ongoing process. Again, Tim Lane has great counsel here. He says, beware of feeling guilty because your decision to forgive someone does not match the residual hurt, lack of trust, and even anger towards the person that you think you have forgiven. He says, don't feel guilty about that.
Beware of feeling guilty about that. He goes on, he says, just because you have forgiven someone does not mean that you will immediately and automatically cease to struggle to move towards them. And forgiveness is dependent upon their willing to want to be forgiven. God never grants anybody forgiveness without repentance.
Nowhere in scripture have I ever found God grants forgiveness without repentance of sin. They don't repent and ask for forgiveness. You don't extend it. But what you don't do is give them bitterness instead. The one who does not truly forgive, listen, is not the one who forgets and never struggles.
That just doesn't exist. It pleases God to gradually restore His image in us, and therefore some taint of sin will always remain in us, which makes our forgiveness of sin imperfect in this life, and which makes our struggle to forgive difficult at times. But there is a whole big difference between struggle. and an unwillingness is the wicked servant to give it. And so Jesus added the second half of this petition to lead and provoke you and me to true repentance.
Because if you've ever been offended by someone greatly, particularly a family member, Or a close friend? How do you know if you've forgiven but you're not bitter? And here's the test: Can you pray for their salvation or for their God Father to forgive them for what they've done? If you can't pray for another, you might have a root of bitterness. And so when we forgive others their debts against us, even though we do so imperfectly and with great struggle, true repentance is confirmed and increased in our own hearts and lives.
which is the purpose of God's law to begin with. The one who does not truly forgive is the one who retains a recollection of offenses without showing any sign of displeasure towards their sin of revenge. The person who does not truly forgive is a person who retains recollection of offenses without showing any resistance against their desire to make the other person pay. That was the unforgiving servant that Jesus taught about in the parable in Matthew 18.
So Zacharias 3 says, Although we may scarcely be able to bury all remembrance of offenses, or at least not without the greatest difficulty, yet if we only do not cherish it. But resist the remains of sin which still cleave to us. And do not give indulgence to them. There is nothing which may prevent us from truly and heartily forgiving others. Here's a second objection.
Christians are already forgiven, therefore, they no longer need to keep asking for forgiveness. You're forgiven. Quit asking for forgiveness. That objection fails to distinguish between God as judge and God as father. It fails to distinguish between being a justified sinner and an adopted son.
To be sure, in terms of our listen, being a justified sinner before God as a judge, all our debts, past, present, and future, have been canceled, forgiven, atoned for, removed forever, redeemed by Christ. Before the Father, forever. We stand before God the Father with no condemnation, no debt. But the Lord's Prayer, listen, is a family prayer which petitions God as Father, not as judge. It begins, our judge in heaven.
It begins, Our Father in Heaven. And so only the father's sons seek the father's forgiveness. And the petition for the forgiveness of our debts is addressed to God as our Father who is in heaven. Our sin as adopted sons of the Father, listen, our sins do not invite the wrath of God as a judge. But it does invite the discipline of God as our Father.
Make no mistake, your sin is as hated by God the Father as much as it is hated by God the Judge. And when believers sin, they don't lose their justification. They don't lose their fellowship with the Father. What they lose is the sweetness of that fellowship. And so this petition is a request of adopted sons to ask their Father for the forgiveness of their daily sins, not to be restored for justification, but to be restored to the sweetness of their fellowship with their Father.
Things will not be right between adopted sons and their fathers until those sons have asked for forgiveness of their sins. And here's the great gospel truth that we have in Christ: every single time we ask for forgiveness, he grants it freely because of Christ. Every time. He never tires of giving that. And so therefore, having set forth the meaning of this second half of this petition, there are two important truths I want us to reflect on as we finish.
And these are just very simple and very quick. Here's the first one that you need to reflect upon. The second half of this petition serves as a warning for the unrepentant, unforgiving person. It serves as a warning. Jesus added this condition, the second half of this petition, partly to exclude.
From the number of his father's adopted sons, All those who are eager for revenge. I'm willing at all costs to forgive. Who want to practice ongoing persistent enmity and foment anger and resentment in their hearts with grudges and bitterness against everybody who has offended them. The unrepentant, wicked, unforgiving servant. Jesus warns That those unrepentant, unforgiving people dare not address God as their Father.
and that they're destined for everlasting punishment. It's a chilly morning, isn't it? Thank goodness it doesn't apply to the father's adopted sons. But it is a warning. Second, And we'll close with this.
The second half of this petition serves as comfort. for the fathers adopted sons. Comfort The second half of this petition is intended to comfort the weakness of our faith. In other words, Jesus is saying we can be certain that our Father in heaven has canceled all our infinite debt if we find ourselves, to the best of our ability, forgiving and canceling the trivial debts of those who are indebted to us. In other words, this type of assurance is what earlier theologians referred to as the reflex act of faith.
You experience assurance of the Father's forgiveness when you find evidence in your life, albeit maybe perhaps infinitesimal small at some points. Remember what Jesus says? Even a smoking flax he will not snuff out.
So that means you're a little flax. and your little flame has gone out and you just have smoke coming from it. Those are your good works. And Jesus is so gracious, he won't even take that smoke and snuff it out. You're Desire to forgive might be a smoking flax.
But if you could even find a smoking flax of forgiveness in your life. God the Father says, That's how much I've forgiven you. I have forgiven all your sin. There's a desire to forgive others. And so, Zacharias Rosinus, who wrote the Heidelberg Catechism.
Listen to what he says. We'll finish with this. He said, we may be assured of the forgiveness of our sins when we extend forgiveness to others for the sins which they may have committed against us. And may have the assurance that we are acceptable to God, although there are many remains of sin still within us. Faith is strengthened and confirmed in us by this petition.
Because when we truly extend forgiveness to our neighbor, we may and ought certainly to believe that our sins are also forgiven of us.
so that we have a good conscience. And are sure of being heard according to the promise of Christ, if ye forgive men their trespasses. Your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. And so this second petition ends with comfort to the church. That we shall receive from our Father the forgiveness of our sins according to the promise of Christ.
Thanks for listening to the Hymn We Proclaim podcast with John Fawnville. Him we proclaim as a ministry of John Fondill of Paramount Church in Jacksonville, Florida. You can check out his church at paramountchurch.com. We look forward to next time.
