Kerwin Baptist Church Daily Broadcast

Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our Father, which art in heaven. It's very important, and I mentioned this back when we first started the Lord's Prayer. It's very important that you understand that the Lord's Prayer is about family. This is a family prayer. We are His children. We're all just family.

Okay? And it's us talking to our Father. This is a family prayer.

And you've got to understand and realize how important that is. There's no singular pronoun through the entire Lord's Prayer. This is how God says we're supposed to pray. It's never about me. And it's never about you. It's about us.

It's about the entire family. And that's the way we ought to live, by the way. That's the whole Bible.

The principles throughout God's Word teach us that you know what? It's not ever about us. It's about others first. And so we've got to understand in the Lord's Prayer that this isn't just about us. And as before we deal with this, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. There's always going to be individuals that say, yeah, but so and so did such to me. And so and so did this.

And what happened to me? Listen, it's not about us. It's about the Father.

It's about the family. Okay? We got that. Notice if you would, verse 12, that we'll be dealing with tonight. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Let me just say this real quick. On the back of your handout was the outline that we did not have two weeks ago that we forgot that it just failed to get printed.

But it's on the back so you can have that for review. And just during this Lord's Prayer, I've decided to put these hands out instead of using the screens. Our debts. Number one tonight, I want you to notice this.

If you're like me, I've got to lay things out in sections so I can understand it and grasp it. And since digging into the Lord's Prayer, obviously you know from every phrase we've dealt with that it has taught me volumes. But I want you to notice first our debts. First, our debts. Second, we're going to see our confession. Third, we're going to see our consistency. And then fourth, we're going to see God's standard. We're going to hear from all the rest. Number one, our debts. He says this, forgive us our debts. Now, what are we dealing with here?

There's two things I want you to see and we've got this on your outline. The principle of sin and the practice of sin. Now you say, preacher, what is the difference? There are two uses of sin in Scripture. Anytime sin is talked about, it's either talking about the practice or the habit of sin. Or an individual sin. It's kind of like me saying, well, so and so, let me use Nick.

He doesn't mind. It's like me saying, well, you know, Nick's a liar. Well, what I'm accusing him of is kind of the practice of sin. It's different when I say, Nick lied to me about such and such.

That's specific. You all understand the difference? The use of sin here, this word, forgive us our debt.

What it's talking about is singular in nature. In other words, it's not saying God, it's not saying we come to God and say, God, just forgive me of all my sins. It's saying that when we come to God, we need to be specific. And the Bible teaches that elsewhere. But I want you to understand, and God said, this is how I want you to pray, forgive us our debts. And that means this, God, you know, I want to be specific and you've got to understand that we can't just go to God generally and say, all right, Lord, you know, hey, let me see.

It's been a couple years for 2011, 12 and 13. Lord, just forgive me for everything I've done. Well, I ask God to forgive me. Wait a minute, we're talking about family here. Now, if I sit down with my wife, Julie, and my three boys, and as they get older, and we have some issues in our family, listen to me. Now, just wrap your head around this and put yourself as if it was your family. We don't sit around and say, well, you know, we all just haven't gotten along. Some of us have made mistakes.

Let's just, you know, everybody forgive everybody. That's not the way you deal with things in family. You sit down as a family and you talk about the specifics. In other words, I might sit down and say, Hudson, now you have been really mean to Daniel lately.

You have done such and such, and you've done such and such, and you've done such and such. Now listen, we have had some issues here with, we've been arguing a lot as a family. You know, there have been times, Daniel, when you have said such and such to your mom or whatever.

Do you understand the difference? When you sit down with your family, you deal with specifics. This is a family prayer. And so you and I have got to understand, God knows that we have sinned.

If anybody knows, he knows. But God wants us to own up to it and come clean with it. And say, God, you're my father. And dad, father, I have sinned. I've done wrong, and this is what I've done.

And I want to acknowledge it, that I'm wrong. And I want to ask you to forgive me. Let me put it this way, and I thought, why is it called debts? Forgive us our debts. Why is it not just, you know, and of course in the Bible we have mirroring passages and sometimes called trespasses. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us. Amazingly, that word trespass and the word debts, as I looked it up, is basically the same word.

Why is it called debt? Forgive us our debt. Do you know that when the Lord calls our sin a debt, he's reminding us that when we sin, we owe him something.

Y'all agree with that? When we sin, we owe him something. You know what the Bible says?

The wages of sin is what? As God, we now have a debt. Now you say, preacher, why is this true? Well, let me explain it to you. When you and I sin, whenever we sin, it requires that we use our bodies or our minds or both.

Does that make sense to you? When you or I sin, we either use our mind or our body or both. And the Bible says that when you and I got saved, we were bought with a price. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God.

Listen to me, dear friend. He created you. He saved you. And when you put your faith and trust in him, he owns you. And so when we use our mind or our body to go against his law, we have taken what is his and done wrong with it. So now we have a debt.

That's why he calls our debts. Now, you'd say, well, preacher, I thought the Bible says, you know, 1 John 1.9, if we confess our sins, he's faithful just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness and everything. Write this verse down. If you have a pen in your keeping notes, I just want you to write this down, 1 Corinthians 6, verse 19 through 20. For the sake of time tonight, this verse teaches and makes it clear that both our body and our spirit belong to God. When the Lord redeemed us, he bought us completely. If you're saved, he owns your life. Therefore, when we use our bodies or our minds and commit sin, we are indebted to the Lord because it wasn't ours to do that with. It was his. Okay?

Everybody got that? Now, we're going somewhere with all this. Let me say this, our debts. Dear friend, when you got saved, God forgave you. And we will not have to answer for that sin when we get to heaven. We believe that that sin has been covered by the blood. Do you agree with that?

Okay. So, my sin, what I do, my debts is not going to change my relationship with the Father as far as sonship at all. What my sin will do is change my fellowship with the Father.

Y'all got that? So, when I now have a debt, I have got to somehow, look at me, pay that debt. But that debt's already been paid.

When he died on the cross for your sins and you put your faith and trust in him, guess what? He paid a debt I did not owe. I owed a debt I could not pay. I needed someone to wash my sins away.

We've sung it over and over again. So listen, now when you sin, that sin now, that's a debt to the Father, so how do we get that debt paid? That's when we go to God and ask forgiveness. His blood covered our debt, so we've got to go to that blood and say, Lord, I'm asking forgiveness. That debt's already been paid, but we've got to ask for the debt to be paid. We've got to ask for that forgiveness.

We've got to clean that relationship. I'm going to be saved if I put my faith and trust in the Lord. I'm saved even if I sin. But when I sin, that's a debt I need to get paid because I want my fellowship with the Father to be right. So, I ask God to forgive me to clean me because that debt's already been paid. Listen, if I sin, I don't have anything in me that can make me right with the Father. Only Jesus could make me right with the Father.

I don't know if you understand what I'm saying. I know it seems a little bit like semantics, but dear friend, it's a debt. That's why God calls it that way. Forgive us our debts. Number two, I want you to notice our confession.

Notice how God says, this is how I want you to pray. Forgive us our debts. Why would we ask forgiveness unless we're admitting that we did it? The very fact that we are asking God to forgive our debts is an admission of guilt. It means I'm confessing. Just look at me. I'm not going to ask God to forgive me if I don't think I've done wrong.

Right? So, you know why a lot of times you and I really aren't asking God for forgiveness? We don't think we've been that bad.

We don't think we've done that wrong. By saying forgive my debts, I'm admitting I've sinned against you. So, there's got to be that confession. And listen to me, dear friend, here's the, getting God's forgiveness is the easy part. Getting Christians to go to God and ask forgiveness is the hard part.

God could not have made it any easier. If you confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive your sins. Notice what 1 John 1 says, if we confess. So, in order, listen, remember this is a family prayer. This is what God says. This is how I want you to pray. You need to ask me to forgive you your debts.

Okay? We've got to come to the Father for that. Our confession, it means this. Number one, there's a need. For forgiveness.

Number two, it means there's an urgency to restore the fellowship. Why am I confessing sin? Have you ever thought about this? Why do you need to confess? What would motivate you as a Christian to confess? The only thing that will motivate you to confess your sins is to make yourself more right with the Father.

Have you ever thought about that? What motivates you to confess your sins? I mean, I could sin and go on the rest of my life. Nobody, you know, there's some sins I could commit.

I'm never going to be put in jail for them. Everybody else in the world commits those sins. So what motivates me as a Christian to ask God to forgive me of my sins? What motivates me to seek forgiveness? The motivation is I want to have a right, pure relationship with the Father.

That's the motivation. Dear friend, you and I, our most important thing every day is to be clear and clean with the Father. If that's not our motivation, then we're not going to be seeking forgiveness. Because the only thing that makes us want forgiveness is to be clear and clean with the Father. Our debts, our confession. I hope that you understand that.

Third, this is interesting, our consistency. You gotta take a step back to be able to take a step forward. Look at Matthew chapter six if you would here. Look if you would at what we dealt with the last time that we, look at verse 11. Give us this day our daily bread. Remember as we broke that phrase down for you, what he is saying is this, God, give me the bread that I need as I need it.

Y'all remember that. So it's a constant process. God doesn't give you the bread you need for next month today. God gives you the bread you need today for today. He will give you the bread you need for next month.

He'll give that to you next month. So you understand in verse 11 that he is describing a process, that it's consistent, it's constant. It's God, every day, you give me the bread that I need for that day. Then notice verse 12, and. So that connects verse 12 with verse 11. And forgive us our debts.

So that means this, what we're going to do. What we're saying in this, in this, in this Lord's Prayer, or the principle God's trying to get across to us is this. We ought to be seeking God's bread, what we need for that day, that day. God give me the bread I need as I need it. But also, and that same principle, we ought to be asking God to forgive our sins right after we commit them.

It's a constant process. In other words this, God you give me my bread when I need it. And then we say God you give me forgiveness when I need it. And in this we keep a short account of sin.

Forgive us our debts and forgive us our debts. That means give me daily bread and I need daily forgiveness. Anybody else, anybody here not sin? Any given day? I mean have you ever had, any of you just had like a really good week and never sinned that whole week?

Please don't raise your hand. Look at me folks, we're sinners. That's where you and I and our independent Baptist circles have gotten in trouble. We have been so busy preaching and pointing out everybody's sins and telling them how wrong they are we forget we're sinners too. What he is saying is this, you're going to have to just get God's bread as you need it every day and you're going to have to get God's forgiveness as you need it every day.

It's a consistent process. Hey I'm going to sin, I'm going to blow it and I'm going to mess up. I don't want to and I'm going to work hard not to and I don't have to because God's freed me from the bondage of sin. But when I do I've got to get forgiveness immediately. God forgive me my debts. Forgive me. That forgive means I'm admitting it that I've done wrong and I want a right relationship with you. I have an urgency for that fellowship and God I want that close fellowship and because of that I want to get this debt paid. I want to get this sin paid.

Let me see if I can for sake of time. So many things I want to say to this but I want to make sure it's all in a nutshell that you can understand it. Let's just go last to God's standard. Our consistency and God's standard. There's a great misunderstanding here and I want you to understand it. When we give this phrase and I think I understood it wrong for a number of years. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

The way I always I think understood it was this. God you forgive me of my sins while I'm forgiving others of theirs. You forgive me of mine that's your job.

My job is to try to go ahead and forgive them of theirs. That's not what God's teaching here. What God is teaching here is that interesting that word as and you just read it.

You don't really understand it. You got to dig into it and I encourage any of you get a good word study. Get a good Bible dictionary.

Get you a good concordance. You dig into this and here's what you'll find out that He is saying. He is saying God you forgive my debts to the same degree that I'm forgiving others of their debts to me. I've got quite a few verses I'm going to give you here now because I want you to get this if you don't get anything else about this tonight. God said this is how I want you to pray and God wants you to put yourself on the spot. God I want you to forgive me as good as I forgive others. God I want you to forgive my debts to you to the same degree that I forgive others their debt to me. See what God is not interested in is for you to say God forgive me but you won't forgive others. Okay.

Do you agree with me so far? Let me give you a couple verses. Alright you want to write these references down?

You need to write these down. Ephesians 4 32. Be ye kind one to another tender hearted forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. This verse teaches you ought to forgive others because He's already forgiven you. Does that make sense? So this verse our motivation ought to be this how could I not forgive so and so for what they said to me or did to me or failed me whatever they can. How could I not forgive them looking at all that God's forgiven me of? Wouldn't that be hypocritical?

Yes it would. Anybody else here have to admit I'm guilty of it? Okay you super spiritual godly people.

This guy has had problems with that. Okay let me give you another verse. This lesson is clear. If I expect the Lord to forgive me when I cry out to Him then I must be quick to forgive those who have wronged me. Now listen if I refuse to forgive my brethren then I should not expect God to forgive me. Now I know that's hard to hear and I'm going to prove it scripturally because I say well God's already forgiven. Oh listen we're not talking about forgiveness so that you can get to heaven. We're talking about forgiveness so that God can bless you. Remember the Bible says if I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me. It didn't say if I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not let me into heaven. So that means this I'm saved I'm going to heaven but that doesn't mean I'm getting blessed. Just because I'm saved doesn't mean I'm going to have power. Just because I'm saved doesn't mean that God's just going to use me to do great things. Now listen you and I have got to live right.

We've got to have a right relationship with each other. Now listen to me Matthew 6 14 and 15 it's in the chapter we just read about the Lord's prayer. Notice verse 14. For if ye forgive men their trespasses your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses neither will your father forgive your trespasses.

Uh oh. Now you say alright scriptures contradicting itself. It just said if I don't forgive somebody else God's not going to forgive me. And what I've always been taught is when I got saved God forgave me of my sins.

Look at me. God forgave you of the consequence of your sins. Your sins because you and I are sinners we cannot approach God.

God's a holy God. He cannot look on sin. That's why he had to turn his head when his son died on the cross because Jesus took all the sin and God's too holy to look on sin.

We had no way to get to the father. But when we were forgiven by the blood of Jesus Christ it means now we can have access to the father. So we were forgiven the penalty of our sins. Okay but you want God to answer your prayers and you want God to bless you're going to have to forgive others. Because look at me God will forgive you as much as you forgive others. Chapter 5 verse 23 and 24.

Write this down. I'll read it to you. This verse teaches that when you've wronged someone and you know it you're to go to them confessing your wrong and seeking their forgiveness.

Listen. Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar talking about basically church or you say I'm going to go or just not necessarily church I'm going to give a gift to God. If you bring thy gift to the altar and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee leave there thy gift before the altar and go thy way first be reconciled to thy brother and then come and offer thy gift.

Look at me. Some people never grow in the Lord. Some people are in the Lord.

They're in Christ as a new believer. But they never grow in Christ. That's why the Bible says that ye may grow thereby.

You know often times why they never grow. Because if they cannot forgive they cannot grow. Now can I make it just real black and white simple and clear. Somebody has absolutely rocked your world done you wrong. The best thing you can do for yourself is right here right now forgive them. Because when you walk out of this building you want God to be able to bless you. You want God's power and presence to be on you.

Life isn't worth living without that. And dear friend I don't care how wrong they did and what they did. Listen to me. God will take care of that. I have debts to him. What's interesting about this whole thing listen to me. God's word is so great isn't it. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Look at me dear friend.

Please please please. You have to forgive them. Because the Bible says they are yours.

They are your debtors. You've got to do it. You've got to forgive them. Now I'm a pastor and I do quite a bit of counseling.

I've sat in my office. I've been on the phone. I've heard things and been told things that I don't know if I could forgive.

I'm just being blunt honest and down to earth real with you. God has forgiven you of more than anybody's done to you. God forgave you more. This is what God said. If you want to have power in prayer. Remember why is the Lord's prayer even here? Because the disciples said Lord we don't have the power that you do.

Do you remember the whole story? We're not seeing the miracles that you are Lord. And we're not experiencing the power that you do. We're not experiencing the power and the victory that you are Lord. Teach us to pray. And God said alright if you want to have that kind of power.

Here's how you're going to have to do it. Part of it is forgive us Father our debts. As or just like we forgive our debtors. May I ask you tonight is your forgiveness of your debtors? Your forgiveness up to date. You all might remember a while back. Sorry it feels a little hot. I'm trying to lower that mic.

Hot mic. Some of you remember a long time ago I preached on the fact of that verse in the Bible that says lest any root of bitterness springing up thereby defile you. You all remember that. The Bible doesn't say that you have to forget them. It just says you have to forgive them.

Notice here it doesn't say for God forgive us our debts as we forget our debtors. You will never forget what some people do to you. You'll never forget it.

It'll be on your mind almost every day of your life. God's not asking it's impossible. But he's saying this if that root of bitterness it says it doesn't say if it springs up it said lest any root of bitterness springing up thereby defile you. That means it's going to spring up. The Bible didn't say if it springs up.

The Bible says that root of bitterness is going to spring up. And it might spring up every day. It might spring up every hour of every day. It might spring up ten minutes every ten minutes every five minutes.

And it might just absolutely drive you nuts and you struggle with that bitterness towards that individual. But God says when it does spring up deal with it. Get victory. God can give it to you.

He can. Dear friend listen to me. Our church depends on it. But even if you're not going to do it for our church look at me. Your family depends on it. You want God to bless your family and you want God to bless your kids and you want God to bless you. Whatever they did it's not worth losing that in your life. God forgive us our debts. We forgive those.

Basically we finally in the Bible as he puts it this way who trespass against us. Thank you for listening to the Kerwin broadcast today. God bless you. God bless you.