"Forgive Us", Part 1

Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for today. We truly are grateful, Lord, for how it is you've given us your word that we might truly understand you. And pray today, Lord, especially as we gather together that, Father, we would see your wonderful forgiveness and how it is, Lord, you expect us to forgive others. Pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our soon coming King. Amen. We are in our study of Luke's gospel. We have made our way through each verse as we have journeyed through the gospel.

People always ask me why it is I don't use the pulpit. It's because you people just keep moving further and further back. See, if you would stay up front like you're supposed to, I wouldn't have to walk down here where you are. But see, I like to be able to look people in the eye and see exactly what they're thinking. If they start to fall asleep, I can always kind of nudge them as I walk by and they'll know that I know they're sleeping when I'm preaching. And so anyway, I love to be able to see the whites of your eyes when I speak to you because I want you to know what exactly God has for you as we read his word together.

But as you recall in our study of Luke's gospel in the 10th chapter, we ended with a beautiful narrative between Mary, Martha, and the Lord Jesus Christ, right? And it was the account that only Luke records. Nobody else records it. But it tells us about the importance of sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening to every word that he says. Christ said to, to Martha that Mary had chosen the one thing that was necessary. The one thing that was needful. It shall not be taken from her. It's that one aspect of your life that you need to make sure is the absolute priority, is that you will sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to everything he says and apply it to your life.

And then in God's sovereignty in Luke's gospel, right after that, he talks to us about prayer because it's imperative that we learn to pray the way God wants us to pray. We need to listen to what Jesus has to say about prayer. So the disciples come and they, they ask him, Lord, teach us to pray as John's disciples learn to pray from, from John. They want to know how it is they were to communicate with the living God. They'd always seen Jesus in prayer. All you got to do is read through Luke's gospel and see how often he would slip away to pray.

And because of that example, they would hear him pray. They would watch him pray till finally one day they said, Lord, teach us how to pray.

It's not the first time the Lord gives a prayer. We know he gives it in Matthew chapter six at the very outset of his ministry, at his very first recorded sermon in Matthews five, six, and seven.

But with that, he gives us the detailed description of this prayer because he wants to give us a pattern. He wants to give us a formula. He wants to give us an outline on what it is we are to cover when we pray. And that's what we're studying in Luke chapter 11. And so we come to today's petition. We realize how important it is to receive the forgiveness of God. We know, we know what the Bible says about God and his forgiving spirit.

That's the way our God is. But our Lord wants us not only to escape his judgment. He wants us to experience his joy. Maybe here today you haven't experienced the saving grace of God. Well, you are bound and determined to be judged by God. God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He wants man to come to the saving knowledge of his son. And there are some of you today that have escaped that judgment, but don't experience joy in your life. How many times have we come across people who say they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but they don't exude any joy?

Well, this week, next week, and probably the week after as we examine this particular petition, forgive us our debts as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us. Well, that petition in and of itself helps us understand not only how we escape God's judgment, but experience God's joy. And so we know God gave us his only son. He only had one son. He named him Jesus. Matthew 1 21 tells us, for he shall save his people from their sins. We have a great need and that needs forgiveness. People ask me, do you, do you deal with people's felt needs?

The answer, no, I don't. But I deal with everybody's need. I do because God deals with everybody's need. What's everybody's need? Forgiveness. Everybody needs forgiveness. It might not be your felt need, but it is the real need that you have. So if you come to Christ Community Church, we will meet your need because you need forgiveness. And God is the one who grants forgiveness. As we look at this particular aspect of the prayer, this petition that deals with how we receive and respond to God's pardon in our lives, we realize it follows his provision of daily bread.

Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts. The physical provision was first. The spiritual provision is second.

Because if you're dead, you don't need forgiveness, right? So in order to receive forgiveness, you must be alive. And so God grants us his daily provision in order that we might be able to understand his wonderful forgiveness. Three things I want to discuss with you over the next couple of weeks. I'm not sure how long it's going to take us. We'll just go as quickly as we possibly can, but make sure we cover everything we need to cover. Three things. One is we want to show that this petition is going to prompt my consciousness of sin.

It's going to prompt my consciousness of sin. Two, it's going to promote my confession of sin. And three, it's going to preserve my communion, not only with the saints, but with my Savior. Three points, absolutely essential for you to experience joy in your life. Now we all know somebody who has no joy, right? They're bitter, they're angry, they're unforgiving, they're always in a bad mood, they're always easily angered. Well, these messages are for them, but they're also for us. Because not only do we need to know how it is our God forgives, all of us need to learn how to forgive those who have sinned against us.

We all need forgiven, and we all need to forgive. And only the Christian can truly forgive as God Himself forgives. So as we go through this petition, understand with me first of all that it's going to promote my consciousness of sin.

The text says, and forgive us our sins. It tells us that we, we sin, right? So if I'm going to pray God's way, it is going to, to promote my consciousness of sin. A lot of times we, we will go to prayer, we think this is the first thing we need to say.

Because if we don't say this first, maybe we won't cover all the sins we need to confess to God. But remember, God gives us a pattern for prayer. And this pattern centers around a recognition of His glory. Because once you recognize the glory of God, the person of God, you are now ready to seek the forgiveness of God. You see, so many times we miss this. The more you recognize and understand and see God, the more you recognize and understand and sense your sin, so that you'll seek forgiveness. The reason people don't seek forgiveness is because they don't see their sin.

And the reason they haven't seen their sin is because they haven't seen the Savior. Let me give you an example.

Isaiah 6, verse number 5. Isaiah got a vision of the glorified, the glorified Lord. And what did he say? Woe is me. I am undone. I am ruined. For I am a man of unclean lips. And I dwell amidst a people of unclean lips. Isn't it interesting that Isaiah expresses his sin by saying that he is a man who has unclean lips. Why does he say that? Because Isaiah knows what very few people do know. And that is, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Let me tell you something.

The truest indicator of one's spiritual condition is understood in their conversation. If I sit down and talk with you for five minutes, I can understand where you stand spiritually with the Lord. One minute, I can understand where you stand spiritually with the Lord. Because out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, right? Isaiah knew that. So he says, you know what? I dwell amidst a people of unclean lips, because I know that my lips are unclean. Meaning that my heart is unclean, because what comes out of the mouth begins in the heart.

But Isaiah saw or said that after he saw the glorified Lord. Daniel, same way. Daniel 9, verse number 20. Mary, the mother of the Lord Jesus, said in Luke chapter 1, verses 46 and 47, that she rejoiced in God her Savior. When she knew that she as a young virgin would conceive and bear a child, and that child would be the Son of God, the very first thing that came to her mind was that she was a sinner and she was in need of a Savior.

Same is true with Peter, Luke chapter 5, verse number 8. Remember him? They were out on the boat with the Lord Jesus. Jesus asked Peter to launch out into the deep, to cast his nets on the other side. And Peter had the conversation with the Lord about the fact that he had been fishing all day. There was nothing else left. It was the middle of the day. Fish don't come to the top in the middle of the day. They go to the bottom where it's cooler. But nevertheless, at your bidding, Lord, I will cast the nets out.

He did. And they would overflow with fish. What was Peter's response? Depart from me. I am a sinful man. Isn't it interesting that whenever you read through the New Testament, whenever you read through the Old Testament, all the saints of the Scriptures had the same response when they saw the living God. That response was that they were sinners and they needed a Savior. When people come to Christ Community Church, we preach the Word of God. Why? Because we want people to see God. Because we know that if they see God, they will see how sinful they are and they will seek the forgiveness of God.

You see, if you come to any church and you leave, listen carefully, feeling better leaving than when you arrived, you probably didn't see God very clearly. Because if you see him clearly, you leave broken, contrite, recognizing that you are a sinner, grateful for his forgiveness, but recognizing that you would fall short of the glory of God. That's why we say that when you come and understand God's prayer and you pray God's way, it will promote a confession of sin in your life. How? First of all, four avenues.

Number one, I want you to see the scope of sin. I want you to see the scope of sin. Then I want you to see the strategy of sin. Then I want you to see the separation of sin. And then I want you to see the solution for sin. First of all, because this petition deals with sin, I want you to see the the scope of sin.

We've already seen how it affects Isaiah. We've already seen how it affects Mary, the mother of Jesus. We've already seen how it affects Peter, the great apostle. How it affected Daniel in Daniel 9 verse number 20. It affects every saint of the scriptures because sin is original in the heart and mind of man. That's why David said in Psalm 51, in sin did my mother conceive me. I'm not a sinner because I sin. I'm a sinner because I'm born a sinner. I'm born in sin. See, how do we know that? Well, Romans chapter 5 tells us.

Verse number 12 records these words. Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world and death to sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. The Bible says in Romans 3 verse number 10, there is none righteous, not even one.

Verse number 12, all have turned aside together. They have become useless. There is none who does good. There is not even one. Verse 19, now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law that every mouth may be closed. Verse 23, for all have sinned and all have fallen short of the glory of God. All men sin. All men sin because they're born sinners. It goes across the board. One author said it this way. Sin is the monarch that rules the heart of every man. It is the first Lord of the soul and its virus has contaminated every living being.

Sin is the degenerative power in humanity that makes man susceptible to disease, illness, death, and hell. It is the culprit in every broken marriage, disrupted home, shattered friendship, argument, pain, sorrow, and death. No wonder scripture says that sin is an accursed thing, Joshua 7 13.

It is compared to the venom of snakes and the stench of death in Romans 3 verse number 13. Listen, the scope of sin, it is that which embraces and embodies all men. All men. Without exception, it embraces and embodies all men. The scope of sin. The strategy of sin entangles and ensnares each man. The scope embodies and embraces all men. The strategy ensnares and entangles each man. That's why the writer of Hebrews said in Hebrews 12 verse number 1, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us.

Now in the context of of the book of Hebrews, the 12th chapter, the sin that so easily entangles us is the sin of unbelief. Of unbelief. In fact, all sin falls into the category of unbelief. Why do we sin? Because we don't believe what God says, so we do something the direct opposite of what God says.

We don't believe that what God says is going to suffice. We don't believe that what God says is true.

We don't believe that what God says is going to work, so what do I do? I go the other way, and if I go the other way, I know that my way will be better. Why do we sin? Because we like our way as opposed to God's way. All sin falls in the category of unbelief. We don't believe that God's way is going to work anyway, and in the context of where we're at, we don't think that forgiving our spouse is going to work, so what do we do? We enact revenge on our spouse, because that works for us. That works really well for us, but yet that's not God's way for us, see, and whenever we do that, we say we don't believe that God's way really works, so I'm going to seek my way.

It's a sin of unbelief. It's a sin that entangles us. It's a sin that ensnares us. It's a sin that that keeps us from being what God wants us to be, and the strategy of sin is to get a grip on our lives. You ever met somebody who was bitter? Boy, sin has got a grip on them, doesn't it? They're never happy. They're just never happy. They're always criticizing, because they're always critical. They're always on edge. That sin of bitterness has gripped them. It's ensnared them. It's entangled them. It's all wrapped up in them, and there is no joy.

They don't experience the joy of the Lord because of their sin. They think, they really believe that their bitter spirit is going to do them better than to have a forgiving spirit, a loving spirit, a patient spirit, a kind spirit. In other words, they say, God, your way doesn't work, but my way does. That's why we sin, see? And it ensnares us. It truly does entangle us. Sin truly wants to dominate your life. Did you know that? Sin wants to dominate your life. It wants to control every aspect of your life.

That's why in John 3, verse number 19, it says, This is the condemnation, that light is coming to the world, and men love darkness rather than light. That's even true in our believing state, isn't it? We tend to love the dark side better than we love the light side. We tend to naturally go that direction. Sin brings men under Satan's control. Ephesians chapter 2, verse number 2, says that the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience. And it brings us under the wrath of God.

Ephesians 2, 3 says that the unsaved people are children of wrath. Isaiah 57, 21 says, There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked. Job says, Man is born in the trouble as sparks fly upward. Sin wants to dominate our life. And let me show you how looking at the different words in the Greek text will show you how sin wants to dominate your life.

There are five different Greek words for sin. The first one is hamartia. Okay? Which simply means to miss the mark. We've heard that definition before. It means to miss the mark. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We miss the mark. What's the mark? It's perfection. Christ said in Matthew chapter 5, Be perfect even as your father in heaven is. What? Perfect. The standard is perfection. The standard is God's glory. We can't meet that standard. We can't. But we think we can. We think we can.

That's why there are so many isms in the world. Right? Buddhism, Catholicism, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses. Why? Because it's all based on a work system. That somehow I can work my way to God. I can do enough good that will cause God to accept me. I can reach the standard. That's Satan's lie. You can't meet the standard. You miss the mark. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Every man is a sinner because he's born a sinner. And Amartya, Amartya gives us an example of how man cannot meet the standard that God himself has set.

That's why at the great white throne judgment in Revelation 20 he opens the books. It's plural. Revelation 20 verses 11 to 15. The Lord God opens the books. Why? Because it contains all the good deeds of all sinful man. But all their good deeds when matched to his perfect standard always fall short of his glory. And they are cast into eternal damnation. See? There's another word. And this word is parabasis. Parabasis. This word simply means to step across the line. To step across the line. We know that God's word gives standards.

It also gives laws. It gives rules, right? Don't step across the line. It's like when you walk through the park and it says do not walk on the grass, right? Isn't there just a little bit of rebellion in us that says I want to walk on the grass? Or let's make it more practical. No food, no coffee, no bagels in the classroom. Don't you just want to take the coffee and bagel in the classroom anyway? That's called a parabasis. You want to step over the line, okay? Because inherent in our nature is rebellion.

And we want to step over the line. God draws the line on the stand. Boom. This is it. God is a God of absolutes. Here's the line. You cross the line, here's the consequence. This is what you must do. You say, well, you know, I can just kind of step over it just a little bit. No, that's called a parabasis. God, every time you have a forbidden thought, a forbidden word, or a forbidden act as designed by scripture, you have stepped over the line. Which causes you to really fall short of the glory of God, to really miss the mark, right?

So a third word is ah-namia. Ah-namia. Namas means law. Ah in front of it means lawlessness. That's outright rebellion. We know that the Antichrist is called the man of lawlessness. This is rebellion against God. Outright rebellion against God. You'll note that the more you step over the line, the easier it gets to step over the line. And the more you step over the line, the further you get from the mark. And the further you get from the mark, the more you want to rebel against a holy God. There's another word.

That word is paraptima. Paraptima, which means to slip or to fall. It's used in Galatians 6, verse number one, which says, if a man be overtaken in a paraptima or a fault, you who are spiritual, restore such a one.

People get swept away in temptation, in the passion of the moment. They lose self-control. Paraptima means simply to slip away or to fall. And is it not true that even in our converted state, we can't help but slip or fall? We can't. That's how ingrained sin is in our lives. We just, we tend to slip or to fall. That's why Paul said in Galatians 6, 1, if you're spiritual, then those who have been overtaken by a fault, they have slipped. They have fallen away. You who are spiritual, you pick them up.

You build them up. You hold them up. You restore them back because they need your help. They've fallen. They've slipped. There's another word. Ophelima. Ophelima, which means simply a debt. A debt that you owe. It's used in scripture over and over again of something that's owed. And when you sin, when you sin, you owe to God a debt. The consequences of your sin. And you know what God does? He keeps a record of all those debts. That's why in Revelation 20, he opens the books. Because he's got a record of all the debts you owe because of your sin.

And in Revelation 20, every man who is before the great white throne judgment will pay the debt in eternal punishment, separation from God forever. You see, the strategy of sin is to get you to slip, to fall, to miss the mark, to get you to fall or step over that line, that you will get further and further and further away from God in open rebellion against God, so that one day when you stand before God, you will have to pay the consequences for your sin. That's strategy of sin. That's what Satan wants to do in the life of the unbeliever.

And so, we come to this aspect of the apostle's prayer, the disciple's prayer, or better known as the Lord's prayer, and we begin to see how this petition promotes my consciousness of sin, its scope, its strategy. One author said it this way, as it is contrary to the holiness of God, sin is a defilement, a dishonor, a reproach to us. As it is a violation of his law, it is a crime. And as to the guilt which we contact thereby, it is a debt. As creatures, we owe the debt of obedience unto our maker and governor.

And through failure to render the same on account of our rank disobedience, we have incurred a debt of punishment. And it is for this latter that we will implore the divine pardon. We come to God and ask His forgiveness, because we can't attain forgiveness apart from God, who is a forgiving God. The third thing in which you see is not only its scope, which deals with the embodiment and how sin embraces every man, its strategy on how it ensnares and entangles every single one of us, but its separation, which deals with its eternal estrangement from God, its separation, because sin is something that causes what?

Death. For the wages of sin is what? Death. I guess I baffled at the number of people who don't understand what death is. Let me tell you what death is.

This is death. That's death. It's separation. That's all it is. It's just separation. Death in the Bible is never defined as a cessation of existence. Never. It's defined as separation. There's physical death. There's spiritual death. There's eternal death. When you understand that, you begin to realize that when you are born in sin, you are born separated from the living God. Why? Because you were born in sin. You are separate from God. You're not with God. You're separate from God. When Adam and Eve sinned, they didn't physically die immediately, but they did die, right?

Because the Lord said, the day you eat, you will die. They did die. They were spiritually separated from God. They lost fellowship. They lost communion. They were separate, separated from the intimacy with the living God. So God came looking after them, came seeking them, right? Now, because of their sin, they would eventually die physically. If you read through the book of Genesis, you begin to realize how time goes on. Man lives shorter and shorter and shorter and shorter and shorter because of sin.

Sin. Sin causes death. To die physically, James 2 says, the separation of the body from the soul is physical death. Folks, everybody lives forever. Everybody lives forever. When you die, you don't cease to live. You just live somewhere else, either in hell or in heaven, either with God or apart from God. So because you are born spiritually dead, if before you die physically, which is physical death, you need to rectify that so that you don't experience eternal death, which is eternal estrangement, eternal separation from the living God forever.

And therefore, we must understand that when we come and confess our sin to God, there is a confession because there is, listen carefully, a separation. We'll talk more about that in a moment. But you need to understand that. Isaiah 59 says it this way. Behold, the Lord's hand is not short that it cannot save, neither is his ear so dull that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God. And your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. Now we know that God hears everything.

God is, God is not deaf. He hears everything. But it speaks of the loss of the communion, the fellowship you have. Psalm 66 18, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. If I have a bitter spirit in my heart, then my prayer, don't even bother praying, folks, unless you're going to confess your sins. Don't even bother going to the Lord. People say, well, I'm asking God to do this and I haven't received an answer. Maybe there's unconfessed sin.

Maybe there's a bitter spirit. Maybe there's an unforgiving spirit. Maybe there's an angry spirit. Maybe there's some kind of sin that you have yet to confess. The Bible says, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.

You can say all you want. He doesn't hear. That is, he doesn't respond. Can't. Because your sins have separated you from your God. See, the ultimate strategy in sin is to, to separate us from God. So we don't have that communion, that sweet fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And today, today, you know, we celebrate Father's Day. And never am I more recognized of my failures than I am on this day. I don't know about you dads, but boy, I tell you, when I, when I sit down with my children, I recognize all my failures.

I recognize all my sins as never before on Father's Day. Because I realize that I'm not near the father I need to be to my children. I've failed them on so many accounts, so many avenues. I have, I've blown it with my children. And I'm, I recognize that, that I'm a sinner. I need to confess my sin to my children, to the mother of my children, to my Lord. I guess Father's Day should be a day of confession more than anything else. Because so many fathers, myself included, have failed miserably in our leadership, failed miserably in our sensitivity, failed miserably in all avenues as it regards to, to our children.

Now, there are some things we do good, but not nearly as many things as we do bad. And so, when I come to the disciples' prayer, and I read, Father, forgive us our debts. I think, oh my, so many sins I've committed. So many. I need the Lord's forgiveness. I do. And I'm glad that my Lord is a forgiving God who grants mercy and loving kindness to people like me, so that I can go to my children and ask their forgiveness and restore a relationship with them, so that in that relationship there is love and kindness, patience, discipline, the kind of things that God wants me to portray to my children, that they might get a better glimpse of God.

It is true that the greatest picture of God your children will ever see is in their fathers, not their mothers, their fathers. If your children have a low view of God, look at you.

Look no further. If your children rebel against God, look at you. Look no further, fathers, because you are the picture of God to them, because you are the earthly Father that is to demonstrate to them their heavenly Father, that they might understand Him in all of His glory. And when you sin, and you ask for forgiveness, and you confess that sin, you have the opportunity to teach about a loving God who truly and willingly wants to forgive us our sins whenever we sin, because that's the kind of God we serve.

That's why we come to the third or fourth point. Not only its scope, its strategy, its separation, but its solution. There is a solution, and that's the living God of the universe who forgives us our sins. You know, we can paint a pretty bleak picture by just looking at our sins, can't we? But, but there is a God who forgives. There's a God who forgives. The book of Micah, seventh chapter, verse number 18. Who is a God like thee who pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of his possession?

He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in unchanging love. He will again have compassion on us. He will tread our iniquities underfoot. Yes, thou will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. The solution is a God who forgives. Over in Psalm 103, it begins, bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of his benefits. And the very first benefit that the psalmist says is, who pardons all our iniquities.

That's the number one benefit of, of being a believer. The forgiveness of sins. Because that's the number one need that every man has.

They need forgiveness. Only God grants forgiveness. It says in verse number 10, he has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his loving kindness toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. Then there's Isaiah 38, verse number 17. Lo, for my own welfare I had great bitterness. It is thou who has kept my soul from the pit of nothingness, for thou has cast all my sins behind thy back.

And then chapter 43 of Isaiah, the 25th verse says, I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. Why does God forgive your sins? For his sake. His glory is on display. The forgiveness of sins is not about you. It's about God. And his glory, his mercy, his kindness, his justice, everything about him is on display when he forgives your sins. That's why the whole New Covenant in Jeremiah 31, verses 31 to 34, speaks of how God will draw his people toward himself, and he will write his name on their hearts, and he will remember their iniquities no more.

That's the New Covenant. I will forgive their sins, and I will remember them no more. So when we come to disciples prayer, and we come, and we ask God to forgive us our debts, for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us, we are coming to the only one who can forgive us our sins, and that is the King of kings and Lord of lords. So, we pray, forgive us our debts. It promotes my consciousness of sin. Number two, it prompts my confession of sin.

Listen carefully to what we're going to say here. You need to understand this. It prompts my confession of sin. You can know about sin, and you can know about forgiveness. You can read verses like we just read in Psalm 103, and Micah chapter 7, verses 18 and 19, and Isaiah 43, and Isaiah 37. You can read those verses and know that God puts your sins behind his back. He forgives you all your sins. He remembers them no more. He pardons all your iniquities, because that's what the Bible says, but unless there is confession and repentance, listen carefully, there is no forgiveness.

There is none. We've told you this probably a million times in the last 16 years. Maybe not quite a million, but close to it. God's love is unconditional. His forgiveness is not. His forgiveness is conditioned upon confession and repentance. He who covers a transgression shall not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes his sin shall find mercy. If you cover your transgression, you will not prosper. Although you think you are prospering when you cover it, don't you? You think you're getting away with something.

Be sure your sin, Numbers 32 says, will find you out. It will. But we think that if we cover it, that we can hide it, we are going to prosper. And yet the Bible says the only one who is going to find mercy is the one who confesses and forsakes his sin.

That's it. If God's forgiveness was unconditional, everybody would go to heaven without exception. Right? Everybody would go to heaven because He's a forgiving God. That's what He does. So you can sin as much as you want, wherever you want, however you want. Who cares? You're going to go to heaven anyway because God's a forgiving God. But His forgiveness is not unconditional. Oh, His love is. His love is absolutely unconditional, but His forgiveness is conditioned upon confession and the repentance of sin.

So important to understand. A confession, as the publican in Luke chapter 18 says in verse number 10, two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax gatherer. The Pharisee stood and was praying thus to himself, God, I thank Thee that I am not like the other people, swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax gatherer. I fast twice a week. I pay tithes of all that I get. But the tax gatherer standing some distance away was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast saying, God, be merciful to me, the sinner.

I tell you, this man went down to his house testified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself should be humbled, but he who humbles himself shall be exalted. That story in Luke 18 is a absolute wealth of treasure. The Pharisee went down and prayed to himself, didn't pray to God, prayed to himself. You must understand that. He didn't recognize that he was a sinner. He was just glad he wasn't like the other sinners, right? That adulterer, that, that, that, that, that swindler, that tax gatherer over there in the corner, I'm not like that guy.

You know, we tend to do that every once in a while, don't we? Because we tend to compare ourselves among ourselves, which by the way, Paul says in Corinthians is, we're not wise if we do that. But we try to compare ourselves with other people. So, well, I don't do that. Are you kidding me? I'm better than that. And all the while the, the tax gatherer just beats upon his breast, not even looking up to heaven, because he's not worthy to even look in the face of God. And he says, be merciful unto me.

Listen, the sinner, the sinner. Listen, there's nothing like a broken and contrite heart. God does not despise that, does He? He despises everything else, but He does not despise a broken and contrite heart. He will not. That's why the Bible says, to this man will I look, to him who is broken and of contrite spirit, and who trembles at my word.

God looks at no other man, only one, the broken, contrite spirit, who shakes uncontrollably under the authority of His word. That man, God says, I'll look to that man.

I'll save that man. But if that's not you, God's not looking to you. He can only deal with those who are broken and contrite, who humbly come to Him and ask and beg His forgiveness. And that's why this prayer prompts my confession of sin. Because I, I'm conscious that I'm a sinner. So what do I do? I confess my sin and I go to God. In two avenues I want you to see. Specifically and substantially. Specifically, I go daily and I go deliberately. I go daily because I need to confess my sins. Right? The Bible says, and give us this day our daily bread and, transition phrase, forgive us our sins.

It's almost as if daily we need provision and daily we need pardon. That's why the Bible says the first John 1.9, if we confess our sins, if we are the ones confessing our sins, then He is the one who is faithful and just to continually forgive us our sins.

See the characteristic of a believer is that he is a confessor of sins. Read about the saints in the Bible. They were confessors of their sins. Paul said, what? He was a chief of all sinners. The apostle Paul said that. This is a trustworthy statement, worthy of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came to the world to save sinners. And by the way, I am the chief of all sinners, he says. Because the more he saw God, the more he saw his sin, and the more he realized how far short he fell of God's perfect standard.

People say all the time, well, you know, I don't like to go to church and be convicted of my sin. I don't have to go to church and feel bad about what I did or what I said to my wife or to my, I don't like that. I want to go to church and make me feel good about my sin. And so churches like that are full because no one ever confronts them on the truth of God's Word, which will always confront them on their sin, right? So you leave the church knowing you're a sinner and believing there's only one who can forgive you of your sins, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And when he forgives and cleanses, then he uses you in a great and powerful way to minister the truth of the gospel because he wants to use a clean, clean vessel. So daily I confess my sins and I do it, listen carefully, deliberately. That is, I say the same thing about my sin that God says about my sin.

That's what it means to confess your sins. I'm going to let go. It means to say the same thing about your sin that God says about your sin.

So we don't do that today. We, we, we, we candy coat sin. They, they had an affair. No, they're adulterers. They have an alternate lifestyle. No, no, they're homosexuals. They're sodomites. See, we don't want to call sin what the Bible calls it. We want to, we want to candy coat it, make it sound really, really nice instead of saying it the way God said it. You know, he doesn't always really speak the truth. Oh, so he's a liar. Oh no, he's not a liar. He just doesn't always speak the truth. Really?

See, we don't want to call it the way God calls it because it's just too harsh. It's too negative. But to confess your sin means to say the same thing about your sin that God says about your sin.

And what does God say about your sin? Listen carefully. Sin is abominable to God. He hates it. Deuteronomy 12, 31. It stains a soul. It degrades a person's nobility. It darkens the mind. It makes us worse than animals for animals cannot sin. Sin pollutes, defile, stains. All sin is gross, disgusting, loathsome, revolting in God's sight. Scripture calls it filthiness. Proverbs 30, Ezekiel 24, James 1. Sin is compared to vomit and sinners are the dogs who lick it up. Proverbs 26, 2 Peter 2. Sin is called mire and sinners are the swine who love to wallow in it.

Psalm 69, 2 Peter 2. Sin is likened to a putrefying corpse and sinners are the tombs that contain the stench and foulness, Matthew 23. Sin has turned humanity into a polluted, befouled race. That's what God thinks of sin. What do you think of sin? If this petition helps me become conscious of my sin, it should drive you to be a confessor of your sin, because I want to experience the cleansing of God. So I deliberately and daily go to Him and confess my sin to Him. So wait a minute. Wait. Time out a second.

Time out. The Bible says that He cast all our sins behind His back. He threw them into the sea, never to remember them no more. He has separated them as far as the east is from the west. If God has forgiven me all my sins, as Ephesians 1, 7 says, if I'm forgiven, then why do I need to confess my sin? That's a good question, right? I'm already forgiven. I'm a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. I've claimed what He did on the cross for me and I believe in the finished work of Christ. I'm a forgiven man.

Why do I have to confess my sins? Do I even need to do that? Answer, well, come back next week and we'll explain to you. Let's pray. Father, thank You, Lord, for today and a chance to be able to examine Your Word. I pray for us, Lord, that all of us would recognize our sin, because we've seen the living God. And that, Father, the only solution is to confess our sins and to seek the forgiveness of the only one who can truly forgive them, because of His finished work on Calvary's cross. Lord, thank You that He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.

Thank You that, Lord, You bore in Your body, on the tree, our iniquities. Thank You, Lord, that You laid upon Your Son the iniquities of us all. Thank You, Lord, that You made forgiveness possible. Thank You that You made forgiveness available. If there be one person here today that has never come to the living God and sought forgiveness from Him for his sins, may this be that day. May they come to the living God and beg Your forgiveness and watch and see how freely You give it, because truly You are a forgiving God.

We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our soon-coming King. Amen.