Matthew 6:14-15 and Hosea 11
Two weeks ago we came to the conclusion, or the doxology of the Lord’s Prayer, “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.” Before Jesus began to teach on how and why we should fast He points back to the prayer and He emphasizes again the importance of forgiveness. When we studied the petition “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” we concluded that forgiveness is our greatest need and our greatest calling. Jesus, here in our text, in His last words of the Sermon on the Mount about prayer shows us that forgiveness from God creates righteousness within us and forgiveness of others displays righteousness to the world around us. Without being forgiven prayer is simply words offered in hopes of being heard by God, without being forgiving prayer can quickly become a hypocritical effort to be heard by men. I believe that Jesus is teaching us that effectiveness and righteousness in prayer hinges upon forgiveness. There are going to be three main things we are going to talk about today in studying these verses. First is what sin does, there is a common effect of sin that every man endures, we are all touched by it and at the exact same time we are all guilty of it. Second we are going to talk about what forgiveness is; it is not forgetting, it is not the removal of accountability and it is not no longer being hurt or affected by what has been done. Finally we will talk about what forgiveness does. I believe that Jesus shows us here both in and after the Lord’s Prayer that forgiveness creates freedom, that it removes weights but above all else, I believe that Jesus teaches us here that forgiveness is our greatest need, that it is our greatest calling and that forgiveness creates our greatest intimacy.