The Exposition of Matthew 6:11-18

September 3,  2020

    (Sermon on the Mount)

Questions to be answered in this study

1. What are the five examples Jesus uses to teach us how to live a godly life?
2. What does “forgive us our debts” mean?
3. The word debt, used in the King James Version of the Bible, is a euphemism for what?
4. What are the two types of sin debt?
5. How do we know you can’t lose your salvation and then need to be saved again?
6. What did Jesus say to assure us we cannot lose our salvation, when He prayed for us?
7. Why is it necessary for believers to continue to confess sins if their sins were forgiven when they accepted Christ as savior?
8. On what one condition is God willing to forgive our sins?
9. Is fasting taught in the New Testament?

Introduction

“One of the greatest blessings in life is to serve God in a unique time, in a unique place, doing something that really matters in God’s program.” – Steve Sweats, through the Bible.

Chadwick Boseman, a 42-year-old actor, died last week. Sorry to hear of him dying at such a young age. He had a fantastic write-up. They called him a superhero. Even former President Obama and vice president Biden praised him for his acting skills. He could have been a Christian; I don’t know; if so, there was no mention of it, and that by far is more significant than any other accomplishment on earth. What does it matter if we gain it all during this short time on earth and miss eternal life in heaven?

So, I could add another quote: “To know God and to serve Him is the greatest thing a person can ever do in life, and it also has the greatest rewards.” -JB.

Our present life is our time and our place in life to serve God in something that matters most. One of the essential things we can do that matters to God is to live a righteous life. As we come to Matthew 6, verses 11-18, Jesus explains how we can live life that pleases God and glorifies Him. He uses five examples to teach about the godly life. In this section, He contrasts the hypocritical righteousness of the Pharisees to faithful obedience to the Lord. The five examples He uses are giving prayer, forgiveness, fasting, and wealth. The Pharisees practiced these things to be seen by others to receive their praises. When the true believer practices these things, they are to do so to please the Heavenly Father.

Our study last week was on Jesus teaching us how to pray, using the example of the model prayer, which was just that and not a prayer to be repeated. The model prayer was intended as a method to structure our prayers while adding our own words. Jesus’ structure for prayer included addressing first the Heavenly Father for who He is, Hallowed and Holy, to be worshiped and praised, whose kingdom was to come. Secondly, to address our personal needs, which included our need to confess our sins regularly. Thirdly, actively showing our responsibility toward others to be forgiving and show concern for them and their needs; this is where we left off last time.

Jesus continues to speak on forgiveness after He had given the model prayer, and that will primarily be our study today—God forgiving us as we forgive others.

In this critical study, we will be looking at those 5 Things listed above that describe a godly life:

1. The importance of confessing our sins consistently.
2. The importance of forgiving others
3. The importance of understanding the two different kinds of sin debt
4. The importance of our eternal relationship with God and how our salvation is not based on what we do or not do; it is based on faith and God’s grace
5. The importance of the proper kind of fasting

Let’s start by reviewing a part of  “The Lord’s Prayer:”

Matthew 6:12-13 “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. 13And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.”

According to verse 12, “forgive us our debts,” tells us to confess our sins and ask the Lord for forgiveness. The word debt is used here in the King James version, which is a euphemism for sin in Greek. Jesus tells us to ask the Father for forgiveness for our sins. Our sin debt is toward God. Who is Jesus talking to here? It is his disciples who want to learn how to pray. In Luke chapter 11, the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray. Therefore, it is believers that Jesus is talking to here, even though the Pharisees were present.

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We may wonder why believers must ask for forgiveness since their sins have already been forgiven. Didn’t God already forgive us when we accepted Jesus as savior? The answer is yes; this may be confusing unless we understand both sin debt and forgiveness. There are two kinds of sin debts. First, there is an eternal sin debt. Second, there is a temporal sin debt. We have an eternal sin debt that must be paid in full. Romans 3:23-24 (KJV),“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; 24Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;” Propitiation means that God is satisfied with the work Jesus did on the cross as appeasement for our sins, for all our sins past, present, and future.

The Bible teaches us that when we accept Jesus, our sin debt is paid in full once and for all. Hebrews 10:14-18 (KJV), “For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. 15Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before, ₁₆This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the LORD, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; 17And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. 18Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.”

Notice in verse 18, “There is no more offering for sin.” Listen to Hebrews 6:4-6 (KJV): “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, 5And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, 6If [if it were possible] they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.”

Some erroneously think you can be lost and then saved again and again. But listen again: “For it is impossible …if they shall fall away to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.” If it were possible for a person to be lost after they are saved, there would be no further remedy for their sin; this is emphasized in 1 Pet. 3:18 (KJV), “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;”

Long before we were born and had ever committed even one sin, our sins were laid upon Jesus at the cross. Jesus paid it all on the cross to cover our eternal sin debt; that included every sin. That also means all our future sins are covered as far as our salvation is concerned. Jesus’ death on the cross was a payment, a perfect offering made for our sake to cover our sin debt before God. We read in 2 Cor. 5:21 (KJV), “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” The work Jesus did on the cross was perfect and eternal. We have complete and total forgiveness for our sins from an eternal perspective. Nothing changes that, including what we do or what we don’t do.

Our good works do not save us; Neither are we lost for the evil works we do after we are saved. Ephesians 2:8-9 (KJV), “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9Not of works, lest any man should boast.” We are saved through faith by the grace of God. Nothing can undo that faith and God’s grace.

Paul makes that clear in Romans 8:38-39, “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Here’s the thing: We can pay for our sin debt ourselves, which means eternal separation from God, or we can accept what Jesus did when He paid our sin debt on the cross. Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our LORD.”

Since we know we are saved in Christ forever, why should we ask for our sins in our daily prayers? Remember, I said earlier there are two kinds of sin debts. First, there is an eternal sin debt. Second, there is a temporal sin debt. The first kind is an eternal sin debt that Jesus died to pay in full for each of us who will believe and accept His forgiveness. That is one time only. We never can be saved a second time, for once is sufficient forever. It is a position in Christ that cannot be lost.

We may ask: How can we know for sure that we will never be lost? Answer: There are many places in The New Testament where we are given that assurance. One of those is the prayer of Jesus in John 6:38-40: “For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. 39And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. 40this is the will of him that sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.” This kind of forgiveness is eternal and can never be changed by what we do or by what we do not do.

Nevertheless, Jesus says in Matthew 6:12 that we need to continue to ask God for forgiveness for our sins in our daily prayers. But didn’t God forgive us for all our sins? Yes, that is true. Remember again; I said there are two kinds of forgiveness: temporal and eternal; when He died for me on the cross, He paid for all my sins. When we pray in our daily prayers for forgiveness, it is for temporal sins and temporal forgiveness. From an eternal perspective, they have been paid in full. But from a temporal perspective, they must be confessed and forgiven, otherwise, they cause a problem with our relationship with God; they are not an issue with our eternal salvation. It is time we put those concerns about keeping our salvation to rest forever. Listen to what John said:

John 8:36, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” You can’t get any clearer than that. We who are in Christ are set free forever. Our sins yesterday, today, or tomorrow will never change the permanent position we have in Jesus.

The other kind of sin debt I mentioned and the other kind of forgiveness is temporal, and that is what Jesus is referring to in the model prayer. Even though we have a new nature in Christ, we also have the old sin nature. The new nature is the redeemed nature; the old nature will not enter heaven but must be attended to here and now; this is the Spiritual war that the Apostle Paul talked about in Romans chapter 7, a battle between the Spirit and the flesh. In himself, he could not win the battle, but he did win, as we see in Romans chapter 8; here Paul tells us how he won the battle, and it was by walking in the power of the Holy Spirit.

We never wholly win in this life. There will always be times when the flesh will pull us into sin, and that is the sin that must be confessed and forgiven. As we mature in Christ through sanctification, we lose fewer and fewer battles, though it is inevitable that sin will be a challenge as long as we live; this sin and this forgiveness are temporal; it has no eternal consequences. God forgives these sins as we confess them, but that does not mean we won’t pay the consequences. The consequences may be that they hinder relationships. They may cause anger, hurt, fear, mistrust, jealousy, resentment, etc. They may cause health problems. The most significant problem is that it breaks our fellowship with God. Also, when sin is unconfessed, it can bring God’s discipline.

All these consequences are temporal and will not follow us into heaven. Sin sadly means we are following after the flesh instead of the Holy Spirit. That is a blueprint for disaster. I have a pastor friend who I believe is a true believer, but he is in jail because of sin. He stole money from the church and got caught. You can find believers in the same predicaments as unbelievers, in jail, in bankruptcy, in poverty, with no friends, drug addicts, sick unto death, etc. All this is a result of disobedience.

In Hebrews 12 (KJV), we read, that God chastens for sins: “If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what Son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.” We must not live with unconfessed sins. God’s way is much easier: 1 John 1:9 (KJV), “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

God’s willingness to forgive us our sin is connected to our desire to forgive others who have sinned against us and to that degree.

Matthew 6:14-15, “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: 15But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

Back in verse 12, Jesus says to pray to God to forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors. To paraphrase that: God forgives me my sins to the same degree that I’m willing to forgive others. Jesus gave a parable of a man who was forgiven his debt but would not forgive others: Matthew 18:26-34 (KJV), “The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. 27Then the Lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt. 28But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellowservants, which owed him an hundred pence: and he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest. 29And his fellowservant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. 30And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt. 31So when his fellowservants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told unto their Lord all that was done. 32Then his Lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: 33Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee? 34And his Lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him.”

Here is a thought: Should we expect God to show us more mercy than we are willing to show others? Luke 6:37-38 (KJV), “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: 38Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again;” this is not about money and material things. It is about God’s blessings on them that are obedient to him.

God had many blessings in store for Israel before they entered the promised land based on their obedience to Him. He promised them every bit of land on which the sole of their foot landed. God’s promise to Abraham included around 300,000 square miles of territory. The most Israel ever occupied was approximately 30,000 square miles. The reason was their disobedience. Israel only received about 10% of God’s blessings. I wonder if that is true for most of us. God has so much more for those who are obedient to His will.

Jesus’ third example is similar to the first two in that whatever we do, it is to be done unto the Lord, whether our giving, our prayers, forgiveness, or our fasting.

Matthew 6:16-18, “Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. 17But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; 18That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.”

We might ask, does the New Testament teach fasting? The answer is no. However, it was practiced often in the Old Testament and is still a good practice today. It reinforces that we can have control over the flesh. In this example, we first see Jesus showing how the Pharisees fasted to be seen of others. Pharisees typically had a routine for fasting, which was several times each week. Fasting typically leaves a person weak and uncomfortable. The Pharisees liked to show their discomfort to others, so they would know how dedicated they were. Jesus, therefore, taught that we are to fast the same way we give and pray, in secret. Fasting is not too common today, and even though the New Testament does not teach it, it is still a good practice in our spiritual walk with the Lord.

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