AUG 19 2018 | Stuff Jesus Said S1E3 | Our Father – Part 2

Sea Change Church · Stuff Jesus Said · "Our Father - Part 2" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · August 19, 2018
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Good morning, church. My name is Kimberly Davis, and my husband and I, David, we love this church. We love this church family. We love serving here in various capacities, but my passion is for the Word of God. And I teach women's Bible study here. It's coming up soon. I can't wait. It's going to be so good. And with that, we are going to be in the Gospel of Matthew this morning, the sixth chapter, verses 15 through 14.

On prayer. Do not keep on babbling like the pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. This, then, is how you should pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done. On earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. Word of the Lord. Good morning, church. Good to see you all here today on this beautiful day here in La Jolla. We are continuing on in the Stuff Jesus Said series, which is basically the words of Jesus. Looking at some of the provocative, interesting, polarizing, joy-filled, exciting statements that Jesus said.

Jesus said some very, I would say, culturally dividing, but also spiritually nuclear comments. That have the ability that if we take them seriously, to actually change our life. Last week, over the last two weeks, I mentioned that Jesus brought up the idea of God as Father. And I personally believe that the concept of God as actually, not just some cosmic figure in the sky, or benevolent spiritual dictator, or some far away being, or some inner light, or some universal power.

But the idea that God is actually your Father, and cares for you like you were a child, is perhaps the most revolutionary, radical, unique statement about God in all of religious history. You can look at the Hindu gods. You can look at the Norse mythology. You could look at Thor. You could look at all these different God ideas from the Greeks and on. And they have some radical stories. You know, you could read about all of them, and all of some of the really odd and weird things that are.

And many of them are no longer believed. But the idea where Jesus comes, and over and over again, in the first passage from two weeks ago, 23 times in that passage, he mentions the word Father. Six times in this small passage, he mentions the word Father. Father, Jesus says in John 14, 6, which we'll speak about next week, you know, that I think I'm getting this one right. I and the Father are one. There is no way into the Father but through me.

I think that's John 14, 6. You can check later. But Jesus is regularly saying that his whole purpose is not just to die on the cross, because Jesus is not a cosmic lifeguard. The gospel is not that Jesus died on the cross for your sins so that you might go to heaven, full stop. The gospel is that Jesus died on the cross, that your sins might be atoned for, that he might pay for your sins, that you might be united with your Father, that Jesus is on a rescue mission to restore orphans to their true Father.

In the first verse that we read, in the first verse that I spoke about, that says, Jesus says, I will not leave you as orphans. This concept of fatherhood in religion is really mostly found in Judeo-Christian literature, but mostly in the New Testament. Now, obviously, the Jews have a concept of Father, but God was also King. He was warrior, King. God, excuse me, was seen as those things. And some as Father, but it is really in the New Testament where Jesus takes it to that next level.

You see a little bit of Father being mentioned in Hinduism, some in Islam, not much, it's not a focus. But on and on, throughout religion, Christianity, and Jesus in particular, speaking that you are a child of God. And just to put it in the most contemporary terms, God's your dad. That God cares for you like a child, in the same way you can approach, through Jesus, God as a father. Father. It is an absolutely radical concept in a culture that I feel is trying to devalue the understanding of Father, and in a lot of fatherless culture.

You look at different places in the world, the effects of having a fatherless culture. And so, this is a radical statement. And when the disciples come to Jesus, and they say, how are we to pray? He wraps up the totality of prayer in the wrapper of coming to God as Father. Now, one of the things we need to be careful about is not just because when Jesus was asked about prayer, that he says, well, pray this way, that we take the RR Father, and we turn it into a spiritual algorithm.

Look on your notes. There's one of the cautions that I wanted to have. That this is one way to pray. It is not the only way to pray. And it highlights some very important things of prayer that we need to take very seriously. Because when Jesus was asked about prayer, and that's what we're speaking about today and last week, the conversation of heaven, how to have a conversation with your Father, that Jesus radically says, when you talk to God, you need not be afraid of Him.

You need not to worry that He's far off. You need not worry that He is just looking for all the bad things that you've done. But He says, when you talk to God, you approach Him as your dad, as your father. And so, He says in this prayer, our Father. But we need to be careful that we don't turn this into some spiritual algorithm. Here's a word of caution. Prayer is eternal. Okay? Prayer is eternal. The scripture speaks about prayer being eternal.

There are many ways to pray. One prayer by Jesus, where He shows us a paradigm, does not mean it's the only way to pray. Prayer is eternal. And the Our Father prayer is not meant to be turned into a religious algorithm that we can control. You know, oftentimes we want to control prayer. We want to find the secret sauce of praying, the secret key of praying. And then if we can just get praying correct, if we can pray enough, and Jesus talks about this.

He talks about pagans in the day, different pagan religions, that they felt that if they prayed a certain amount of prayers, and they babbled long enough, or pleaded enough, they could get to a point where they would be able to control, manipulate the results through prayer. Prayer is not that. Prayer is a conversation, a loving conversation, the language of heaven with your Father, to tell Him what your needs are, and to allow Him to respond in His way.

So I just want to say that as we move into this, and say this is one platform for prayer. But I think that there are some amazing things that we can grab onto as we look at it. Here's the first thing that came to me as I set this prayer up before we get into the meat of it and the back end of this message. Prayer cements your temporal life into reality. Let me say that again. Prayer cements, it is a catalyst for your temporal life and turns it into reality for only that which lasts into eternity is truly real.

Only that which lasts into eternity is truly real. Anything that passes away is ultimately not as real as the things that will last forever. And so the purpose of the scripture, and one of the things we will see in this prayer, when he tells us, let your kingdom in heaven come onto earth, is because when you infuse your marriage, your work life, your career, your relationship with your children, your prayer life, forgiveness, when you infuse your life with the eternal things of heaven, it puts the mark of heaven, it puts the mark of eternity on your temporal actions and causes them to be eternal.

This is how you live supernaturally. This is how that you live beyond the temporal, the temporalness of our day. And so our job then is to continue to invite God. When you give someone forgiveness, that forgiveness will be remembered in heaven. When you act in the name of love, not just because it's good, but because, or because of love itself, but you love someone because of God, that that action will be cemented and will be remembered in heaven.

In Revelations, it says that all prayer prayed to God will swirl in eternity in a bowl before God and the prayers of the saints are mixed into that bowl and that they will, they will burn like an aroma before God. And if you want to know what God smells like, he smells like the incense of prayer. He smells like your prayers. If you ever had that friend that burns too much incense in their house, right? Pass by somebody with a petulio oil.

Please take it easy on the petulio oil. There should be a permit on that. I was like two blocks from the guy. I could still smell it. You know, you burn incense in your house, you come out, you smell like that. Or if you're at a campfire, you smell like that. You want to know the smell of God. God smells like prayer. Prayer is eternal. And so the point of the Our Father prayer is to cement your life, to do things, to pray things, to pray in such a way, to live in such a way that you are stamping the love of God, the presence of God onto the temporal things that you do to cement them into eternity.

This is why good works alone that are not under the covering of God or done through the name of Jesus are good works. And God's happy for good works. But they, according to Scripture, will not last into eternity. So we do not get to get the benefit of our good works. You will get the reward for doing good works on your own. That's why we're not saved by works. You can't pray enough to get into heaven. You can't do anything.

You can do no works. You can't live a good life to get into heaven according to Scripture. The only way the Scripture says that you can go to heaven is to believe in faith by nothing that you have done but only through faith that Jesus died on the cross and that your sins are covered because of His work. You can do no actions. You can do no work. And so we cement. When we get into that position, then all of a sudden, everything that we do in God's name can be cemented into eternity.

So the question is, are you living an eternal life? And are you working in your own power? I'm so tempted to work in my own power. I get an issue. I get a problem. And I start figuring. This was a week of figuring for me. A lot of figuring. Anybody else figure? If you get into bed and you're up for an hour figuring or you wake up in the morning and you're figuring, you're not faith-ering. I need to start faith-ering and not figuring.

And I just figure, I can figure it out in my own way. And if you have any giftings at all and you're good at what you do, you know that God's given you the ability to do it on your own. But I don't want Adam results. I want God results. And what I've always said is being the best you you can be is a low bar. You hear that all the time. Be the best you that you can be. The best you I can, the best me that I can be is still temporal.

What I need is God to come in, touch what I do, and make it exponential beyond anything I could ever do on my own. When you hear, when I hear the world say, you know, be the best you, go after your dreams and be the best you you can be, I think, what a low bar. I want to be 20 times greater, 100 times, the scripture says over and over again that if you put a seed out in God's name, that he will cause it to have a harvest 100 fold.

Look at a seed with just apples on a tree. It shows you the metaphor of what God wants to do with your life. That one little seed can produce all of that. So asking prayer, we're looking into, C.S. Lewis says in this idea, and he was really big on this idea of solidifying your life into eternity. A great book, a fantastic allegory, is called The Great Divorce. It is a book about a man who gets on a bus and moves towards heaven.

And as he moves towards heaven, things get more and more real to the fact where he starts walking on the grass as he gets closer to heaven, and it starts hurting his feet like needles. And he says, why does the grass hurt my feet? He says, because the grass here is more real than the grass on earth. And so as he walked upon it, and he was becoming more real, we are living in a search to become more real. When you get to heaven, you will finally be truly real.

And so when we get to heaven, we will not be less human. We will be fully human, as C.S. Lewis says. And he says that heaven is the land of substance. Earth, the land of shadow. You see that in Tolkien as well. The shadow lands over and over again. Matthew 24, 35 talks about heavens and earth. It says, heavens and earth will pass away. And I believe that this is speaking about the heavens above us, not the heaven in which God dwells, for that will not pass away.

But heavens and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away. See, once again, you see something that looks so real, you can touch it, but everything you see here that you can touch is not real. Or at least it's not as real as the things that are stamped by God's presence like his word. And so something that looks invisible, a word, you speak it and it disappears. The word of God is more real than perhaps the pew that you were sitting in.

This is a core idea of Christianity. This is the idea to make the grass in your life more firm. To make the things that you touch and that you do more real. To become more and more real. As we pray the Our Father, we will become more real. Prayer thrusts you into reality. Last week I said prayer was a wormhole that takes you into possibilities of faith that do not exist without it. Prayer as we will see gives reward.

Let's talk about this idea of reward because I've seen this idea before and in the scriptures we move into the Our Father prayer now I've seen this before but I haven't really thought as much about reward because kind of there's something in me that thinks I don't want a reward. I don't know if I deserve I'm not going to do things just to get a prize or a reward. But then I went and did a study and you'll see reward here in the scripture.

It is I'll find it here in a moment but it's somewhere in that passage. And it says that God when we do in secret that God will give us a reward for doing that and I haven't wanted to do something for a reward. But then I began to do a word study on reward in the scripture and you'll see there should be a footnote in here. I think they removed the footnote. There was a footnote but if you do a Google search rewards in scripture I found 41 verses that had to do with God wanting to reward us.

You know I want to reward my daughters as well because I'm a good father because I love them and I want to give to them and not just because they do good but I want to reward them and so we speak about this idea of reward. In our Father prayer Jesus diagrams a spiritual transaction meant not only to bring reality into your life but also reward. It says one might also claim that prayer is a spiritual discipline that claims a reward.

Now this is interesting in the Our Father prayer Jesus says if you go in and pray on your own and if you start with verse 8 do not be like them the ones who are babbling it says do not be like them for your father sees excuse me I'm sorry if you would go back I found it finally if you go back to verse 6 but when you pray go into your room close the door and pray to who? Your father who is unseen we spoke about that last week then your father once again focusing on father who sees what is done in secret will what?

Reward you. That's powerful. Jesus says if you pray and this is a daily prayer we'll talk about that in a minute but if you pray daily there are rewards for you daily and if you don't pray daily you are going to miss out on rewards that got me into my prayer room yesterday it got me up this morning a little earlier because all of a sudden I realized that God wants to bless me and you could use the word blessing instead of reward Jesus uses the word reward but I thought to myself how much am I missing out by not praying?

Jesus specifically says when you pray daily if you go and you pray not in front of everybody else but and there are times to pray in front of everybody else this is not an algorithm for you know spiritual perfection but when you do pray there should be a time every day or could be a time every day where you pray alone and in that time when you pray to a father you go to a father that he will reward you that day because we know that says he'll give you your daily bread that day you will see reward that you would not see in your life otherwise that's powerful that will make you want to pray that says to you that there are your daily needs perhaps it is four hours without anxiety maybe in some time of the day you will have four to six hours where the battle stops and if you have dealt with anxiety like I dealt with anxiety in the past and sometimes a little bit now we've had a lot of victory over that then you will know that there are moments of fighting but then there's other moments where you're like or if you have depression which is not something I deal with or if you have loneliness or some other thing maybe the reward is is God is going to give you a reprieve maybe it will be six months who knows what God's reward is for that day but each day God is calling you and says I want to be in relationship with you and I want to bless you let's have a conversation as we see here in the scripture one as I said might also claim that prayer and this prayer is a spiritual discipline that claims reward that every day you go in you are claiming a reward I don't want to turn it into a rewards based merit system but I'm just talking about what Jesus says that there is the ability for blessing when we pray it says you do not have because you do not ask you ever thought about what you might not have in your life because you just haven't asked and maybe your biggest prayers are too small I mean if you think about what's your biggest prayer what's your biggest prayer and maybe it's too small I wrote a book called Praying for Your Elephant we have it in the back I haven't had it on offer for a couple years it's been in the bookshelf but we're going to put it out today because it is about this idea of really diagramming your prayer life and knowing what you're praying about I had a friend named Orville Butcher excuse me Orville Stanton from my old church and if you were to ask him what he was praying about he would pull out this little he carried a little memo thing and he would have hundreds of things he could have an hour and a half two hour conversation with you about what he was praying about as believers I think we should have some idea of what we're praying about other than just like six big requests that we kind of talk to God about on a regular basis but specific prayer they're going after and so what are you asking for and what perhaps is there stored up that God wants to give you if you would just ask you don't have it says because you do not ask what I I heard a I heard a a story one time about this young boy that had a a dream and it's it's not it's not a well I think it is scriptural if you do according to this scripture but he went to heaven and in heaven he saw all these things he saw some amazing things like homes and and and money and crowns and all these things and then he also saw things like arms and legs and ears and some grotesque things and there was an angel there and he asked the angel in the dream once again this is a dream this is not scripture but it's it's an interesting point he asked the angel in the dream he says what is this what is this he goes the angel said to him these are all the prayers that are that are ready to be answered that have not been asked for yet and I thought man you know according to the James scripture that's really interesting that there might be somebody who is looking for healing there might be somebody that is looking for something to go forward and God is just wanting to be in relationship God knows what you need before you ask this scripture says he knows what you need and it isn't about getting you to beg God wants to be in relationship with you that when you ask and you see a prayer answered you can celebrate with God he loves that party I want to say your prayer life will become vibrant when you start organizing knowing what you're praying for and seeing results before I write in praying for your elephant that I had a list of 100 prayer requests and I just arbitrarily came up with 100 and I started writing down everything and praying for them and within a 3-4 month period of praying that list I got to the point where I was seeing about 2.5 to 3 answers per week off the list that's a good return if you're in financial investment that's a good return on your money on your prayer life when was the last time you saw a prayer answered and perhaps you would see more if you cede the ground more Jesus says we need to do that another thing though is this is what's interesting I think we become weary in prayer and I think we quit praying when we get discouraged because we have one giant prayer that hasn't come out the way we've wanted it I've been praying to be married for 15 years and it hasn't happened so I'm just not going to pray anymore I'm going to abandon my entire prayer life because this one prayer hasn't happened or the book that I wrote no one read it or the dance that I want to dance no one came to the show or something happened and so what happens is we have this this one or two things that are super important to our heart and pretty much 90% of our entire prayer life is tied up into those four prayers and those are the ones that God is working out your character probably through and he's probably answering in different ways and doing different things but when they don't happen we just grow weary in prayer and we toss out very often toss out 80 to 90% of the prayer activity of the excitement of prayer of the answers that might happen because those few things aren't happening a couple scriptures that show that here in your notes it says let us in Galatians 6-9 let us not become weary in doing good for at the proper time love that circle that we will reap a harvest if we do not give up we're so often praying for one little piece of fruit right okay maybe it's a watermelon it's a big piece of fruit right you know we have this one prayer we just want this one one thing and if I just get this one thing it says if you persevere God's just not going to give you that one piece of fruit maybe you won't get that piece of fruit that you want but he'll give you an orchard do you see God allows us his deal is to develop your character his deal he's more concerned about developing you into the eventual perfection that you will have in heaven than he is about answering perhaps one or six of your prayers although he might answer those but what he wants to do is give you a harvest have you ever been in a season of harvest we have been in this church in the last four and a half years in multiple seasons of battle and multiple seasons of harvest it has been phenomenal to see where you'll have a three month period where things will just explode you'll see something happen in the youth group you'll see something happen in the prayer ministry you'll see people's lives affected you'll see multiple healings you'll see people like Keith who is living through brain cancer and still alive and continue to see multiple things kind of pop up all at once you'll see people give you'll see all these things will happen and we'll feel like we have this harvest season because you persevere I want to say if you have quit praying because you're disappointed with God I would say don't give up that there is a harvest there and look for more than just the shiny thing that you want look for more than just the shiny thing you want I will guarantee you that just because you get the shiny thing you want you're not going to be completely happy I was down in Mexico this week somebody gave me a couple days for my birthday a friend of ours are at the church and a couple nights to stay in Mexico with my daughters and we had a great time and I saw the Ecclesiastes thing happen the Ecclesiastes is what Solomon wrote you can have everything and still not be satisfied right they gave us they paid for this beach front place it is gorgeous it is overlooking the surface 8 to 10 foot on Friday Saturday it was amazing I was there with my kids the food was good eating lobster good times right everything's great but right in my view right where you could see the wave there was a palm tree and I couldn't quite sit in the comfy chair and I'd miss the guys taking off which is like the crucial part of the wave you want to see that and so I'd have to move and I kept moving I moved the chair like 6 times during the trip and I caught myself at one time thinking to myself gosh wouldn't it be better if I was at the one next door you know because I could you know it is so that way how many in La Jolla how many mansions have been built on a hill where the person lives there for 3 months before they sell it to go build something bigger you see that over and over again I gotta say that the shiny thing is not always gonna make you happy but the harvest that God brings the harvest a multifaceted harvest is what we want to pray for if you have grown weary in prayer let me encourage you to jump start your prayer life again go into the secret place like Jesus says speak to your father persevere look for a daily reward look for daily bread and wait for the harvest it's powerful when Jesus says that many people abandon the totality of prayer when just a few prayers are not answered according to their desires and maybe it's time to pray for somebody beside yourself just saying you know when was the last time you cried I heard someone say this when was the last time you cried for someone beside yourself you know you began to pray and really pour in hey the secret key to prayer is praying that's it it says that no one knows how to pray in the scripture so you're never gonna perfect it you're never gonna get great at it it says no one in the scripture no one knows how to pray the only so there's no like gurus of prayer the only way to pray is to pray and if you want to have a perfect prayer which the Holy Spirit always fixes your prayers anyways it says just go in and pray and so begin to pray again let's deconstruct the Our Father in the last few minutes of the message and look at what Jesus is saying first of all prayer is not meant to be a show but a private conversation between you and your Father this does not mean that we don't pray in public this does not mean that we don't pray in groups but what God is saying is what Jesus was saying is the Jews at the time were really into flowery prayers and your status as a Jewish leader could go up if you could go up and get a really good place up on the temple so you'd find a really good spot so there's a temple and it looks like the you know everything the sun shines on my head right here at this time of the day and then you get a really flowery prayer and you just talk and everyone just goes wow look at the eloquence of that prayer and so your status as a rabbi would go through the roof according to praying like this but then there was also pagan groups that would do rituals you see these the ones that were going after Molech and some of the Philistines they would just you know dance and cut themselves you see this in the Old Testament and they would pray and wear themselves out thinking that if I just do enough in prayer I'll get the answer I want if I just slash my body enough if I just do enough I'll get the answer I want God knows what you need before you need it you don't need to beg God now crying out from a heart's cry is different but you don't need to beg your father my children don't need to beg me for food my children don't need to beg me for things you know God knows what I need he's a loving father and so the scripture says you just come to him and that you ask and so Jesus says it's not meant to be a show but a private conversation but once again it's not always a private conversation verse 5 and when you pray do not be like the hypocrites for they love to pray standing in the synagogues on the street corners to be seen by others it goes on to say that they will get their reward I don't want my earthly reward I don't want an earthly reward I want a heavenly reward on earth and when I get to heaven scripture talks about living a life where God just rewards you there is the entire society we live in is set up for earthly reward it's set up for likes it's set up for prestige it's set up you know you go by these billboards I remember this billboard during the housing bubble in 2004 and it says you know something like come to where the prestigious people live it was like for up and wherever I just wanted to kind of get throat my throat a little bit you know what I mean like it's the last place I want to live you know where the prestigious people live you know what I mean and I love I love when I get the La Jolla magazine sent to my house oh man they're just so goofy I don't know if you think so too but like it's all about prestige and looking a certain way and wearing a big hat and I just you know God love them but I just look at it and I just throw it in the trash I do I get it and it's like you want this 23.9 million dollar house and oh and here we are at this event and this gala I don't I'll say I don't care let's just say that I just take it and throw it in the trash you know I'm not saying I don't care for the people or want to see them but what they're offering me is not what I want I don't want it and you can see it in the church as well where is it all happening what churches are on fire who's the most relevant who's the most current it happens in all of our lives do you want your reward here and Jesus talks about this all the time do you want your reward here or do you want it there or do you want heaven which is their results here which he will give you God will give you rewards here he will give you heavenly results here within the temporal but he will finally give you a reward which is his very presence because here's the reward that we get Jesus that's the reward you know it's awesome to get a place to live to have daily needs met to have all the things God gives you cool cool cool the pearl of great price is relationship with a father and to know Jesus that is straight up the only thing that we want and when we realign our value system to only wanting God completely then all that other stuff doesn't matter then you will be more content because you can have nothing more than God himself and so what are your wants what are you focused on what is in the microscope of your desire is it that next thing that next trip that next house that first wife that you know that kids whatever it is or is it God himself because he's already given you himself and it says that when we believe in Jesus through faith that God's very presence will live within us the totality of the Holy Spirit you don't get a child sized portion of it will live completely within you coming in for a landing prayer is meant to make earth more like heaven verse 10 your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven and I've already spoken about this point but we want to extract the nature of heaven and make our lives more like heaven when you need forgiveness when you need joy that you go and you take the time to actually battle you are going to have to battle for joy in this society you are going to have to go to war for contentment in this society you are going to have to go to battle and fight for peace in this society matter of fact if you were a shepherd in the hill country of Scotland you would have to battle for peace and contentment but perhaps not as much as you do here a lot of us think that it just happens that we can just kind of just walk and read a scripture and it will just kind of happen no we have to battle and when we do and you win that battle you will have moments even seasons of great peace maybe for some of you God is wanting to give you like he did for Solomon a 30 year season of peace and peace from all of your enemies or spacious boundaries in the Psalms I love that one scripture where it talks about God giving you spacious boundaries do you feel confined do you feel like you don't have the mental margin you're overwhelmed all the time that is not a sign of the fruit of the spirit that comes from not being in alignment with the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit will never burn you out if you are in ministry being burned out let me assure you that your boss is not the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit will never allow you to be burned out from following him we want to source the things from heaven your kingdom come is your home becoming more like heaven is your work becoming more like heaven is your relationship with your wife your kids becoming more like heaven last two points prayer is a daily conversation that focuses on the need of the day give us today our daily bread I love how Jesus brings it back down to today it's all you got is today so much of my prayer life is about tomorrow so much of my prayer life is about what's behind me and Jesus is bringing this down to today today has enough concerns of itself the scripture says and if you just focus on today and looking for a reward because God wants to reward you today he is eternal but he is in this moment with you it is a daily thing and if you have lost the art of a daily time alone with God let me encourage you to reclaim the terra firma of your prayer life final point prayer travels upon the rails of forgiveness the only reason that we can speak to God in prayer is because of God's grace and because of his forgiveness now before Jesus died on the cross it was through grace but now it is through the forgiveness forgiveness that we have relationship with the father the only reason prayer can exist is because of forgiveness and so all of prayer travels upon the rails of forgiveness and forgiveness is not only crucial for us being able to relate and come to God because we do not have to appease God this is one of the problems with so many other religions that I choose not to follow and why I follow Jesus is because you have to appease God an angry God the blood of Jesus has appeased God there is no more wrath there is no more curse there is nothing upon you you can go freely to a father you no longer have to do things God has been appeased you no longer need to live in shame you no longer need to live in guilt there is no guilt for the Christian you should never feel guilty conviction yes but guilt no guilt has died and belongs in hell Jesus has broken guilt he has broken shame anytime you feel guilt or shame that is something from the enemy I believe God will give you conviction there is a difference between righteous conviction and wallowing in guilt and as we see this here we see that God uses forgiveness and so the question is what he says and this is now this is provocative he basically says if you don't forgive others you're not going to be forgiven and your prayers are going to lose all their effectiveness if you can't forgive this is a daily prayer and Jesus is saying by making this a daily prayer that forgiveness is going to be key to everything you do when that person pulls in front of you when you see somebody on a political figure who does something you don't like when you remember something that happened to you years ago on and on forgiveness is oils the cogs of contentment joy and peace in your life and we need to have it every single day where does forgiveness need to be in front of your in front of your life it needs to be directly in front of your life each day knowing that God has forgiven you that you have freedom and that you forgive others let me read the final verse there and we'll be done verse 12 and 14 and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one for if you forgive other people when they sin against you your heavenly father will also forgive you that's provocative we need to be reassessing the art of forgiveness in our life and the more you forgive the happier you're going to be the more you forgive what we see now in our society is a lack of forgiveness we want to see retribution we want to see you know people condemned Christianity travels upon the rails of our forgiveness through Christ's death on the cross amen let's stand if we wouldn't have the band come forward thank you