December 26, 2024 -- Matthew 6:9-15 -- Make your list and check it twice

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Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
10 Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
    on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread,
12 and forgive us our debts,
    as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation,
    but deliver us from evil.
14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Matthew 6:9-15 ESV
 
The words of the Lord’s Prayer are so familiar. People can usually recite it unison, even if they have not darkened the doorway of a church for a very long time. When people are about to pray it together, the only questions are: is this prayed in the King James version with Old English; are we praying debts and debtors or trespasses and trespassed against us?
 
Why consider this prayer? Step 8 requires the addict, the Christian seeking to live his life according to the Bible, to clear his slate of all offenses and wrongdoing which begins this way, “I make a list of all the people I have harmed and become willing to make amends” (Overcomers Workbook, page 138). The gathering of names happens simultaneously with prayers seeking to yield one’s heart to God so that once the list is made the heart is submitted to God. Then one will be filled with holy courage to go through the next step of meeting with others and making amends.
 
The Lord’s Prayer is one of the most basic teachings, one of the most familiar, and one Jesus’s teachings which are easiest to ignore. Rather than humbly confess, many Christians fall back on their so-called rights or argue about all the ways in which others have hurt them rather than looking to Jesus through Whom all our offenses have been punished. He bore the punishment for our wrongdoings upon His Person at the cross. He is our peace. He is our reconciliation.
 
When King David slept with the wife of his friend Uriah, one of the best Generals, then when Bathsheba was found to be pregnant by David, and David had Uriah killed, to whom did David cry out for forgiveness? It was to God. First and foremost, David confessed his sin to God the Holy One. Though David had sinned against Uriah, sinned against Bathsheba, sinned against the servant (who when David spied her on the roof and lusted after her that brave faithful servant said, “isn’t that Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah, the Hittite”? II Samuel 11:3 ESV). David sinned against his wives. David sinned against his nation, the people for whom he was supposed to be a leader in virtue and righteousness. Yet, to whom did he confess? David, when confronted with his sin cried out: “Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that You may be justified in Your words and blameless in Your judgment” Psalm 51:4 ESV.
All our sins, wrongdoing, inaction at the times we know the good we should do and don’t do it, or our incomplete doing of the good we know we ought to be doing, all moral failure, all infidelity, all of it is first committed against the great, majestic, holiness of God. Sin is a sign of the corruption that still grips the heart of Christians.
 
It is precisely why Paul wrote “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God Who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” Philippians 2:12b-13a. When the totality of God’s gracious forgiveness which has been granted to you in Jesus Christ masters your mind and humbles your heart, you are then prepared to meekly ask the forgiveness of the people you’ve offended. It is important to note the meek are not doormats. Those who are meek have by the Spirit’s power one of the attributes of Jesus, Who described Himself as meek. That is, having great power, but cultivating gracious kindness towards others so that they are not bowled over by power but won over by mercy.
 
Whether or not the other person forgives you ultimately is not the point. You are prepared to make amends. You have released the anger, dug up the root of bitterness and let go of your right to exact revenge. You are prepared to let God’s cleansing forgiveness forged in you by His Spirit purify you. So when you actively begin making amends the person or people to whom you are preparing to make amends can either forgiven or not forgive you, you have yielded yourself to God and acted according to His commands. In fact, by doing this, what you are praying in the Lord’s Prayer, that most basic teaching, you are seeking to put into practice.
 
Father in heaven I confess my prideful will needs to be conquered by Your salvation which Your Spirit is still working out in every area of my life. Spirit of God conquer my will and put steel in my spine so that with the courage of Christ I will not be at all ashamed in my fellowship with Jesus nor in my interactions with others. Spirit work out the Father’s will and good pleasure in me so that in obedience to Jesus I will, as far as it depends on me, live at peace with everyone. Applying in every situation the reconciling peace granted through Jesus Christ, on the basis of Whose work I pray.  Amen.
 
https://youtu.be/px-eU1QjQiU?si=Y4ceDaIEssiHnkEi Psalm 51 Shane and Shane
 

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