Sermon: Forgive Us 
Date: October 26, 2025 
Scripture: Matthew 6:9-15 
Speaker: Hans Boge Sr. 

The Lord’s Prayer contains, at this point, a most unusual thing: a clause which commits the prayer to actions which back up the petition just offered. ‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.’ Prayer and life are here locked indissolubly together. This isn’t saying that we do this in order to earn God’s forgiveness. It’s a further statement of our loyalty to Jesus and his Kingdom. Claiming this central blessing of the Kingdom only makes sense if we are living by that same central blessing ourselves. Failure to forgive one another wasn’t a matter of failing to live up to a new bit of moral teaching. It was cutting off the branch you were sitting on. The only reason for being Kingdom-people, for being Jesus’ people, was that the forgiveness of sins was happening; so if you didn’t live forgiveness, you were denying the very basis of your own new existence. On the cross, all is forgiven on God’s side. But this forgiveness only reaches us and benefits us when we acknowledge that we need to be forgiven and accept that we are forgiven, which is part of what it means to place your faith in Jesus Christ. Even as Christians, there are things we can do and attitudes we can cultivate that hinder our ability to receive God’s love and forgiveness. So this section of the Lord’s prayer reminds us of our own agency and need to willingly participate in the Kingdom arriving in our lives.

Desired Outcome: To explore the ways in which we hinder the forgiveness and love of God
entering our lives by withholding from others.