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Religious or non-religious, atheist or agnostic, almost everyone finds themselves praying at one point or another in their lives. People pray in fear and distress, as part of some religious duty, when they want something badly, or when they simply need answers to life's questions. But what is prayer? Prayer, at its essence, is talking to God. The God who with His spoken Word brought the universe into being. The God who holds the vastness of creation together in His power. This God actually listens to us and He listens as an attentive Father, as the Shepherd of His sheep, despite how unworthy we may feel in approaching Him or feeble we may think our prayers may sound. God has done what we could never do, and made access to His throne possible for us. We need to reduce our distractions and increase our interaction with God because true prayer is the means by which we align ourselves to God's will. It's the means that we draw nearer to a holy God, and so may we pray, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done".

As a church, we've been systematically going through the book of Matthew and now we come to Matthew chapter 6 in this segment called teach us to pray. It's really taken from verses 9 to 15 in Matthew chapter 6 and this is what we would call the Lord's prayer, because this is what the Lord Jesus Christ taught His disciples how to pray. This is a kind of a model prayer from which we learn precious principles on how we can apply them in our own prayer life.

We have, have been looking at them, phrase by phrase, verse by verse and today we come to this line that says “and forgive us our debts, as we have also” or “as we also have forgiven our debtors”. This is a prayer for forgiveness, this is a prayer that God will forgive us our sins, our debts, our trespasses. It's really quite common sense and is in a way, we have prayed for God's glory, for God's kingdom, God's will, then we pray for our needs in daily bread and now we pray for pardon. This is what every Christian needs to pray because every day in our lives, we still sin against God, nobody's perfect.

While this may seem, seem very common sense, seem very logical to us, but it's not always so for everyone. I've been preaching for a long time now and I think about 20 years ago if I, if I get my dates right, about 20 years ago, I was preaching in a, in a small house behind Lucky Plaza, we call this street Jalan Lada Puteh and there, there's a house of a member of another church that has opened it up for our use. They allow us to preach there, they allow us to invite the Filipinos who are in Lucky Plaza there and it's a wonderful time of ministry we had.

So at Lada Puteh, at this house I was preaching to a small group of ladies and I was preaching on 1John 1:9, something along that line that says, If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So I said, Christians, we need to confess our sins and this is the joy, God will forgive us our sins. So as I was saying that, a man raised his hand. Now, first of all, it's not common to have men in that group because mostly are Filipino ladies, Filipinas. But there was a man who raised his hand and said, can I say something, I said sure. And he said brother, I think you're preaching wrong. I said, what's wrong. He says Christians need not confess their sins I said, well, that's new, why? Because, he said, Christians if you're really saved, you will never sin.

Wow, I was blown away, Christians will never sin anymore. Well, long and short of it, we dealt with that but that was the first time I heard someone who says, he is a Christian, say that Christians need not confess their sins, but he's not the only one because later on in my life, I realise that there's a, there is a preacher today who says Christians need not confess their sins to be forgiven. In fact, this preacher is very well known, in fact this preacher is the leader of probably the biggest church in Singapore, I think the church today, I would estimate above 30,000, not 30 people, 30,000 people.

Well, I think you know by now who it is and the senior pastor of New Creation Church, actually teaches, Joseph Prince, he actually teaches that Christians do not need to confess their sins in order to be forgiven by God. Well, I'm not saying that out of thin air, I quote him from books. It says, in his book Destined to Reign, we don't have to confess our sins in order to be forgiven.

This is not the only quote along this line, he goes on to say, confessing your sins all the time will only make you more sin conscious and to him, that's not a good thing, it's not good that you should be overly sin conscious, you should be Jesus conscious that would be his follow-up statement. Christians believe wrongly that the Holy Spirit convicts believers of their sins. So he believes that the Holy Spirit doesn't convict Christians of their sins. So when we sin the Holy Spirit is not to remind you of your sin. Well, that's what he says and then my friends, God does not require you to search your heart and locate your sins before you can worship Him.

He goes on to say, Stop examining yourself and searching your heart for sin. Don't do that, don't be conscious about it, don't even examine that, don't search your heart for sin, there are still people who insist that we have to preach on repentance. Well, I disagree !

And I also disagree with him. We, we don't have to confess our sins in order to be forgiven. So that's really what is said. However, this statement just goes directly in opposition to what Jesus said in Matthew 6, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

So today, you can choose if you want to follow Joseph Prince or Jesus Christ, for me it's clear. Now, I want to be fair, the reason why Joseph Prince says you don't have to confess your sins in order to be forgiven is because he believes that once a Christian is really a follower of Jesus Christ, he is a real Christian, he doesn't need to confess his sins to remain a Christian, once truly saved, always saved and I totally agree with that.

However, to say that a Christian, therefore doesn't need to confess his sins at all is going beyond what Scripture teaches. So let me try to work this out with you. The first thing you need to know, is the purpose, why in the world, does Jesus then teach Christians that this is how we should pray, forgive us our debts. What's the purpose of asking God to forgive us our debts, is this why we need to confess our sins so that I will not go to hell? Joseph Prince will say to you, no, you never confess your sins in order to escape hell, I think he's right there, so let me say that, I think that's right. But to say that you don't have to confess your sins at all, is where he goes wrong.

So the question is, do we confess our sins so that we will not go to hell, no, that's not the reason. Then what's the reason? A true Christian doesn't lose his salvation, so I'm not  confessing my sins, in order to preserve my salvation and the proof text? How- why is it that I don't have to confess my sins in order to retain my salvation? Very simply no Christian who is loved by God, is unloved by God after he sins. You know, we have social media right, like and unlike, now you have love and unlove, unfriend, friend and unfriend, so so you know, we are very used to friend, unfriend, love, unlove, but in, in the Gospel, in the kingdom of God, there's no such thing as God loves you, saves you and then after He sees you living in sin, He unfriends you and sends you to hell. No such thing, no unfriend, no unlike, no unlove.

The Bible is very clear, for I'm sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor death.. depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The love God has for you in Jesus Christ, is a strong, inseparable love, is an unbreakable love, is a steadfast, eternal love. So we do not confess our sins, because we fear that God has stopped loving us, so we do not confess our sins, because we fear God is unfriending us and sending us to hell instead of heaven, no that's not the reason why you confess your sins.

So to make that very clear to you, I say this, Christians do not confess to "keep our salvation".

You don't confess to keep your salvation, you don't have to, but Christians confess to "keep the joy of our salvation".

You got to grasp this, this is how David responded to God, when he sinned against God. You know, the problem right, sin or David sinned, he slept with Bathsheba, the wife of another man and to cover up his tracks, he killed the wife's husband, Uriah and he sinned against God in such a grievous way but David did not confess his sins, he did not come back to God in repentance for a good two years.

And in the midst of those two years, he suffered, he was miserable, he was not happy. So, finally in Psalm 51, a prayer of penitence, a prayer of saying sorry to God, he confessed his sins and this is what he said, restore to me the joy of your salvation. Now, David is God's beloved, he's a man after God's own heart, he's God's beloved, David never ceased to become a Christian after he sinned, he’s still a child of God regardless of what he did, he's still God's child, he doesn't lose his salvation, but he did lose the joy of his salvation and so he also wrote, let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice.

The bones broken is not literal, but metaphorical, he was so miserable, it’s like he had so many fractures in his life and he cannot bear it anymore, he says Lord, I need that joy, I need that gladness in you.

So that's why right in the beginning, he says, Have mercy on me, oh God, according to, your what- steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy. Now, please blot out my transgressions.

So when you sin, if you're really a Christian, I'm saying all that, if you’re really a child of God, alright, if you're really God's child, when you sin, you do not lose your salvation, but you certainly lose the joy of your salvation. So when we confess our sins, it's not so that I will keep my salvation, but I will keep the joy of my salvation.

I long to be restored to intimacy with God. I long to be restored in joy with God and God wants you to be miserable after you sinned, He wants you to. Why? Because if you are still happy in your sin, you never walk in righteousness. So, God wants you to have that sorrow, not because He doesn't love you, but because He loves you and He wants you to know the pain of sin, He wants you to sorrow, so that you may turn back.

That's what Paul said in 2nd Corinthians 7, I made you grieve with my letter. So, Paul wrote something very strong, he wrote in 1st, this is 2nd Corinthians, right. So, in 1st Corinthians, he wrote something strong to the Corinthian church, to confront them about some sin in the church. He says, I made you grieve, my letter was strong, it made you grieve, but I'm happy, I rejoice, I'm happy I wrote something that made you grieve, you say why, because you were grieved into repenting, because you were confronted with this sin, because you were made sorry about your sin, that's why you would turn and not carry on living in sinful lifestyle.

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So God in His love wants us to grieve over our sins and confess our sins so that we may get right with Him, not that we lose our salvation, but we continue to enjoy our communion, fellowship, intimacy with Him.

Let me give you an example, maybe this is still not so clear. Let's say my son Shawn, he just told a big lie in school, bad one and so daddy and mummy were told by the form teacher that your son said a lie, it was a bad one. So at night, both of us will come to Shawn and say Shawn, is this true? You said such and such a lie? And Shawn looks at us and smiles and says, yah, I said a lie, no big deal, everybody lies, huh, huh, huh. Daddy, can have some ice cream, please? And parents, Winnie and myself, what do you we think would do?

We see him smile and we hahahaha, yah, it's OK, Shawn, it's fine everybody lies, come, let's go have some ice cream. Would that be what Winnie and myself would do, would that be what you would do? If you did that, what kind of a parent would you be, a lousy parent. Why lousy? I thought you don't want to hurt your son mah, you want him to be happy what, so don't tell them about his problem.  No, you're a bad lousy parent. Why? Because you're not helping him the way he should go, you're letting him go off with this problem and he will probably continue living a life of lies.

What does love look like, love at home will look like this for Shawn. Shawn, why did you lie, tell us what happened, what do you think about your lie, what do you think should be your consequences? Now, I'm going to speak to him almost exactly like the tone I gave. Why, wah this parent very fierce ah, he doesn't love his son, is that true ? No, but I would deliberately give him a experience, an experience of my displeasure, isn't it. I want him to know that daddy and mummy both of us, we are displeased with what he has done, we are not happy with your sin, and Shawn you can be sure there's no ice cream, you will eat char kway teow, you know, tin tiao, the cane, char kway teow.

So Shawn, no ice cream, char kway teow for you, but not in a smiley way okay. You say why? Because I want him to be grieved into repenting. Now, let me be very clear, at no point, at no point, even when I was scolding him and even when I'm caning him, did, did I say to myself, I don't love this son anymore. No, I love him and it's because of love that I will go through all this, you know, it's very stressful, can heart attack and die one you know, and that I will go through all these emotions, so that he will learn.

I want him, what's the hope, the hope is at the end of it all, Shawn would bow his head, no more flippant and smug, but humbled and say, dad, mom, I'm sorry, what I did was wrong and that will be the time daddy and mummy will come and hug Shawn and say, Shawn, I'm glad you learned, we love you, we love you regardless and I'm glad you repented.

That's what love looks like isn't it, the hope is that the son will own up and confess and be restored to joy with daddy. Now Shawn never ceased to become Jason Lim's son, he is always going to be Jason Lim's son, but he doesn't experience the joy of Jason Lim's son until he confesses. So when we come to ourselves and God, Jesus is saying in this prayer, He's teaching Christians who are grieved in sin, now you, you are really sorry about your sin, Jesus isn’t going to say, forget it, ignore it, don't talk about it, don't confess. No, Jesus says, if you're grieved about your sins, great, wonderful, that's a good start, don't stop there, please, don't be depressed over your sin because you stop there, but move on, what do you do?

You pray if you're grieved in sin, you pray forgive us our debts. Why, because that is the way for you to be restored to joy in God. If you hide, if you pretend nothing is going on, if you think that all is well, then all you are doing is covering up your mistake, imagining things are well when actually things are not well between you and God. You are just pretending.

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So let me be clear, the reason why we confess our sins is not to keep our salvation, that is secure in Christ, but it's so that we can keep the joy of your salvation. Joseph Prince is right in point statement number one, but I think he, he threw out point number two, which I think is universally taught in the Scriptures, so I think that clarity is important.

Some of you don't confess your sins at all, I think that's bad, because you're just living in misery, lack of intimacy with God for your whole life. Some of you confess your sins as if, if you don't you are going to go to hell, you don't have the security and assurance, that's not good. I think this is the balance you need to strike. Clear? Not clear, go back listen to the video again, I, but let me move on to the second point.

Now if this is why we confess our sins, so that I can have joy in God, then you got to do it right. How do you, what do you mean by doing it right? Secondly, I want to share with you the practice that Jesus talks about here, the practice, what do you mean by practice? Some of the principles by which you should confess your sins.

Number  one, I think you should confess your sins consistently. In other words, this should be something regular in your life. Some people confess their sins once a year, during Christmas, feel so emotional, then they sorry God, I sinned against you one whole year, please forgive me. Some people confess them during Easter, I do not know, some confess every month, some confess every week. So every Sunday you come to church, you confess, after that Monday to Saturday you just carry on living your life, then Sunday you come back and confess.

By the way, it's part of our worship cycle here in this church, if you notice. We sing a few songs, praise, lifting up your eyes to see who God is, we give thanks to Him, we are reminded about the Gospel, then there's always this repentance time right, this few minutes silence that is meant for you to reflect and repent, you know right ? Either you are always late and you never get to go through that or maybe during that few minutes of silence you are reading your Shine bulletin or playing your handphone, checking on soccer news, whatever.

But, well, we actually wanted to structure that in so that God's people may have the opportunity to search our hearts, confess our sins, so that there, we are not regarding iniquity in our hearts that we may, we may have a wonderful time of meeting with Him in the Scriptures. So some of you do it weekly but even then I think it's not good enough because I think there is a certain recommended frequency in this Lord's prayer and the frequency is? How you know daily? Daily bread for bread what, but Edward is not wrong.

Give us this day, well it means everyday right, our daily bread. And, so you, you should read this together. Of course, when we preach, we have to split into two sermons, but you really should read this together, we pray for our daily needs and we come to God for our daily forgiveness. So I think there's a certain consistency to it. Now, I'm not saying this is something that you do legalistically as if, if you don't do it this today, you are going to be struck down tomorrow, but this is something, I think helpful to keep short accounts with God, don't have such a long list of sins that. Now, am I saying, pastor, does it mean everyday, I have to keep track of all my sins? No, I don't think so. But whatever the Lord is reminding you of heavily, that you're conscious about, just bring it to the Lord in prayer, I'm not asking you to, 8 AM this is what I did, 8:33, I kicked my dog, it's not, that, that's not what I mean, it's about, it's about keeping short accounts, about your sins that are committed before Him alright. So, something consistent, regularly.

Actually what Piper says is interesting, John Piper says, The mark of a saint is not sinlessness, but sin consciousness. Now, what he is saying is absolutely opposite of what Joseph Prince said, absolutely opposite. Both are called pastors, but they say such different things. Well, the mark of a saint is not sinlessness, that's clear, so that guy in the Filipino congregation, his name, by the way is called Jesus, he says a Christian will never sin. I, I don't agree. The Bible is very clear, all of us still struggle in sin, alright.

So the mark of saint is not sinlessness, but sin consciousness. A true child of God is sensitive to sin, a non-Christian is not sensitive to sin. If he is not caught, he will be okay, if no police, no judge, he will be fine. But the Christian is someone, even when there is no judge, no police, he doesn't feel right when he sins, he's disturbed, he's conscious of his sins. And what we do, when we are conscious about our sin is not to just be depressed, but I think we need to learn to bring it regularly to the cross and ask for forgiveness and be restored in joy. Okay so do it, number one, consistently.

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Number two, you got to do it communally, what do you mean? Well, Jesus says, forgive us our debts. So it's communal, it's not just forgive me my debts, many times that's what we pray, forgive me, forgive me, forgive me, forgive me, forgive. Great start, but don't stop there. How about your family, how about your Church, how about your care group,  how about your ministry?

Well, a man who is walking with God is conscious about the community God has placed him and he's searching also for the sins of the church. Now, for example, in Gospel Light, let's say things are not doing well, we are struggling here and there, something is not well, right. I think it's needful for us to say, Lord is, is there some sin of Achan, you know that guy, who sinned and caused all Israel to, to lose a battle, is there something like that in our lives ? I'm not saying a morbid introspection, like a witch hunting, but a responsible searching of our hearts.

So Jesus says you need to confess communally and finally I say you need to confess your sins confidently. Why? Because we're not coming to a wicked judge, we are coming to our Father in heaven. You know if Shawn lies or sins, Shawn doesn't have to come to daddy and say dad, you know I just, I just cleared, cleared the rubbish, washed the dishes, can you now forgive me ? No, I don't need him to earn his righteousness, I don't need him to earn favour before me, he's my son, he just, he can just come to me and likewise when we come to God, if we come with a sincere broken heart, we don't have to doubt if He's going to listen to us, He's our Father who will listen to our prayers and again the promise of 1John 1:9 is, it's clear, if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. He is, you can be assured.

You might have heard of this man called Ernest Hemingway, he's an author and he wrote a story about a young man named Paco who lived in Spain and Paco wronged his dad, rebelled against, against his father and ran from his father, says I want to have nothing to do with you dad, something like the prodigal son in the Bible. So he ran from dad, he went to the city of Madrid. The father was heartbroken and, and wanted his son back very much and so he went to Madrid, took out an advertisement in the newspaper that has something like this, Dear Paco, meet me at hotel, such and such, at such and such a day, all is forgiven, Love Dad.

So on such and such a day, and in such and such a hotel, the father turned up at the lobby and to his surprise, there were gathered 800 young men named Paco, because everyone is longing for the father's forgiveness.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, our Father waits for us all the time, if only you are willing to come. His love letter is the Scriptures that says, dear John, dear Mary, meet me here, all is forgiven, Love, Father. You can come with a broken heart, there is cleansing, there's amazing forgiveness and there is intimacy and communion with your Father, once again, that's why we confess our sins consistently, communally and confidently.

But let me end off with the third point which this text just begs to be answered and that is about the prerequisite. So we've looked at the purpose, we've looked at the practice, now let's look at the prerequisite. It is very clear, forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.

So who are the people who dares, who are the people who can pray this prayer? People who have forgiven our debtors. Now, I don't think this is Jesus saying you've got to earn, you've got to earn God's forgiveness by forgiving others. No, but I think this is God or Jesus, saying, how do you know He's your Father ? Well, if you're someone who has forgiven your debtors and if you're someone who is God's child, as seen in the way you forgive others, then of course you can come to your Father and say, Father forgive me, forgive us our debts.

So there's a prerequisite that God's people will be marked by a readiness to forgive our debtors. In fact, this is so obvious that there was a clause at the end of the Lord's prayer that says if you forgive others their trespasses, then your heavenly Father will forgive you, but if you do not, then neither will your Father forgive you.

Now, probably the most important word is, in all this, is the word, as, can you say that, as. So if you don't forgive your debtors, then your Father won't forgive you you as the way you have not forgiven your debtors. So this is a clear pre-requisite as it were, we ask for forgiveness as we ourselves have forgiven others.

Now, this is a high call, this is difficult. To forgive someone is [sic] difficult, I've spoken with many of you here today and I tell you, most people today struggle with some form of unforgiveness. Now you may not want to take a chopper and chop him up, but you come close. If there is no police and there's no judge, you want to kill him. Maybe it's your boss, your subordinate, your colleague or your husband, your mother-in-law, your wife, whatever, you want to kill because they have done something so bad that has hurt you deeply. But God's people are called to forgive and when we forgive and can forgive then we know, we can come to our Father and ask Him for forgiveness.

Now, recently I met with a man who was struggling with marriage, he's been struggling for some time now, for maybe a year or two, he really is at his wits end as to what to do, he's not a Christian, but he thought maybe let's try the religious route. So I met up with him and after hearing his account, his story in a, in a nutshell, I, I, I then said to him, you have to do something you have no power to do. What do you mean ? Well, you have to do something you have no power to do. So what am I supposed to do? You're supposed to forgive your wife. Now how can I do that, he said, do you know what she did and, and he can tell you all the reasons why he should not forgive her and he finds no reason why he should forgive.

So every reason not to forgive, no reason why he should forgive. And I said that's why you have to do something you have no power to do. You can't, you find no reason to forgive and the reason why I say that is because the Bible tells us, Paul tells us, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ, forgive you. You know something about Paul's motivation for forgiveness? It's not in the deservedness of the person you are to forgive . Forgive him because he will be good, because he will turn well, because you'll turn well, no, no, no, no! There's nothing like that there. You forgive that person, not because of that person, but you forgive that person because of Christ.

If you look at the person as I always say, if you look at the person, you won't want to forgive him, you want to bury him, you want to kill him. But when you look at Christ and what He has done for you and how because of Christ, God has forgiven you, now you pay it forward as it were. Apart from that, you can really not have the power to forgive.

I think C.S. Lewis captures it well in this one statement, I've said that several times already. But here it goes, To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. He puts it very, very bluntly- he is inexcusable. Alright, admit that. Don't try always to find some scraps of worthiness in him, because you will be disappointed the next day. Your forgiveness towards that person will be so conditional, based on his or her performance in your eyes. But that's not the Gospel centred forgiveness, Gospel centred forgiveness is because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you because of Jesus. Now go and forgive the inexcusable in others.

So I say to him, you are to do what you have no power to do because you do not know the forgiveness of God in Jesus Christ. Hey, would you want to know the forgiveness of God in Jesus Christ, that's what I said.

I believe that a man can only live out the will of God if his heart is changed by the grace of God in the Gospel, so that's that. And for you, the only way you can really forgive others is when you are constantly saturated with the love of God in Jesus Christ for you. Reminded all the time that God has forgiven the inexcusable in me.

This is a very famous picture, Pulitzer prize-winning picture called the napalm girl. It's about this girl on the left side, she's running actually without her clothes, nine-year-old girl and she's running because there was a bomb attack during the Vietnam War. Her house, her village, her temple is all bombed by napalm bombs. Napalm bombs are incendiary devices, they, they set things on fire very quickly and, and she just witnessed two of her cousins and two other villagers die from burning, after the napalm bombs came upon them.

So she ran and she had to strip off her clothes because her clothes were burned up and her skin was falling off and she was running as she was screaming I'm too hot, it's too hot, it's too hot and she, she ran to a place of safety and well, the long story short, she managed to survive and she got married, she became a mom and she became a grandma.

This is a picture of her later on in life with all the scars at the back. She had to undergo many surgeries throughout her adult life, so that the scars could be expanded because they are not very extensile alright. So she has to have multiple revisions of scar surgeries so that she could grow up properly. And this is what she said, I was nine years old but I still remember my thoughts at that moment, I would be ugly and people would treat me in a different way. We lost everything and we just survived day by day. I was in the hospital, where I spent 14 months and had 17 operations, that's only during that immediate period, not counting the adult surgeries she had.

The anger inside me was like a hatred as high as a mountain. I hated my life, I hated all people, people who were normal because I was not normal. I really wanted to die, many times. I spent my daytime in the library to read a lot of religious books to find a purpose for my life. One of the books that I read was the Holy Bible. In Christmas of 1982, that's about 35 years ago, folks, I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Saviour.

It was an amazing turning point in my life, God helped me to learn to forgive, the most difficult of all lessons. It didn't happen in a day and it wasn't easy, but I finally got it. Forgiveness made me free from hatred. I still have many scars on my body and severe pain most days, but my heart is cleansed.

Napalm is a very powerful, is very powerful,  but faith, forgiveness and love are much more powerful. If that little girl in the picture can do it, ask yourself, can you?

I think she can do it only because of the Gospel, she has found the forgiveness of Jesus Christ.

So my question to you today is, folks are you willing to forgive? It's not that you can't, if you know Jesus, you can. Why? Because God for Christ's sake has forgiven the inexcusable in you and because of that, you can be able to forgive others. Maybe the question for you is, are you willing to ? Some of you today are living in misery, you're not happy, you have just been on a tour holiday, you've just eaten the finest foods, you've just bought a new car but today, you cannot say you're happy. You say why am I not happy ? Maybe one reason- you've not confessed your sins before God, you're still living with unconfessed sins, hiding, as it were, living in a kind of a shame neglected.

Now maybe you say, but I've already confessed my sins but I'm still not happy, you say why ? Because you're struggling with bitterness in your heart, you are not willing to forgive, you are still chained up.

I know this sermon sounds very heavy, solemn, somber, maybe even negative, but I want to say to you, really, it is positive. The reality of life is that we are living in sin, we struggle with sin and until we are willing to be humble and come clean before God, trusting that our Father, because of Christ is always going to forgive us our sins, you will never really experience the joy of His salvation.

So this Christmas season is a time for joy and festivities. Sure, buy presents,  give gifts, eat turkey and ham, have a good time, but the real joy on the inside comes with intimacy with God and that intimacy with God does not allow for unconfessed sins, it does not allow for bitterness. Your Father has written you a letter and say dear John, meet me here, all is forgiven, Love, Dad.  Would you trust and come to Him in confession and repentance, may you have a blessed happy joyous holiday season.

Let's bow for a word of prayer together. Maybe some of you here are like that prodigal, you know something about God, you might even have grown up in church and heard a lot about God, but you decided one day to leave God, try life in this world on your own to find that scrap of joy, and perhaps today you have found that there is nothing out there at all and all that you've ever wanted is in your Father's house.

Well let me tell you something, your Father is waiting for you and I believe that's why you came this morning and He says all is forgiven, if you're willing to humble yourself, confess your sins, I'm faithful and just to forgive you your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. And it's all grace, not because you deserved it, not because you earned it. You will never be able to deserve nor earn it, but I want to give it to you because I'm gracious and generous and magnanimous and this is the Father. I want to encourage all of you to come to today.

So instead of covering your trespasses your transgressions, my friends, you can't hide from God. You can hide from me, you can hide from the church, but you cannot hide from God. Why would you, when you know that your heavenly Father is waiting for you, my friends repent, confess and rejoice in your Father's love, would you.

Maybe some of you today are struggling with bitterness in your heart. I pray you'll be reminded about God's grace in the Gospel and with that love experienced at the cross, you would love others and let go of those bitterness. Why? Because it's killing you because that hatred is not honouring to God. For your own sake, for God's sake, forgive one another, because of Christ.

Maybe this morning, you're not a Christian, I want to tell you that the whole message of the Bible is about God's gracious forgiveness. He wants to save you from your sins, not because you can pay for it, but because He has sent His Son to pay for it and today I want to encourage you if you're not a Christian, Christianity is not about you earning your way to heaven, it's  about you believing Jesus has paid it all on the cross for you.

What do you need to do? Well, the Bible says repent, that means you're willing to turn from your sins, you're willing to say all that is wrong and believe in Jesus Christ, believe that He died on the cross for you, He rose from the dead for you and He has done all that is needed that you may be saved. I want to encourage you this morning, repent and believe in Christ, may you really find this joy in God.

So Father this morning, we rejoice in Your Word.Once again, we extol Your amazing generosity and grace and magnanimity. I pray for a church that will rejoice in You, a church that will be always walking with transparency and brokenness, humility before You and let that fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins be always where we plunge in. Thank You that there is cleansing in the blood. Bless Your people today, we ask in Jesus Name, Amen.

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