What If Forgiveness Is The Real Test Of Prayer

The Lord’s Prayer can become so familiar that we stop hearing how disruptive it really is. We open Luke 11:1–4 and slow down long enough to let Jesus reshape our instincts about Christian prayer, not as a ritual to recite but as a pattern that forms a life rooted in Scripture and anchored in the grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you’ve ever felt stuck repeating words while your heart stays unchanged, this message presses gently but firmly toward something real.

We start with the foundation that makes prayer possible: a spiritual relationship where we can call God “Father” through faith in Jesus. From there, the prayer lifts our eyes upward before it turns to our needs, training us to seek God’s name honored, God’s kingdom advanced, and God’s will done on earth. Then we unpack “Give us day by day our daily bread,” including the surprising depth behind the word “daily” and how it calls us into dependence rather than anxiety, entitlement, or a life built on payments and pressure.

The message also reaches into the “bread of tomorrow” and how it points to eternity, where Jesus Himself is the bread of life who sustains His people. And then comes the hard line many of us want to skip: “forgive us… for we also forgive.” We talk about why forgiveness is a clear indicator of spiritual health, why believers still wrestle, and why mercy is not optional in the Christian life. Subscribe, share this with a friend, leave a review, and tell us what part of the Lord’s Prayer challenges you the most right now.

Transcript

Foundations Of Truth Welcome

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You're listening to Foundations of Truth, the radio and podcast ministry of firm foundations. Our mission is to help you build your life on the unshakable foundation of God's Word, rooted in Scripture, anchored in the grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Each week, Dr. Timothy Mann opens the Bible to bring clarity, conviction, and encouragement for everyday life. Today on Foundations of Truth, Dr. Timothy Mann continues part two of Teach Us to Pray from Luke chapter 11, where Jesus Himself answers those very questions. Here now is Dr. Timothy Mann.

Prayer Flows From Adoption

Daily Bread And True Dependence

Money Margin And Modern Bondage

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But today we're coming back in to Luke chapter 11. We're going to read verses 1 through 4. The Bible says, now it came to pass, as he, that means Jesus, was praying in a certain place when he ceased that one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray. As John, that's also John the Baptist, John also taught his disciples. So he said to them, When you pray, say, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us day by day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins. For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Alright, we're going to stop there. As we began studying this last week, we understood that what we have before us is a pattern prayer. It's a model. It's a pattern. This is not something that Jesus gave us to ritualistically recite and say together. He's saying, when you pray, pray like this. It's not the idea of verbatim, say this after me every time you pray. That's not the idea at all. This is a model. This is a pattern prayer. Nothing necessarily wrong with praying this prayer or praying it as a church, as long as our hearts are sincere and believing and submitted to Him. But we're not to do it as some sort of magical incantation that we ritualistically say by rote. Not at all the case. It's a pattern, it's a model. It also teaches us, as we discovered last week, that true prayer actually depends on a spiritual relationship with God that enables us and gives us now the privilege to call him Father. As we talked about last week, Abba, Papa, dear Father. So this spiritual relationship that we can have to call him Father can only come through faith in Jesus Christ. You have to trust Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Now then you have the privilege of calling his father your father in that regard. So we're talking to God, God our Father. It's been told that President Lyndon Johnson's press secretary, Bill Moers, actually was saying grace at a staff luncheon one time, and the president shouted, Speak up, Bill, I can't hear a thing. Moyers very quietly replied, I wasn't addressing you, Mr. President. I think that's good for us to remember. It's a good reminder to ourselves that when we pray, we talk to God. We're talking to God, not anybody else, not to impress anyone else. We're talking to our father, our papa. It's a beautiful picture. But we also saw last week that true prayer also involves responsibilities. The vertical part. Honoring God's kingdom, thy kingdom come, and doing God's will, thy will be done. In my life on this earth as well. It's been well said, I think, that the purpose of prayer is not to get man's will done in heaven, but to get God's will done on earth. Prayer is not simply telling God what we want and then selfishly enjoying it. Prayer is actually asking God to use us to accomplish what He wants so that His name is glorified and His kingdom is extended and strengthened and His will be done. So that means that I must test all of my personal requests by these overruling concerns if I actually expect God to hear and answer my prayers. And in addition to that, it's important for Christians to know the Word of God, for it is there that we discover the will of God. You cannot separate prayer and the word. I touched base on that last week. I'll talk more about that in detail next week. So, the Lord's Prayer, as it's been called for about 2,000 years now, or maybe more appropriately titled, the Disciples' Prayer, it really supplies us, this prayer supplies us with the structure of prayer, of how to pray. First, as we looked at last week, it lays out the vertical dimensions. It starts with God, with us addressing him as our Abba, our Father, and then asking him to help his name be hallowed, made holy in our lives. And his kingdom come, his will be done on earth as it is in heaven through our lives. And then following those vertical dimensions comes then the horizontal design of prayer. In other words, prayer for those things that we as followers of Christ need. And namely bread, forgiveness, and strength to face temptation. Let's look at those a little bit more in detail. Verse 3. Look at that with me. Give us day by day our daily bread. Now, this initial request that Jesus tells us that we should pray really seems pretty simple enough on its face. Give us day by day our daily bread. But there's really a richness here that makes this request pretty sublime to me. It's really uplifting. It's inspiring when I understand it a little bit more. And that has to do with the fact that the word that's translated day by day or daily here from the original language, the Greek language, it actually appears in Greek literature only here. Only here. And in Matthew's version, chapter 6 of the same prayer. Homer didn't use it. None of the other ancients that wrote in Greek literature ever used it. Only in these two New Testament texts, here and in Matthew 6, is it found in any kind of written literature? Even the early church fathers remarked about the obscurity of this word, what it really means for sure. It's an odd thing. Today's Greek scholars tell us that the word can either indicate today's bread or tomorrow's bread. It can be either one. So that's interesting. That would mean a literal reading is similar to this. Our bread of tomorrow, give us today. Our bread of tomorrow, give us today. Now that kind of understanding really allows for a pretty dynamic interpretation that would include both our physical needs and our ultimate spiritual needs. As to the physical needs, if you pray this in the morning, this is a prayer for the needs of the day. If you pray this in the evening, this is a prayer for the needs of tomorrow. You get the idea? Right? The next day. So give us each day our bread of tomorrow. That's a prayer for God to meet our daily physical needs. However, praying for tomorrow's bread also requests that God meet our needs with the bread of the ultimate tomorrow, which is the bread of eternity. As we'll see in just a moment. Let's break this down a little bit more. Material bread is one aspect of this. I think it's pretty significant that the very first thing, the initial thing that Christ instructs us to pray for when we pray for ourselves, is our daily bread, our material needs. And by the way, notice that we're invited to pray for bread, not for dessert. The Amazon website is not supposed to be your daily devotional. That's not the idea here. I think one of the gratifying realities of our prayer life is that God cares about the simple day-to-day needs of life. That's a wonderful thing. He actually cares whether his children are warm and fed and housed. He's concerned for our well-being, which includes those things that are necessary to maintain a whole and happy family. I think what Christ is saying here is really pretty freeing to me. Because in reality, we do not have to achieve some sort of lofty spiritual plane up here, you know, way above the material and the mundane of life, before we can actually offer requests to God. You don't have to be some spiritual superwoman or spiritual superman to be able to bring your needs before the Lord. We're not instructed to bring only the big things to God, but our everyday requests. God meets us right where we are. And therein, I think, lies a glimpse of his loving greatness. When we come to our Father, our Papa, with everyday needs, even the so-called little things, we are glorifying Him. I think that also brings up a parallel truth. Sort of a corollary doctrine, if you will, an important reality for us to remember. Because conveyed here in Jesus instructing his disciples to ask for their daily bread, not for their weekly bread, not for their bread for the year, but their what? That clearly indicates dependence upon the Father. Dependence on Jesus, dependence on the Father. I think there's no other line in the Lord's Prayer that so directly challenges the times in which we live. Because the reality is, and I know you know this to be the case. I've experienced it in my own life. I've struggled with this, I've dealt with this. The average person worries too much about achieving materialistic status. It's just the reality. Hey, we spend money we don't have to buy things we don't need to impress people we don't even like. And because of that, the average American lives way beyond their means. They've sold their soul to Visa, MasterCard, and American Express. And as a result, statistics tell us that no matter the income level, whether you're rich or whether you're poor, 80% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. And do not have the resources to even handle an emergency that costs$400 or more. Don't have$400 in savings. Because we're living way beyond our daily bread needs. Listen, there's nothing inherently wrong with having nice things. But it is wrong to allow such a goal to consume us that it puts us in bondage. And we're not exhibiting dependence on the Father at that point. We're trusting our credit score and our credit line, our ability to go in debt, to have things that ultimately will crush us. The Good Samaritan. Remember that? Do you know why that good Samaritan could stop and go help that half-dead Jew in the ditch? It's because he had the margin to do so. He had a margin of time. He wasn't so overscheduled that he didn't say, I don't have time to do that. I've got an important appointment I have to go to. No, he had time to help that guy in the ditch. You know why he was able to take him on his own donkey and put him up in an inn and pay for the inn and say, if there's anything left over when I come back, I'll pay for that too? You know why? He had a margin of money. He wasn't living beyond his means. We need to get back to our dependence on the Father. And not on our ability to make payments. Do you know what it means when an average American determines whether or not they can afford something? It means, can I make the payment? Not do I have the money for it that God has given me. And we've crushed ourselves and we're in bondage. And then we ask God to help us because we're over our heads. This is a spiritual tragedy.

Support The Ministry Message

Bread Of Eternity In Christ

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If today's message is strengthening your walk with Christ, helping you grow in your understanding of prayer and God's word, would you consider supporting our ministry? Foundations of Truth exists to bring clear biblical teaching to listeners just like you, week after week. Your gift helps keep this program on the air and reaching hearts with the truth of the Bible. You can give today by visiting firm-foundations.org and be a part of what God is doing through this ministry. Now let's get back to today's message on Teach Us to Pray. Here's Dr. Timothy Mann.

Forgiveness As The Terrible Petition

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And Jesus is telling us here, whether we're rich or poor, that God wants us to depend upon him daily. And he wants us to pray for our daily material needs. And he wants us to thank him daily. Give us our daily bread. But then give us each day our daily bread, I think is also a request for the spiritual characteristic, the spiritual bread that's characteristic of the eternal state, the eternal kingdom of God. And I think this dual interpretation is justified. I'm going to give you a few reasons why. First of all, the petition literally reads, give us this day our bread for tomorrow, thus pointing to the future state. Second, the three preceding petitions of the Lord's Prayer all ultimately refer to the final eternal state. When God's name is once and for all hallowed, when his kingdom comes, when his will is perpetually done. And so therefore it follows that the bread of tomorrow is also eternal. And then another interesting thing for you to consider is this Jesus used only one symbol to describe the eternal state of believers. And he used it many times in the Gospels, and it's this: a great joyous feast. A feast, a banquet. I think surely this is where the bread of heaven is going to be served. So, in three ways, I think, there's three ways we see that when Jesus bids us to pray for the bread of tomorrow, he is actually inviting us to pray for the bread of eternity today. What does that mean? Well, it means here in the Lord's prayer, Jesus is telling us that through prayer, spiritually, we can stretch out our hands spiritually and grasp the glorious bread of eternity and feast upon it. The ultimate bread is, of course, Christ. Christ Himself. Jesus Himself said, I am the living bread. I'm the bread of life that comes down from heaven. And if anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. And he says, This bread is my flesh, which I give for the life of the world. John 6, 51. So when we're thinking about, Lord, would you supply our bread of tomorrow today? If you begin to pray like that, we're thinking on Christ. We worship Christ. We thank Christ. We meditate on who Christ is and what he has done for us. We praise Christ. And then what happens is Jesus nourishes us and he sustains us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Hey, Jesus Himself is our daily bread. He is our daily bread. I wish I could just skip verse 4. I do. It's hard. I wish I could just read over it real fast and move on. The first part, especially. And forgive us our sins. For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. Kent Hughes actually shares the example of how Robert Lewis Stevenson, in his book called Picturesque Notes of Edinburgh, tells the story of two unmarried sisters who shared a single room. And as people are apt to do who live in close quarters, the sisters had a falling out. Which Stevenson says, and I quote, was on some point of controversial divinity. In other words, they disagreed over some aspect of theology. The controversy was so bitter that they never spoke to one another again. Now, there were no words. No words, neither kind nor spiteful. Just silence. Now, one would think that they would have separated, that they would have gone their separate ways, but whether because of lack of means or because of the innate Scottish fear of scandal, they continued to keep house together in a single room. And what they did was they drew a chalk line across the floor to separate the two domains, dividing the doorway and the fireplace, so each of them could go in and out and do her cooking without having to step into the territory of the other. And so for years they coexisted in hateful silence, and at night each of them went to bed listening to the heavy breathing of her enemy. And thus the two sisters, apparently daughters of the church who cared so much about theology, the two sisters continued the rest of their miserable lives that way. No doubt they attended church where they said the Lord's Prayer, but they obviously never truly prayed it, for that would have meant their reconciliation. How could they truly pray our Father and remain estranged? Or give us each day our daily bread. Or forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. Forgive us as we forgive. The Bible is pretty clear that there's no way they could have remained bitter and unforgiving if they truly prayed those words. Now, the parallel phrase in Matthew's version says essentially the same thing. It says, forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Now, that suggests that forgiveness must be fulfilled as a condition before we can ask God for forgiveness. And Luke's use of the present tense here, forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. His use of the present tense expresses a continual spirit of forgiveness in the hearts of those who ask for forgiveness. These passages are not contradictory. Jesus stated it both ways to very dynamically express the truth that a heart that asks for God's forgiveness must be a heart that has forgiven and continues to forgive. Ladies and gentlemen, I wish in the flesh sometimes this were not the case. However, this is an unavoidable New Testament truth. Augustine called Matthew's version the terrible petition. The terrible petition. Because if we pray, forgive us our trespasses, as we have forgiven those who have trespassed against us, if we pray that with an unforgiving heart, we're actually asking God not to forgive us. Listen to the New Testament. Matthew 6, 14 and 15 says, For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. Matthew 5 7 says, Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. James 2, 13 says, judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment. Matthew 18, 32 through 35 says this. Then the master called the servant in. You wicked servant, he said, I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you? In anger, his master turned him over to the jailers until he should pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart. The scriptures are so conclusive on this matter that the Puritan Thomas Watson said, a man can as well go to hell for not forgiving as for not believing. And the 19th-century Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon, who I enjoy very much, said, unless you have forgiven others, you read your own death warrant when you repeat the Lord's Prayer. Again, as hard as it is, the scripture is clear over and over, and it's this that true believers forgive and are forgiving. Now that does not mean, that does not mean that they do not wrestle with forgiveness, that they don't struggle with forgiveness. It does not mean that forgiveness comes naturally or easily to genuine Christians. Many, many times bitterness and hatred recur even though they have forgiven the offender. It is hard to maintain a forgiving spirit. But actually, I want to encourage you, actually, the struggle, the wrestle, the wrestling, the struggle is evidence of God's grace in the believer's heart. Because otherwise, in the flesh, in the natural man, otherwise, you would just give in to the hatred. So the warning here is for those who claim to be Christian but will not and have no desire to forgive. I think the question is, as I was reading this, I thought, my goodness, is this forgiveness request in the Lord's Prayer a curse or a blessing? I mean, are our most tightly held possessions our grudges? Do we pride ourselves on the fact that we never forgive? I don't let anybody off the hook. If so, then we are probably not believers in Christ at all. I think how good it is of God to put it this way, because it requires no elaborate reasoning process to determine where we are. It requires no special knowledge. All it requires is honesty. Are you allowing God's grace to work in your heart? I do think the fifth petition here of the Lord's Prayer is indeed a terrible petition. But it's also a gracious one. It just cuts through all the Christian lingo, doesn't it? I mean, it just cuts through all the noise and it monitors our spiritual health. Are we healthy, forgiving people?

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Today we've begun to unpack the pattern Jesus gave us for prayer. But there's more to come. In part three of Teach Us to Pray, we'll continue exploring what it means to trust God. Not just with our words, but with our lives. You can learn more about our ministry at firm foundations.org. Thanks for listening today and join us again for part three of Teach Us to Pray tomorrow on Foundations of Truth.