Forgive Our Sins

March 30, 2025 | Matthew 6.12 | Joel Strecker

Lent is a season in the Church calendar that’s been set apart for us to do some heart-work. It’s when we can recapture our love for God and his kingdom, and cast off the practices, behaviours, and beliefs that have entangled our hearts – where we can pull away the weeds that have distracted and pulled us away from our love in Jesus Christ. Because, ultimately, Lent is a season of realigning our hearts so that Jesus can rekindle our love for him. And for us as a church, the way we’re going to do that is to delve deep into the Lord’s Prayer.

This week we’re pleased to welcome Joel Strecker, who preaches from Matthew 6.12. When Jesus teaches us to pray “Forgive us our sins as we also have forgiven those who sin against us,” he invites us to prayerfully press into the heart of what Jesus has done for us. But in our cultural moment, forgiveness is rare and difficult for us today. As Joel takes stock of some of the ways our society teaches us to practice forgiveness, he shows us how they differ from the way Jesus teaches us to forgive: For us as follows of Jesus, we can forgive precisely because we have been forgiven.