Welcome to Things Unseen. If you're new to this Ligonier Weekday podcast, let me say you're

very welcome. And you found us this week thinking about the Lord's prayer. And for many of us it's a very familiar prayer.

But I sometimes think we forget just how wonderful and important it is, because one of the

things we've been seeing is that the prayer not only teaches us how to pray and gives us a framework

for growing in prayer, it also teaches us how to live, seeking first God's

glory and His kingdom, doing His will, depending on his provision. And today we're thinking

about how it teaches us about a life of forgiveness. Now, I know it's often said by Christians as well as by others that we're living today in a culture where the concept of shame is more relevant than the concept of guilt.

And I'm not so sure for a couple of reasons.

One is that shame and guilt are actually

intimately related to each other. And another on which I want to comment is that guilt is

actually still a major factor in the world in which we live. It's just that we've changed the

basis on which we count people guilty.

So, if you're not on board with the social agenda of certain pressure groups,

yes, you should be ashamed of yourself, and you may even be shamed,

but there's more.

You'll be treated as guilty.

Guilty of transgressing the law of the new norms that have been set for you. And that's why you should feel ashamed. You should feel

ashamed because you're guilty. And because you are guilty, you may find yourself both shamed and condemned. So guilt is very much

alive and well in the 21st century. And it's on our guilt, real guilt, that Jesus' prayer now comes

to focus. In the words, forgive us our trespasses. In Matthew's version of the

prayer, the same idea is expressed, as you know, in different words. We're taught to pray and forgive us

our debts, as we have also forgiven our debtors. You remember Jesus' parable of the two debtors, I'm sure. The master

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