_In which Church He_ [the Holy Ghost] _daily and richly forgives all sins to me and all believers._ 1. We confess in our Catechism that the Holy Ghost forgives all sins to me and all believers. _We believe that there is a forgiveness of sins. God's Word assures us of this. _"There is forgiveness with Thee."_ Ps. 130,4. _How sorely do we need forgiveness of sins!_ You know that all men, also believers, commit sin. A child of God indeed earnestly strives against committing any sin, he tries not to transgress the commandments of his heavenly Father; but, alas! also God's children sin daily and much. _"There is not a just man upon earth that doeth good and sinneth not."_ Eccl. 7,20. With our sins we deserve nothing but God's punishment. _"The wages of sin is death."_ Rom. 6,23. _Without forgiveness of sins we are lost. 2. _But there is a forgiveness of sins with God._ He assures us in His Word that by grace, for Christ's sake, He will forgive me all my sins. He will do so _daily and richly._ Whenever we have sinned, we should come to Him and pray to Him: Forgive me my trespasses. Even as a child who has grieved his father by his disobedience penitently comes to him and asks his forgiveness, so we in true penitence should daily come to our heavenly Father, whom we have so sorely grieved, whose punishment we deserve, and ask His forgiveness. _He will not cast us out._ He will hear our prayer, and we will praise Him: _"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits; who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases."_ Ps. 103,2.3. The _publican_ came into the Temple and humbly said: _"God be merciful to me, a sinner!"_ and God was merciful to him; he went down to his house _justified._ He had received forgiveness of his sins. Luke 18,9-14. 3. God forgives us our sins. He is moved to do this _not by our good works or merits._ God does not see anything in us which could induce Him to forgive us our trespasses. We deserve nothing but punishment. _His free grace alone moves God to forgive us all our sins._ Our God is a merciful God. He takes pity on us, His sinful children.--By grace God _forgives_ us our sins, that is, He does not look upon our sins, does not _impute_ them to us, but declares us sinners _righteous._ In the beautiful parable of our Lord which we find Matt. 18,23 ff., the wicked servant asks his Lord to have patience with him, whom he owed so much. And the kind lord, moved with compassion, loosed the servant from his fetters and forgave him all his debts, which he never would have been able to pay. _Thus God, moved with compassion, does not punish us as we have deserved, and declares us free from debt, declares us righteous, or in other words, God justifies us._