Forgiveness

Forgiveness

Note for my church:

• We need to be careful of our vision.

• We have just built this wonderful building.

• We have a vision to expand, by knocking out that wall.

• We see a “crowd” of people coming through that door.

• See… We need to stop watching out for the crowd, and focus on the “next” family or the next person.

• Don’t let a blur of faces be your vision.

• We need to start focusing on the individual person and individual family.

• If we do not focus on individual people, then all we will have is a blurred picture for a vision.

• Our vision needs to be precise, our focus needs to be clear.

• Our focus is people, not a crowd.

Sermon Tonight

• Because we will be dealing with individual people. It’s important that we understand the couple of concepts about people.

• And one such subject is what I preaching about tonight.

• Here are a couple of quotes for you…

If ignorance is bliss, why is the world not a happier place.

Quotes”

Alan Minter, a Boxer said - "Sure there have been injuries and deaths in boxing - but none of them serious."

Anonymous Manufacturer - "How to store your baby walker: First, remove baby."

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Bumper stickers

• There are 2 types of pedestrians, the quick and the dead.

• "Watch out for the idiot behind me!"

Overview outline:

I. forgiving others

II. god forgiving us

III. Forgiving ourselves

a. What we’ve done to others

b. What we’ve done to ourselves and

Outreach

• Dealing with outreach we will be dealing with all kinds of people.

o Smart and stupid

o Learned and Uneducated

o Clean and Dirty

o Tall and short

o Pretty and Ugly

o Sweet and … Not so sweet

• So… Let’s start our outreach lesson tonight.

A Sunday School teacher had just concluded her lesson and wanted to make sure she had made her point. She said, "Can anyone tell me what you must do before you can obtain forgiveness of sin?" There was a short pause and then, from the back of the room, a small boy spoke up. "Sin," he said.

Bits & Pieces, May, 1991.

Forgiving Others

• Forgiving others is an important part of outreach.

• Outreach???? (You didn’t think I would be talking about forgiveness under the title of outreach, huh!)

a. Yes, Forgiveness

b. Because we live in a city where everyone knows everyone.

c. We know everything about them when they come in our doors. (all cities are like this)

d. Some of the people in our city have been trouble, some have even done things against us personally.

e. We must forgive them before they even ask for forgiveness.

• Sitting here at church it’s easy to say “I could forgive somebody.”

• When dealing in an everyday life scenario it’s a different story.

• The scripture teaches us that it is very important to forgive others.

• If we learn to forgive others, that gives God permission to forgive us.

• If we fail to forgive others, the God is not allowed to forgive us.

A number of scriptures and Matthew discusses forgiving other people.

Mt 6:12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

Mt 6:14 For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:

Mt 6:15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

• A number of sermons discuss this situation as well.

• We find this very hard with some people and easy with others. That is why this is one of the most talked about topics when discussing forgiveness.

• Bro. Moore, are you sure people want to be forgiven?

o There’s a Spanish story of a father and son who had become estranged. The son ran away, and the father set off to find him. He searched for months to no avail. Finally, in a last desperate effort to find him, the father put an ad in a Madrid newspaper. The ad read: Dear Paco, meet me in front of this newspaper office at noon on Saturday. All is forgiven. I love you. Your Father. On Saturday 800 Pacos showed up, looking for forgiveness and love from their fathers.

Bits & Pieces, October 15, 1992, pp. 13.

o Yes, People want forgiveness!!!

• The only thing that not forgiving others does, is build up bitterness in your own heart.

• Bitterness –

o 1. hard to bear; grievous; distressful: a bitter sorrow.

o 2. causing pain; piercing; stinging: a bitter chill.

“Forgiveness is a funny thing; it warms the heart and cools the sting. “

William A. Ward.

• I don’t want a grievous heart, distressful heart, piercing stinging pain in my heart.