Sermons

“I will forgive but I will never forget” 
“I don’t get mad I get even”
“I would never forgive myself”

These phrases are common in the minds of many of us but God has something better.  God has made you alive for a purpose.  Part of His purpose is forgiveness.  God wants you to know and experience the fullness of His forgiveness.  Once you and I grasp the fullness of God’s love and forgiveness it can change every relationship.

The apostle Paul was always trying to explain the mystery of God’s love.  The mystery of God is that God’s love, forgiveness and acceptance is infinitely larger than we imagine.  We tend to limit our ideas of forgiveness to people we find easier to tolerate.

This Sunday God wants to open your understanding to how vast His forgiveness is.  I am praying if you know anyone who struggles with being forgiven or forgiving you will bring them.

Blessings,
Joe

Small Group Questions

• Prayerfully read and consider the Scriptures and questions
• Plan to attend a small group in the fellowship hall.
• Make an effort to invite and remind at least one new person.
• Pray for and attend one of the worship services.

Eph 1:7-9 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight. He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him.

Eph 2:1-5 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).

Eph 3:1-6 For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles, if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace which was given to me for you; that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief. By referring to this, when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel

• Why was it so hard for the early Christians to accept that God offered forgiveness to the gentiles?
  

  Eph 3:5-6 which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel,

• Why is it so hard for us to accept the dimensions of Gods love?
  

  Eph 3:14-19  For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

• Why is it so hard to forgive?
• Why is it so hard to ask for forgiveness?
• Why is it so important that we   believe and practice daily forgiveness?
  

  Heb 12:14-15 Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled;

• How does grasping God’s forgiveness for you affect your relationship to others?
  

  Eph 4:31-32 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.