Forgiveness Gained
Sharable notes for the March 8, 2020 message. You can post these notes on your social platform!
Scriptures used: Matthew 18:21-35; Leviticus 16:16; Luke 23:34
We prefer to see sin as an action rather than a condition because if it’s an action then it’s something I can fix. We have to understand, it's a condition though not an action. We are not sinners because we sin, we sin because we are by nature sinners.
The gospel is good news, but we understand the good news of the gospel better when we understand what the good news saves us from.
Charles Spurgeon said, “The reason we think too lightly of the Savior is we think too lightly of sin. Only he who has stood before his God feeling the rope of God’s judgement about his neck, will be the man to weep for joy when his is pardoned, to hate the evil which has been forgiven him.”
When we learn the truth of our depravity without Christ, we begin to be more overwhelmed and celebrate more the depths of God’s glorious grace and love for us.
Don’t think you can’t be forgiven by God. Yes our sins are a great debt that we could never pay, but through Christ they can be canceled, forgiven, removed and cleansed from our life because of what He did on the cross and through the resurrection.
Do we want Christ for who He is even if it means that we have to stay on the cross?
We are undeserving, unworthy, guilty, but the innocent one, Jesus, the Lamb of God, the Son of God, was slain for our sins. We didn’t get what we deserved but instead we receive undeserved grace, we receive underserved mercy, we receive the forgiveness of God.
Reflect or meet with someone to discuss:
How do you feel when someone tells you they forgive you?
Why is it so hard to forgive sometimes?
How does taking the time to consider the depths of your forgiveness in Christ help you understand the power of forgiveness?
How does the story of the thief on the cross impact you?
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God’s forgiveness is no light thing. The Cross is God’s complete answer to all the deepest of human needs in respect to our relationship with him. We only come to know God as we enter and live in a realized experience of his total forgiveness, and we only go on knowing God as we go on knowing and living in that same experience of liberation.