TRANSCRIPT

But none is more necessary either. How many of you are sinners? Look at that—it’s universal! We’re all imperfect. We all fail. I tell married couples, “Take two imperfect people and put them under the same roof for a lifetime—that’s a wicked soup!” Put hundreds or thousands of imperfect people in a church—that’s a mess! Forgiveness is the glue that holds imperfect people together. Lots’s of forgiveness. But it isn’t easy.

Let’s look at the two verses on the top of your outline.

Ephesians 4:32 (p.1008) Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

Colossians 3:13 (p. 1017) Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

Both of them say that we are to forgive one another as Christ has forgiven us. Each week, we’ve said that God only asks us to do for each other what He has already done for us. God tells us to forgive one another. Why? He has already forgiven us. So we are to forgive each other as Christ has forgiven us.

The Big Idea: We are to forgive one another as Christ has forgiven us. How has Christ forgiven us?

How has Christ forgiven us? Here are five characteristics of God’s forgiveness that we need to pass on to each other, then take to the world.

Jesus has forgiven us completely. He has forgiven all our sins. Every sin you’ve ever committed or ever will commit—a