Wow! It was such a powerful morning on Sunday. The core of the message was the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. You can read the whole story in Matthew 18:21-35. Our Heavenly King paid our debt. He wiped the slate clean.
Because of that we’re expected to forgive others who may wrong us. The debt we think we’re owed does not even start to compare to the debt Jesus paid on our behalf. If you read the parable, you can understand why the king was pretty miffed. After the king showed the servant so much mercy, the servant went out immediately to chase some insignificant debt that was owed to him.
How could his heart not have been overflowing with gratitude for the huge burden he had just been freed from?
On Sunday, after the sermon, we gave an opportunity to the congregation to forgive someone in their lives. We laid out some cards at the front for them to fill in with some details and ink stamps to stamp “PAID” over it. The response was really great and people were deeply affected by taking part.
- Everlasting God – Brenton Brown (A)
- Our God – Chris Tomlin (A)
- You Are My King (Amazing Love) – Billy Foote (D)
- Beautiful Things – Gungor (D)
- Great I Am – New Life Worship (D)
While I listened to the sermon on Sunday, I couldn’t help be reminded of how the Queen talked about forgiveness in her Christmas speech.
Luv the idea of the ‘paid’ stamp, how blessed we are to know the forgiveness of our God!
BTW, how did you tie the 1st 2 songs in ur setlist with this theme? Just curious!
I don’t usually attempt to tie all songs with the theme – especially the first two. I try to focus on having one song in the second set (after the sermon) that captures or reinforces the message. Although, sometimes I don’t even have that.
ok, thats kinda similar to my approach to, cool!