Sermon Details
- Pastor Name: Jonathan Cornell
- Date & Time: July 14, 2013 | 10:00am
One of Ernest Hemingway’s famous short stories begins like this: Madrid is full of boys named Paco, which is diminutive of the name Francisco, and there is a Madrid joke about a father who came to Madrid and inserted an advertisement in the personal columns of El Liberal which said: Paco, meet me at Hotel Montana Noon Tuesday; all is forgiven, Papa. A squadron of police had to be called out to disperse the eight hundred young men who answered the advertisement.
Hemingway’s joke is about how common the name Paco is, but the more poignant message is, there are a lot of hurting people out there. Certainly every one of us has had moments in life where a relationship was fractured because of a misplaced word or careless act. This morning, God’s Word will show us that this is part of the condition in which we find ourselves, but it doesn’t ever have to be the last word. Maybe we’ve got some things to learn or re-learn about forgiveness.
For the last few weeks, we’ve been looking together at the attributes of a life lived in the Kingdom of God. And as we’ve discovered, it is only through the work of the Holy Spirit that we are drawn into the power and the possibility of a life with Jesus. But still, one of the hardest parts about living a with-God life is forgiveness. In our passage, Jesus addresses this with some brass tacks instruction, but it’s going to take a little more digging and a little more consideration for us to see where Jesus is coming from.
Download the entire transcript: Matthew 18 Forgiveness
