Grace and Forgiveness

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Grace and Forgiveness

• Chapter 12 15

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People think they can fix the problem of sin
themselves
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So they try to be really really good
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But sin a BIG problem that only God can fix
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Romans 623

• For the wages of sin is
• death, but the free
• gift of God is eternal
• life in Christ Jesus our
• Lord.

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Ephesians 28-10

• For by grace you have
• been saved though
• faith, and this is not
• your own doing it is a
• gift from Godnot the
• result of works, so that
• no one may boast. For we
• are what he has made us,
• created in Jesus Christ for
• good works, which God
• prepared before hand to be
• our way of life.

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Through Gods grace (free gift) he made a way
through Jesus (death and resurrection)
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Psalms 1038-12

• The Lord is merciful and gracious,
• slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
• He will not always accuse,
• nor will he keep his anger forever.
• He does not deal with us according to our sins,
• nor repay us according to our iniquities.
• For as the heavens are high above the earth,
• so great is his steadfast love toward those who
  fear him
• as far as the east is from the west,
• so far he removes our transgressions from us.

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Colossians 113-14

• He has rescued us from the power of
• darkness and transferred us into the
• kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we
• have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

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We are no longer separated and Jesus calls us to
forgive just as God forgave you
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Colossians 313

• Bear with one another and, if anyone has
  complaint against another, forgive each other
  just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must
  also forgive.

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Kingdom of God
The church is not yet the kingdom of Godit is a
foretaste of the kingdomit never attains it in
its fullness
The Sagrada FamiliaBarcelona, Spain
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Church Community of Sinners and Saints

• In this life, the gathering of all who believe in
  Christ remains incomplete and tainted by peoples
  failures
• Jesus tells us that saints and sinners will
  coexist until the harvest (Parable of the weeds
  among the wheat, Matt. 1324-30)

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Then and now

• There are many events in the history of the
  Church which we now see as serious sins
• What concerns us today are those sins that are
  still a stain on the body of Christ

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Sins of the Church that need to be forgiven Pope
John Paul II

1. The division of Christians
2. The use of force and intolerance in the service
   of truth
3. The sin against the Jewish people
4. The responsibility of Catholics for the evils of
   today

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The Evils of Today

• The death of God in our culture
• Religious indifference
• The climate of secularism
• Loss of ethical commitments
• The denial of the right to life of the unborn
  child
• Indifference to the cry of the poor