The Power of Forgiveness: A Message by Pastor Rob Inrig

From Bethany Baptist in Richmond, BC

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A Lesson in Forgiveness

The man loved dogs. He read about them, studied them, and trained them. One day, he decided to pour a new cement driveway. Just as he finished, a large dog appeared and walked through the cement, leaving great prints behind. Groaning, he got back to work and smoothed out the damage.

He went inside to get some rope to put up a barrier, but when he returned, there were more dog tracks in his fresh cement. Frustrated, he smoothed out the cement again and erected the fence.

Just five minutes later, he looked and saw more paw prints. Now he was mad. He troweled out the damage one more time, but as he reached his porch, the dog reappeared and sat right in the middle of the sidewalk.

The man said nothing. He went inside, grabbed his gun, and to the horror of his watching neighbour, he shot the dog dead. The neighbour rushed over and said, “Why would you do such a thing? I thought you loved dogs.” The man thought for a moment and replied, “I do, I do like dogs. But that’s abstract. I hate dogs in the concrete.”

Forgiveness: A Challenging Concept

Forgiveness is a lot like that – we can live it in the abstract. It’s admirable, even desirable. But when its paw prints show up in the concrete of our lives, the concept of forgiveness isn’t so attractive. Especially not when we have experienced more than our share of repeated damage. It’s fine as a precept; incredibly hard as a practice. As C.S. Lewis observed, “Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea until they have something to forgive.”

Simply put, forgiveness can be tough. “They don’t deserve it. They don’t care about the damage they have done. Their actions were intentional; they wanted to do damage.”

And with that, unforgiveness, though logical and often very understandable, is sneaky. It crawls into our spirits so gently, so justifiably, and so innocently that we don’t know it’s there until it really has us. It continues doing its ongoing damage.

Though we often don’t view it as this, unforgiveness is a sin that turns its damage inward. Let’s be honest: our refusal to forgive is something we all battle from time to time. Even though we may not stumble over the “bigger” sins of the flesh, our failure to forgive affects many of us.

The Dangers of Unforgiveness

The danger of unforgiveness is significant. I may not cause overdoses or car accidents, but it will divide – not all at once, but over time, doing its destructive work in churches, families, marriages, and nations. Unforgiveness has been called the cancer of the soul. Unchecked, it will eat us alive because, as we have noted before, “Hurting people hurt people.”

Research tells us that when we don’t forgive others, we hurt ourselves physically. As we relive how people hurt us, adrenaline and cortisol are released into our bloodstream. An accompanying sugar release revs up muscles as clotting factors surge in the blood. All this works to wear down the brain, leading to cell atrophy and memory loss. Blood pressure and blood sugar levels increase, which can lead to hardened arteries and increased heart disease.

Worse than hardening our arteries, our attitudes harden. Proverbs 18:19 says, “An offended brother is more unyielding than a fortified city, and disputes are like the barred gates of a citadel.” Sadly, some of us know this only too well because we’ve lived it. Some are living it as I speak.

Offences done to us in the past cut paths of destruction, but what is lesser recognized are the pathways they continue to cut, taking us farther and farther away from the exit we so need. Unforgiveness still delivers deep wounds in ourselves and around ourselves.

Understanding Forgiveness

Let’s make some things crystal clear:

1st: Forgiveness is Not About Minimizing the Offence

This means that as we forgive, there is no whitewashing, no diminishing, and no reinterpreting the wrongs that have been done. It does not mean approving of what someone else did, pretending wounds never occurred, or making excuses for people’s behavior. Instead, it is an eyes wide open acknowledgment of the wrong done and the pain experienced.

2nd: Forgiveness Does Not Offer Simplistic Advice

As Lewis observed, forgiveness is a word easily said, especially by those who have not been greatly wronged. Too often, people are offered trite advice like, “Just forgive and forget.” Yet forgiveness doesn’t just ‘forget.’ A person who’s been abused can hardly forget. A person who’s suffered an adulterous spouse will always remember the day it became known. A person who’s suffered intentional injury doesn’t just move on.

So forget? Not likely in what is so often meant by that word. But there are some things we are to forget, which I will reference soon. This forgetting should occur within a clear focus on what the offense was, taking an honest look at the event that delivered the scar.

Yet with this, both a clarification and caution are required. The event is revisited only to counter any inappropriate “reframing” where wrong behavior has been justified or minimized by excuse. The point is, wrong is wrong. Clarity is required to ensure that we aren’t allowing a watered-down version of events. At the same time, caution is required to protect us from returning to places of wound where they are given license and opportunity to injure again.

The Nature of Forgiveness

3rd: Forgiveness is Not ‘Toughing It Out’

It doesn’t mean we tough it out so it doesn’t get to us. It’s not about adopting a thicker skin; it’s about allowing God to protect and heal our skin so toxins are no longer given power to destroy.

4th: Forgiveness Does Not Mean There is No Administration of Justice

This brings me back to the issue of what we do forget. Actions have consequences. If I lend you my car and you get a speeding ticket, I may forgive you for what you did, but that doesn’t mean I am going to pay your ticket. If I allow you to take the car again and you run a red light and strike another car, I may be angry about the foolishness of your action and mourn your lack of judgment, but I can once again forgive.

That said, my forgiveness does not wipe out the penalty that may still need to be paid. Logical consequences come from our actions. With these, what we do forget is the hate, the payback revenge, and the vitriol. Accountability is often required, but holding onto that as a demand will do us harm because we have no control over what the other person will do. Instead, we are to give our need for justice over to God, trusting Him to do what is right. “Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord; I will repay” (Rom 12:17,19).

So as we forgive, we clearly see and acknowledge the wrong without suffering re-injury from the wrong by demanding how that wrong is to be made right. Simply put, the other might not do as we demand. This means we need to unhook ourselves from determining what they should do.

The Challenge of Forgiveness

No one can say forgiveness is easy because it’s not. What it is, is often a hard decision, sometimes a very hard decision for you to live free, no longer bound by the past, as you choose to release others from their sin against you. In forgiving them, you break the chain of bitterness that holds you prisoner to yesterday’s wounds.

When we refuse to forgive, those offences remain alive. Their ball and chain presence is carried with us. Even though most of the time, we aren’t aware of its existence, one day it suddenly makes itself known. Because that’s how unforgiveness works. We think we are doing well until one day we are forcibly reminded that we are not.

To summarize: forgiveness is making a conscious choice to be unbound by evil. It’s giving up our right to be the judge. Practically, it means making a definitive decision before God to forgive the person, no longer holding any more judgment over them. In that release, it means no recital, no rehearsal, and no retrieval. No recital to others about the wrongs we have experienced; no rehearsal of inflammatory words we’ve practiced and stored up to say; and no retrieval, taking back what we’ve given over to God.

The Teachings of Jesus on Forgiveness

In Matthew 18, Peter asks Jesus how many times he should forgive, and Jesus responds that really, there is no time we shouldn’t forgive. “That” forgiveness may not come in our immediate reaction, but it is to be our “after the smoke has lifted” reaction and our looking ahead life action.

Before looking further, don’t miss an incredibly impressive thing we learn here about Peter. Prior to his question, Peter has heard Jesus talk about forgiveness, and he takes the message to heart. He, understanding what Jesus has said, is ready to live according to what Jesus has taught, by forgiving not just once but extravagantly – seven times.

Understand, the rabbis taught that you only had to forgive three times. So Peter is doing well moving far past any measure they were using. His only problem is that Jesus changed the measure. He focused not on an action or two but on a heart that lives out our faith in an entirely different way.

“Lord, how many times must I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? As many as seven times?”

“I tell you, not as many as seven,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:21-22). To illustrate, Jesus continues now framing His response in a story.

“The kingdom of heaven can be compared to a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle accounts, one who owed ten thousand talents was brought before him. Since he did not have the money to pay it back, his master commanded that he, his wife, his children, and everything he had be sold to pay the debt.”

“At this, the servant fell faced down before him and said, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you everything.’ Then the master of that servant had compassion, released him, and forgave him the loan.”

In this, Jesus frames forgiveness in an entirely different way. A talent was generally regarded as a laborer’s wage earned over 20 years. Scholars believe the average lifespan at this time was around 35 years, meaning 20 years represented a person’s lifetime earnings.

To put that in our context, according to the Labour Force Survey, the average Canadian salary in 2024 was $67,282, which means without increases factored in, 20 years of employment equals $1,345,000. Yet this man’s debt was 10,000 talents, meaning his debt in today’s terms was close to $14 billion dollars. Obviously, this king had no chance of seeing this debt repaid, but the servant was given something far better than having his possessions taken and his family seized. He was given grace. His outrageous debt was fully forgiven. You would think he would leave a changed man, but what was his heartfelt, joyous reaction?

“That servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him 100 denarii. He grabbed him, started choking him, and said, ‘Pay what you owe!’ At this, his fellow servant fell down and began begging him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ But he wasn’t willing. Instead, he went and threw him into prison until he could pay what was owed.”

The Consequences of Unforgiveness

Again, for perspective, a denarius was a laborer’s day wage, and 100 denarii would equate to less than $24,000. So there’s the contrast – a forgiven debt of $14 billion against a paltry sum of $24,000.

“When the other servants saw what had taken place, they were deeply distressed and went and reported to their master everything that had happened. After he had summoned him, his master said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Shouldn’t you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And because he was angry, his master delivered him over to his torturers until he could pay everything that was owed.” (Matthew 18:23-35).

Okay, okay, I get it. We’re supposed to forgive those who’ve done us harm. That it’s the Christian thing to do. But ... I’ve experienced so much pain that while it may be the right thing to do, doing it feels like what’s being asked is just too much.

With that, Jesus takes us to the Cross – where above all, He wants us to understand the debt we owe. Jesus took on Himself the immensity of our sin. Not the sin of the person five rows over. Not the sin of a person who takes an attack weapon into a school. Not the sin of history’s most heinous criminals but my sin, your sin. God does not treat our sin compared to another.

With that, we are to be a people who forgive, living in faith in what He says. Living by Kingdom values, not our own, and not those values that surround us.

We are told to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and to “Love our neighbour as ourselves” (Matthew 22:37,39) – which means our first priority is to be vertical, but that vertical is to be carried into our horizontal.

Romans 12:10 tells us that we are to “Prefer one another in love,” and we are to “Forgive one another just as in Christ God has forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:32, Colossians 3:13).

The Importance of Vertical and Horizontal Relationships

If our vertical isn’t right, then we’ll never have our horizontal functioning right. Forgive when they did that? Forgive him? Her? Yes – in God’s strength – because forgiveness is a reflection of Jesus, whose first words from the Cross were, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Forgiveness is a reflection of God’s kingdom where everyone who comes to Jesus in saving faith seeking forgiveness of our sin will live with Him in everlasting joy.

Forgiveness is paid for and then offered as a free gift to everyone who first comes to Him in repentance, acknowledging our need for forgiveness.

That said, if we refuse to do what God tells us to do in our horizontal, it impacts our vertical. Jesus said, “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive yours.” (Matthew 6:14,15).

“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” (Luke 6:37).

But if we miss all that, don’t miss that the master turned his servant “over to the torturers.” His failure to forgive was because he hadn’t truly owned his own debt. He wanted escape from the judgment he deserved, but he hadn’t entered into the grace he’d been offered.

The Torment of Unforgiveness

Some translations render the phrase “over to the torturers” as “the jailers who torment,” but the word is basanistḗs, describing someone who elicits the truth using the rack, an inquisitor, a torturer. This is an apt capture when we first don’t truly accept the grace we have been given.

Ultimately, this speaks of the judgment God will bring upon all who have rejected Jesus as Saviour. This judgment is described as everlasting separation from God in hell when, “The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will weed out of His kingdom every cause of sin and all who practice lawlessness. And they will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 13:41,42).

So that is the unmistakable and inescapable truth of Scripture. But I think there is also a type of torment that we Christians can experience when we, as ‘made new’ people, fail to live as people who are new. The torment is nothing like the former but still a type of torment when we choose to hold onto offences done to us and refuse to forgive.

To be very clear, this is NOT the torment of being eternally separated from God, but it can be the torment of not living in the joy of the grace we have been given. When we distance ourselves from grace, we too will often experience tormentors of anger and bitterness; tormentors of frustration; tormentors that keep us awake at night; tormentors when peace will not come.

Consider: if forgiveness weren’t a choice, why would we be told so many times to do it? If we had no say in the matter, would a loving God tell us to forgive? If it were impossible to forgive, would we be told to do it? Again, listen to the words of Jesus and Paul:

“For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” (Matthew 6:14-15).

“And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” (Mark 11:25).

“If you are presenting your offering at the altar and remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother and then come and present your offering.” (Matthew 5:24).

“Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” (Colossians 3:13).

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

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