3 Radical Reasons to Radically Forgive

Erin Davis: I was flying alone on an airplane recently and you should know, I am a head-down traveler. I put my earbuds in. I put my head down. I don’t necessarily want to talk to my seatmate—which I know makes me sound like a snob—but it hurts my neck!

So as soon as I’m seated I try to put off the vibe, “I don’t want to talk to you.” And on this particular flight, the woman next to me did not pick up on the vibe. 

Carol Anne Beck: This is The Deep Well with Erin Davis. I’m Carol Anne Beck. God’s Word is a deep well. You can drop your bucket and pull up truth every time! We’re about to hear a stand alone bonus episode where Erin is going to drop the bucket and provide truth about forgiveness.

Let’s get back to the story about the woman sitting next to her on the airplane.

Erin: I was reading a Christian book—I don’t even remember the title. The woman sitting next to me struck up a conversation and asked about it. I gave short answers, continuing in the, “I don’t want to talk to you,” vibe . . . and she kept pressing. And thus unfolded one of the most profound conversations I’ve ever had!

She was a follower of Jesus, a pastor’s wife, and she told me the story of her husband’s murder. I will spare you the details. She did not spare me the details—it was graphic and horrific. She was on that plane because she had flown to the courthouse where the man convicted of her husband’s murder was being sentenced.

She wanted to stand before him and tell him she forgave him. She was frail—probably in her seventies, gray-headed, and clearly the struggle she’d been in had taken its toll. I didn’t know what to say.

She wasn’t really looking to me for answers. She was just sharing this story in the most gentle and heartfelt way. She’d dab her eyes occasionally. I felt like I should say something, so I turned around and looked her in the eye and I said, “Are the promises of God true?”

Because I needed to know. I needed to know if the things that God says in His Word about the fact that He’s close to the brokenhearted were true (see Psalm 34:18), because her heart was broken, and it was not going to be put back together again.

I needed to know if God really could empower her by His Holy Spirit to do this step that I couldn’t imagine her doing. And I really needed to know if it was possible for someone to forgive somebody of such a horrible offense.

She didn’t miss a beat. She said, “Every single one of them!” I’ve thought about that woman a zillion times since then. I think it’s because I’ve had a zillion reasons why I had to make the choice to forgive—or not—someone who hurt me.

I don’t want you to be alarmed. I don’t think I’ve been wounded any more than the next person . . . but sinners sin, right? So often we sin against each other. It’s not just followers of Jesus who have to wrestle with forgiveness. 

I’m convinced that every single person on God’s green earth has been hurt and/or offended and/or mistreated and/or abused. And we all have to decide if we’re going to let that eat us from the inside-out, or if we’re going to choose to forgive.

So, how we forgive is fairly universal, but why we forgive is distinctly different for those of us who are in Christ. I want to give us three radical reasons to radically forgive. I know I used “radical” there twice, but the kind of forgiveness God calls us to really is radical, and the reasons we can do it are radical too. So here’s reason number one. . .

You can radically forgive because you have been radically forgiven. Listen to Ephesians chapter 4, verses 31–32: “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice” (v. 31).

You can pull out your concordance if you want to, but you don’t have to. You don’t have to compare the ancient languages here either. “All” here means: “all.” Paul said take “all your bitterness.” And what he meant there was, “all your bitterness.”

He said take all your wrath, all your anger, all your clamor, all your slander, all your malice and put them away, get rid of them. And here’s how, verse 32: “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

Here in His Word God gives us a parallel progression. There’s the progression of anger: wrath, anger, clamor, slander, malice. But the parallel is: start with kindness. Ask the Lord to keep your heart tender. 

Don’t become stone-faced and hard-hearted toward the person that hurt you. You can know that that’s happening when you can no longer see them as someone made in the image of God. 

Proactively be kind, and after you’ve asked for soft-heartedness and after you’ve proactively been kind, then you have to take the much harder step—-and it is a much harder step—and offer forgiveness. 

There’s something that’s essential for you to remember if you’re going to forgive because you’ve been forgiven, and that’s that we’re all trophies of God’s grace—every single one of us.

I don’t know if God has a trophy case, but if He does, we all got there by grace! None of us got there because we earned it. If you could see everything that God has forgiven you for, I think radical forgiveness would come a little more easily, because grace-receivers inevitably become grace-givers.

So if you find it hard to forgive someone, go back and remember what you’ve been forgiven of. Then put all that stuff away.

The second radical reason to extend radical forgiveness is because human justice is limited, but God’s justice is perfect. Sometimes we hold on to offenses that—if we’re honest—they’re petty, they’re paper cuts, sometimes there’s just been a misunderstanding. 

And I want you to know, I’m not talking about that here, because sometimes we have been sinned against in truly grievous ways. Some of you who will listen to this podcast have been abused by someone in power.

Some of us have experienced what it’s like to be sinned against as children in ways that rewired our brains. All of us have been lied to. Many of us have had something stolen that we can’t get back. 

Those things don’t just go away. I want to acknowledge that. There’s some justice in being angry toward the person who sinned against you. It is one way—at times it’s the only way—that we can enforce consequences for someone else’s sin.

But here’s the problem (we know this from our own justice system): human justice on its best day will only ever be imperfect justice. We hear it said all the time, “I just want justice! I just want my day in court!”

Even when that happens, even when it seems as though justice has been served, somehow it doesn’t give us the kind of relief we thought it would. I think I’m on the list of most popular jurors! I’m about to serve my third term as juror in my county.

Many people I know have never been called up to serve, but I just keep getting called up to serve, and we serve for a six-month term! It’s rural, there are not a lot of jurors (maybe that’s why I keep being called).

But you sit in on a lot of opening arguments before they decide if you get to be on the jury. And I gotta tell you, even the best lawyers with the best arguments and the best day in court rarely results in actual justice. 

Let me read to us from Deuteronomy 32:3–4. I love to say that every text is part of a context, and the context here is that this is Moses’s farewell address, this beloved leader who had led the children of Israel through so much! The whole nation had gathered to hear from their leader one last time.

In verse 3 Moses said: “For I will proclaim the name of the Lord; ascribe greatness to our God!” Verse 4 he said: “The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice.” I didn’t say that wrong. It’s bad grammar, but apparently it’s really good truth!

He didn’t just say God is just, which He is. He didn’t just say God loves justice, which He does. Moses, as he’s pleading with the people to hold on to what is true about God, says: “He’s the Rock, his way is perfect and all his ways are justice.”

He continued, “A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.” Why? Why did Moses need the people to know that God is just, all His ways are justice? Because they were going to experience plenty of imperfect justice, despite the systems that they’d set up. And we will, too. 

There’s a practical application in Moses’s speech here in the area of forgiveness. We start with giving God glory. I heard someone talking recently. (I don’t even think they were talking about forgiveness.) They said, “If someone says to you, ‘Don’t think about a pink elephant!’” All you’re going to think about is a pink elephant!

Right now I’m thinking about a pink elephant! But if instead they said, “Think of a turquoise elephant with silver hair and stars above his eyes,” that’s what you’re going to think about.

And if all you’re saying is, “Don’t think about the person that hurt you. Don’t think about what they said. Don’t think about this offense!” That’s where you’re going to dwell. You’ve got to think about something—Someone—better!

And so when you are in that wrestling match (and I acknowledge that it is hard to forgive!) and when your heart is wrestling, you want to, but you’re not sure you can, start with giving God glory.

Because ultimately, you only have three options to where you can direct your thoughts. You can think “out” about others. And when somebody has wronged you it’s hard not to think about them.

You can think “in” at yourself, at your own reputation, at what this has cost you and how much it hurts. Or there’s a third option. You can look up at God. As long as you are proclaiming the deeds of the one who sinned against you or lingering in your own hurt and anger, you will struggle to forgive.

You’re going to be able to practice this soon, I promise! so am I. Every time there is something we need to forgive someone for, we seize the moment and we decide: “I’m going to declare the Name of the Lord! I’m going to declare greatness to our God!”

That’s how Moses started. Why? Verse 4 again: “The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.” This is not the same as chanting happy thoughts. 

This is: “I’m going to declare the Name of the Lord because He is justice. He is perfect. He is upright! He’s got this!” You and I don’t ever have to worry that someone is going to get away with something, because God’s work is perfect.

He is a faithful God. He has no sin, nor can He tolerate any sin, not even a little bit! He is just and upright. And so we can set aside the gavel and let the Lord handle the justice, and His justice will be perfect!

Will it always be in your timing? It will rarely be in your timing. Will it always look like what you think justice should look like in that situation? No, thank God, because we expect justice through our sin-filled lens. It’s going to be true, pure justice.

This is why, in Romans 12:19–21, Paul wrote, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves . . .” Why is Paul talking in these extremes? All malice, all anger, and never avenge yourselves.

Romans 12, verse 19, again I’m picking it up: “. . . but leave it to the wrath of God.” He didn’t say never avenge yourselves because there’s never a need for vengeance. There is. He said, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God.”

I’ve got to tell you, if someone needs to choose between my wrath and God’s wrath, they should choose mine. God’s wrath will be complete and it will be just.

For it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” [Paul is quoting Proverbs 25:21–22a.] Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

How can we even do this! How can we be kind to those who have hurt us? How can we be kind to those who keep hurting us . . . and don’t care!? Because we trust it to God, because He’s going to take care of it.

And in writing, “Don’t be overcome by evil,” Paul is saying, “Don’t let this consume you! Don’t let the evil someone else has done to you overcome you, but instead push back against it because God is justice!” It’s radical! I warned you! 

The third radical reason for you to radically forgive is because of the cross. We’ve already thought about what Jesus accomplished on the cross for you, that you were radically forgiven. But what about what He accomplished on the cross for the person who hurt you? This one’s really hard for my conscience to get around.

It’s really hard to hold on to bitterness and anger at somebody when you rightly see that Jesus went to the cross for him and her. You’ve heard it said, I’m sure, that unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

And while that’s true, and while unforgiveness does have a corrosive power on our inner lives, I don’t think that’s the most radical reason to radically forgive. We’ve already talked about that we should give grace because we got grace, and because we can trust God to deal with the offender. That’s all true.

But the truly radical reason we must forgive is what Jesus accomplished at Calvary. Let’s linger at the Cross together for a moment. I’m not going to take us to the gospels; I want you to listen to Isaiah 53:5-6.

But he [Jesus] was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 

Those are not just church words, that’s not just a passage we read at Easter. It was by His actual piercing, His actual crushing, His actual wounds on the cross. And then in verse 6 Isaiah wrote,

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him [laid on Jesus] the iniquity of us all. 

The sins of the one who hurt you so deeply were laid on the shoulders of Jesus, on the cross.

Every sin that has ever been committed against you and every sin that will ever be committed against you was laid on Jesus on the cross, and He willingly took it! And He didn’t stop there.

The price that Jesus paid to redeem the sin—I guess, more appropriately the sinner that you’re struggling to forgive—was sky high! Jesus was arrested for that sinner. Jesus was humiliated for that sinner. Jesus was beaten to a bloody pulp for that sinner. And ultimately, Jesus died for that sinner. 

I’m uncomfortable even talking about that. I’m uncomfortable even thinking about what God endured for my sin and for other people’s sins. But when we withhold forgiveness, what we’re ultimately doing is committing spiritual double jeopardy.

We’re expecting someone to pay a price that they didn't pay, that Jesus ultimately paid, that Jesus suffered greatly to pay. We don’t have the right. Romans 5 tells us that because of Jesus’s blood willingly poured out on the cross, God’s wrath has been fully satisfied!

I love that hymn lyric from the Gettys, don’t you? 

‘Til on that cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.
For every sin [and can I add, including the sins committed against you] on Him was laid.
Here in the death of Christ I live.

(“In Christ Alone” by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend)

Jesus did not have to hang on the cross one second longer for the person you’re trying to forgive than He did for you. It’s been taken care of! It’s radical! And one of the most Christ-like things you will ever do is extend forgiveness to the undeserving.

And when you do, you’re not making a statement that what was done to you was okay. In many cases it was not okay! You’re not making a statement that you are weak and that they somehow won.

You are making the statement that the cross is sufficient. And I would ask, is there a statement more worth making!? We do live in a world consumed by anger and bitterness. It has become a currency. You know that, I hope.

Corporations use our anger and bitterness to try and sell us all manner of things, and they have to keep us angry for that to work. We also live in a culture obsessed with our rights, including our “right” to stay angry at those who hurt us.

And so, forgiveness is an act of radical rebellion against the powers of darkness! It’s countercultural. It’s one way we show the beauty of Jesus to a broken world. . .and they’re watching! What does your life teach about the beauty and power of forgiveness?

I always want you to be doers of God’s Word. I never want you to be hearers only. I never want you to listen to an episode of this podcast and walk away and think, That was a nice thought.

No, we’re supposed to put feet to God’s Word! And the “do” step here is clear. I would never claim it’s easy, but the “do” step here is to forgive! And you need the Lord’s help. Every time you forgive you need the Lord’s help.

I would just encourage us to use Moses’s model here. When I bump up against that need to forgive it can feel like me replaying the tapes of the offense in my mind. It could feel like me on some level wanting them to suffer like I’ve suffered.

It could feel like wanting them to just have a glimpse into how much pain they’ve caused. When that bubbles up, my pastor has taught us to pray to want to. He’s like, “When you need to forgive, pray to want to!”

Because so often the desire isn’t even there. And so I’ll say, “Lord, give me the ‘want’ to forgive.” I have some family members who are in that category of committing really grievous things against me and people I love, and so unforgiveness often wells up. 

I don’t invite it, but it often wells up. I’m not a slave to it. I know what to do. I start praying, just like Moses first starts out praising God for who He is. “God, all Your ways are justice. You are the Rock; there is no unrighteousness in You!”

And then I pray for God to bless them specifically. Now Scripture sometimes does give us “Get ‘em, God!” prayers. They’re called the imprecatory psalms. So I’m not saying you can’t ever say, “Smite ‘em!” because David did.

But you need to also pray that God will bless them, because Scripture tells you to (see Matt. 5:44). And then, whether I feel it or not (feelings aren’t facts, they’re just feelings, you’re free to feel them) I tell God, “I forgive her.” 

Not because I want to, not because she deserves it, not because she wrote me that long apology letter I’ve been fantasizing about for so long!—that letter ain’t comin’!

“But I’m going to forgive her because You forgave me and because I trust nobody’s going to get away with anything, because all Your ways are justice and because You took care of this already on the cross.” 

Let me pray. Lord, there’s none like You! When it comes to responding to hurt, we are so unlike You. But life is giving us near constant examples to grow to be more and more like You. 

So I pray for anyone listening. If they’ve been listening to this episode they know, that name has been welling up inside of them, that moment’s been coming back to mind, that hurt it’s exposed all over again. I pray that by the power of Your Holy Spirit you would empower her to walk this out, You would draw her eyes to You. God, not to the hurt, not to other person, but to You. 

When we don’t know how to pray, the Spirit helps us pray, so Holy Spirit, help us to pray for blessing and then help us to take that step, that actual step, and forgive. Help us to do it as often as we need to. In Your name I pray, amen.

Carol Anne: Maybe as Erin has been teaching, your heart has been stirred and you know you need to dig deeper in this area of forgiveness. Our friend Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has written a powerful book called Choosing Forgiveness.

I hope you’ll get a copy by visiting ReviveOurHearts.com. Continue learning about this crucial topic and find genuine freedom! Again, look for Choosing Forgiveness by visiting ReviveOurHearts.com.

Erin Unscripted

It’s time for Erin Unscripted, and Erin, let’s say I’ve just been wronged, but I know that God commands me to forgive. What’s my practical next step?

Erin: Well, you already took it, which is acknowledging, “I can’t let this remain as unforgiveness in my heart and be in God’s will.”

So, there is a fork in the road there that you have to face because in our flesh often what we want to do first is justify and hold onto it. You don’t have that choice if you look at Scripture and walk out what the Lord calls us to.

I would say the other step, and this is really practical. You need help. And do you need the supernatural help of the Holy Spirit? You absolutely do. But I would reach out to one wise Christian friend.

Now, this can be delicate because our first impulse is we do want to call somebody to air our case—to validate, to get somebody on our side. I’m not talking about that at all. So if you’re not ready to have the conversation without defaulting to that, give yourself some time.

But when you can come to the point where you’re like, “Yeah, I’m still really hurt and angry about this, but I want to out of obedience to the Lord to forgive,” you need to let somebody know. 

A text message is great, a phone call is great. It doesn’t have to be a high drama, big ugly conversation. “I was hurt. I need to forgive. I’m having trouble. Will you pray for me?” Then you’ve got an ally in the fight.

Then, I do think you walk down the steps. I was amazed in studying this at the pattern that I saw in Moses’s prayer, and he wasn’t even praying about forgiveness. 

I’d never seen that there before, which is, “God, first I will glorify You. And then I will force myself to remember that You will take care of this.” And as an outflow of that then you say, “I’m going to forgive.” You might have to make that step again in ten minutes or ten days or a year.

I don’t know where we got the idea that, a) “Forgive and forget” are somehow tied. That’s silly, those are two different things. And b), that you can forgive once and for all. I can’t. Maybe I’m especially weak in this area.

But it’s like so many things: you’re going to walk it out over and over and over. So you agree with God that you have a no tolerance policy for unforgiveness in your heart, not because you don’t want to hold onto it (you will), but because you agree with God. 

You ask a person to help you and pray for you, and then you focus on the Lord, focus on who He is, and then say, “I forgive her. I forgive him.” You might have to walk that progression again, but those are really practical steps you can take.

Carol Anne: What about for the person who is in the seat of walking that journey with someone? I’m a mom, and I walk my children through how to forgive each other all the time. I’m trying to model that. What encouragement and advice would you give to that person?

Erin: I would say as little as you can. They don’t need your input. They don’t need you to see it their way. They certainly do not need you to trash talk the other person or affirm that that person was 100% in the wrong.

They need you to pray for them to have the strength to obey. They need you to encourage them to do what God’s Word says even though it doesn’t feel good, even though it’s uncomfortable. The best way you can be a friend is by encouraging somebody to live the life God has called them to live.

You can share stories of your own need to forgive, but that’s pretty hard to do without slandering the person you forgave. We don’t want to swap sins for sins here. We don’t want to—in the pursuit of forgiveness—default to slander.

What does Scripture say, where words abound sin increases? We don’t have to say a lot. We just need to encourage each other that God’s ways are for our good. If He asks us to do it, it is for our good.

And that’s enough reason to at least say to the Lord, “I want to! Help me.” Aren’t you glad, Carol Anne, we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us? I am! This is what Jesus meant when He said, “It’s good for you if I go away because when I go away, I’m going to send a Helper. He’s going to help you to walk out everything I’ve said.” So, the Spirit of God is living inside of you and eager to help you! Ask Him.

Carol Anne: A passage that we go to often in our home is when Christ says, “If you have been wronged or if you’ve wronged someone, you go to them.” And so in our house, when our kids are at each other’s throats or when there are sinners in our home (which is one-hundred-percent of the time, unless everyone is out of the home!), that passage is worked out. That has been a rebuke to me, oh my goodness! I don’t know if anyone else can relate that being a mom, being a parent, has been the most sanctifying work in their life. 

Erin: It’s the hottest refining fire I’ve ever been in!

Carol Anne: The things I disciple my kids through, I turn around and I have to disciple myself through them, because I need it. I am just as needy as my kids. When I tell Shaylin (my eldest, who is six) that, “If you’ve been wronged you need to go to them first.” So always pointing to Scripture because God prescribed what a restorative relationship should look like.

Erin: You’re right! That’s the sanctified reason why we don’t tolerate tattling. Now, in our flesh we don’t tolerate tattling because it’s obnoxious, and we are constantly having to referee. But the biblical reason we don’t tolerate tattling is because, “Actually, that offense was not between your brother and me. That offense was between you and your brother.”

And so, first we train our children, “First you go to your brother.” (In whatever young-person language you have.) “If the two of you cannot forgive each other and reconcile, then always come to me or Daddy.” That’s a biblical model for how we deal with conflict.

But first you try to deal with it between the two of you. I just feel like in the church there’s a lot of “adult tattling,” a lot of running to my friend to say, “This person did this, this, this and this.”

Maybe there’s a time and place for that, but according to that progression that we see in the book of Matthew, first it’s one-to-one, then it’s two-to-one, then we involve Christian leadership, then there’s a step beyond that where there needs to be some separation for the purpose of restoration, but how many of us bypass that first step?

I would say there’s a pre-step before that step, which is if you can, let it go and forgive without the conflict. That’s a good step. If you cannot, if you’re just like, “I cannot let go of this!” Then, in love, Christian to Christian, brother to brother.

Now, what if it’s a non-Christian that has sinned against you, you probably play by a different rule book then. You may not have the ability to go to them in love and have the kind of conversation Jesus was leading us through.

But you’re right. Your instincts there in parenting are right, which are to affirm what Jesus taught us, which is, “Hey, guys, try to work this out between the two of you.” We say a lot in our house when there’s conflict, and listen, it’s all testosterone all the time in my home, so there’s lots of conflict.

Be like, “Is this worth breaking fellowship for?” The bottom line here is, are you going to hold on to your anger and take it out on your brother? Are you willing to break the fellowship you have, brother to brother, over this? No, of course not!

“This is a stick! This is a rock! This is a partial caterpillar that you found that you’re fighting over!” It could be that silly, but that’s what’s on the line: “Is it worth breaking fellowship with each other?” No, it’s not. 

Carol Anne: The Deep Well with Erin Davis is part of the Revive Our Hearts podcast family, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the ESV.










 

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