• Why forgiving someone doesn’t mean pretending they didn’t hurt you — and what forgiveness actually requires instead
• How to tell the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation, so you’re not stuck feeling guilty for having boundaries
• Where the motivation to forgive someone who doesn’t deserve it can actually come from, even when you’ve tried and failed before

If someone has ever hurt you badly — lied to you, betrayed you, abused you, or just let you down over and over — you already know that “just forgive them” is easier said than done. Maybe you’ve tried and it didn’t stick. Maybe you’re not sure forgiveness is even fair. This message from Christ Church looks at a strange, uncomfortable dinner party story from the life of Jesus to ask a more honest question: what if forgiveness isn’t about being a good person, but about how much you understand you’ve already been forgiven yourself?

Forgiveness doesn’t mean saying what happened to you was okay, pretending it didn’t hurt, or acting like it doesn’t matter anymore. At its core, forgiveness is the decision to absorb the cost of what someone did to you rather than making them pay for it forever. It’s not about calling evil good or minimizing real pain — it’s about choosing to release the debt someone owes you instead of holding onto it. In Luke 7:36-50 (NIV), Jesus tells a short story about two people who owed a moneylender different amounts, and both had their debts cancelled. His point: forgiveness is a real cost someone chooses to absorb, not a pretend fix.

No — this is one of the most common mix-ups people make. Forgiveness and justice aren’t enemies, and forgiveness isn’t weakness. You can forgive someone internally — releasing your own need for revenge or bitterness — while still supporting real consequences, boundaries, or even legal accountability for what they did. The Bible never asks you to pretend a wrong wasn’t a wrong. In fact, in Luke 7:36-50 (NIV), Jesus never tells the woman who wronged others, or was wronged, that it didn’t matter. What he offers is a way forward that doesn’t require someone else to pay forever.

Forgiveness is something you can do on your own — it’s a decision about what you’re going to carry, regardless of whether the other person ever apologizes or changes. Reconciliation is different: it’s the rebuilding of a relationship, and it requires both people, real change, and often trust rebuilt over time. You can forgive someone and never speak to them again. You can forgive someone and still keep firm boundaries, especially in situations involving abuse. This distinction matters because a lot of people avoid forgiveness altogether, afraid it means going back to a relationship that isn’t safe. It doesn’t have to.

A lot of advice today says you should forgive because holding onto bitterness is like drinking poison and hoping the other person gets sick — and there’s truth to that. But that’s not the main reason given in the Bible. The core motivation in scripture is that you should forgive because you have already been forgiven. In Luke 7:36-50 (NIV), Jesus tells Simon a story about two people who both had debts cancelled, then asks who will love the moneylender more — the one who owed more, or less. His answer: the more you realize how much you’ve been forgiven, the more naturally forgiveness flows out of you toward others.

Maybe, maybe not — guilt is complicated, and some people feel guilty about things they shouldn’t. But there’s a specific danger in feeling almost no guilt at all: it can mean your heart has grown numb to things you should actually be concerned about, not because you’re innocent, but because you’ve stopped noticing. In the story in Luke 7:36-50 (NIV), a religious, respectable man named Simon looks down on a woman who is clearly living with regret and shame. Jesus points out that Simon is the one with the bigger blind spot — not because he was worse than her, but because he didn’t think he needed forgiveness at all.

In the story, a Pharisee named Simon invites Jesus to a respectable, controlled dinner — and a woman known around town for “living a sinful life” (in the original context, likely meaning she worked as a prostitute) shows up uninvited, crying, and starts washing Jesus’ feet with her tears and hair, then pours expensive perfume on them. It’s an emotional, almost scandalous scene. Jesus doesn’t send her away or scold her. Instead, in Luke 7:36-50 (NIV), he tells Simon that her extravagant response makes sense — someone who knows how much they’ve been forgiven responds with a lot of love. Someone who thinks they haven’t done much wrong responds with very little.

This question gets asked directly in another part of the Bible: Peter asks Jesus if he has to forgive someone as many as seven times, expecting that to sound generous. Jesus responds that it’s not seven times, but seventy times seven — a number that isn’t meant to be counted literally, but means “keep forgiving.” That doesn’t mean forgiveness has no boundaries, or that you’re required to stay in an unsafe relationship — those questions get worked out over time and with wisdom. But it does mean forgiveness usually isn’t a one-time event. It tends to be something you have to keep choosing, especially with people close to you.

Yes, and this is a real and serious concern — the call to forgive has sometimes been misused by people who cause harm, pressuring victims to “just forgive and move on” without any accountability, safety, or change. That is a misuse of what forgiveness actually means. Forgiveness, biblically, was never meant to minimize real harm, excuse ongoing abuse, or replace justice. It’s meant to free the person who was wronged from carrying bitterness forever — not to protect the person who did the wrong from consequences. This is one of the harder, more nuanced parts of the conversation, and it’s worth taking seriously rather than rushing past.

When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.

When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”

Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”

“Tell me, teacher,” he said.

“Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”

“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.

Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”

Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”

Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

In plain terms: two people, both owed money, both had their debt wiped out — and Jesus says the one who owed more will feel more grateful. He’s saying the same is true of forgiveness: the more you understand how much you’ve been forgiven, the more love and grace naturally flow out of you toward other people.

Mike Woodruff is the Lead Pastor of Christ Church. He’s been pastoring for over 26 years, and if you spend any time around him, you’ll notice he leads with humor as much as he does conviction — he’s the kind of guy who keeps track of his “close rate” on invitations like it’s a running joke on himself. He’s also deeply committed to people outside the four walls of the church, from training pastors overseas to sitting with people in the hardest, most complicated parts of their story — including forgiveness.

You don’t have to have it figured out to show up. Whether you’re wrestling with forgiving someone, wondering if you even want to, or just curious what this whole series is about, you’re welcome exactly as you are — no pressure, no expectations, and no one will ask you to share anything you’re not ready to share. Christ Church has campuses in Lake Forest, Highland Park, Grayslake, and Vernon Hills, Illinois, and we’d love to have you join us.