How to Forgive like Dads Who Choose to When It’s Hard

✝️ Forgive / Forgiveness – BeTheDads Small Group Session — Session 16
Series: The Stories of Jesus | Sermon is available to watch here: The Stories of Jesus — YouTube Playlist
Sermon: “But They Deserve It”
Date: May 18, 2026 | Pastor: Pastor Josh

💡 SESSION BIG IDEA

Are you ready to forgive? Forgiveness is one of the most countercultural, most costly, and most Christlike things a dad can model. When you understand how much God has forgiven you, it changes the way you lead your home — toward grace instead of scorekeeping, toward mercy instead of bitterness, toward a legacy your kids can actually follow.

📖 KEY SCRIPTURE

Matthew 18:21–22 (NLT) “Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?” Jesus replied, “No, not seven times, but seventy times seven!”

Matthew 18:27 (NLT) “He was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt.”

Ephesians 4:31–32 (NLT) “Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander… Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.”

🧊 ICEBREAKER / WELCOME (10 minutes)

1. What’s the most memorable “you’ve got to be kidding me” moment you’ve had as a dad — something your kid did that you somehow had to let go of with a straight face?

2. Think back to when you were growing up: was forgiveness something modeled in your home? What did that look like — or not look like?

3. When you hear the phrase “forgive and forget”, what’s your honest gut reaction?

🎙 SERMON CONTEXT (Leader Summary — Read or Paraphrase)

This weekend, Pastor Josh walked us through one of the most challenging parables Jesus ever told — the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant in Matthew 18. Peter had come to Jesus asking what he thought was a generous question: “How many times do I have to forgive someone who keeps hurting me — seven times?” To Peter’s Jewish audience, that would have been an impressive number. The religious leaders of the day generally taught three times was enough. But Jesus completely reframed the conversation by saying not seven times — seventy times seven. He wasn’t giving a math problem. He was dismantling the whole idea of keeping score.

The parable Jesus told made the point vividly. A servant owed a king a debt so absurdly large it could never be repaid in a thousand lifetimes. When the servant begged for mercy, the king didn’t renegotiate the payment plan — he wiped the entire debt away. The king’s response was the Gospel in a parable: an extravagant, undeserved cancellation of what was fully owed. That’s what God does for every one of us through Jesus.

But here’s where the story turns hard. That same forgiven servant immediately went and found a fellow servant who owed him a much smaller amount — and rather than extend the mercy he had just received, he grabbed the man by the throat and demanded payment. He had been forgiven everything, and he could not bring himself to forgive anything. The king, when he heard what happened, was furious. His question to the unforgiving servant cuts right through to today: “Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?”

Pastor Josh was clear that this sermon wasn’t meant to minimize real pain. Many people in the room were carrying genuine wounds — betrayal, abandonment, harsh words that still sting, broken trust that hasn’t been rebuilt. Forgiveness, the sermon said, is not pretending the hurt didn’t happen. It’s not removing consequences or immediately restoring trust. What forgiveness is, at its core, is surrendering the right to vengeance and placing justice in God’s hands — because He is a far better judge than any of us will ever be.

The full sermon is available to watch here: The Stories of Jesus — YouTube Playlist

🔑 KEY POINTS

Point 1 — Start With My Own Debt

Fatherhood Principle: Before you measure what others owe you, remember the debt you’ve already been forgiven.

“For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” — Romans 3:23 (NLT)

Dad Application: One of the easiest traps for dads is to hold others — our wives, our kids, our coworkers — to a standard we’ve quietly excused ourselves from. The servant in Jesus’ parable did exactly that. He had just been released from an impossible debt and immediately turned around to demand payment from someone else. As dads, when we honestly reckon with how much grace God has extended to us — how many times our own failure, our own selfishness, our own short fuse has been met with mercy — it softens the way we come at the people we love. Humility is not weakness in a dad; it’s the foundation that makes grace possible at home. Your kids are watching how you handle being wronged. What they see will become their first picture of what it looks like to follow Jesus.

📎 For further reading: “Redeeming Dads: Embracing Forgiveness for A Powerful Fatherhood” https://bethedads.com/2024/02/redeeming-dads-embracing-forgiveness-for-a-powerful-fatherhood/

Point 2 — Forgiven People Forgive People

Fatherhood Principle: The grace you’ve received isn’t meant to stop with you — it’s meant to flow through you to your family.

“Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?” — Matthew 18:33 (NLT)

Dad Application: There is a direct line in Scripture between being forgiven and forgiving others. Colossians 3:13 puts it plainly: “Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.” This isn’t abstract theology — it hits at the kitchen table, in the car on the way to school, in the middle of an argument with your wife. When the forgiven servant went looking for someone to hold accountable, he couldn’t see past his own sense of justice. As dads, unforgiveness tends to express itself as score-keeping — replaying old offenses, holding grudges that our kids can sense even when we never say a word. The good news is that every time you choose to forgive — your wife, your child, the guy who cut you off, the friend who let you down — you are modeling one of the most powerful things a dad can pass down. Forgiven people forgive people. That’s the inheritance worth leaving.

📎 For further reading: “Love Slows Down – Day 3” (includes Phil’s Story Slam on forgiveness) https://bethedads.com/2022/04/love-slows-down-day-3/

📎 For further reading: “Forgiveness: Planting Faith and Reaping Love” https://bethedads.com/2024/09/forgiveness-planting-faith-and-reaping-love/

💬 Forgiveness DISCUSSION QUESTIONS (20–25 minutes)

Opening the Text – Forgive

1. In Matthew 18, Peter thought he was being generous by suggesting seven times. Why do you think Jesus responded with “seventy times seven”? What was He trying to say about the nature of forgiveness?

Starting Thought: Jesus wasn’t setting a new counting limit — He was dismantling the whole idea of a limit. What does that say about how God views forgiveness compared to how we naturally tend to approach it?

📎 Further reading for this question: “Being Fathered by God – Day 8” — covers the Luke 17 parallel where Jesus says to forgive seven times in a day and the disciples’ response was “increase our faith!” https://bethedads.com/2022/07/being-fathered-by-god-day-8/

2. Look at the king in the parable. He didn’t renegotiate the debt or put the servant on a payment plan — he wiped it entirely clean. How does that picture change how you understand what God has done for you personally?

Starting Thought: Sometimes we treat God’s forgiveness like a discount rather than a full cancellation. What’s the difference, and why does it matter for how you lead at home?

📎 Further reading for this question: “Forgiveness — The Power and Freedom That Come From It” — a deep dive into Matthew 18 that explores exactly what it means to have the debt fully cancelled, and how that changes the way we see everyone else. https://from2005toeternity.wordpress.com/2025/10/20/forgiveness-the-power-and-freedom-that-come-from-it/

3. The unforgiving servant had just experienced radical grace and couldn’t extend even a fraction of it. What do you think was happening in his heart? Is it possible to know you’ve been forgiven and still struggle to forgive others?

Starting Thought: Awareness of grace doesn’t automatically produce a gracious heart. What do you think gets in the way — pride, pain, or something else entirely?

Dad Life Discussion – Forgive

4. Where in your home is it hardest for you to forgive — with your wife, your kids, or someone in your past whose impact still affects how you show up at home? You don’t have to name names — just be honest about the territory.

Starting Thought: A lot of us carry old stuff into our marriages and parenting without realizing it. Unresolved bitterness from the past often shows up as impatience or anger in the present.

📎 Further reading for this question: “Love Slows Down – Day 3” — Phil shares honestly about the moment God prompted him to forgive and he resisted — and how a bitter root began to take hold. Powerful personal story for the group. https://bethedads.com/2022/04/love-slows-down-day-3/

5. Pastor Josh made the distinction that forgiveness is not the same as removing consequences, restoring trust, or pretending nothing happened. Has that distinction made it easier or harder for you to forgive someone in your life? How so?

Starting Thought: A lot of men resist forgiveness because they think it means they’re saying what happened was okay. But there’s a real difference between releasing bitterness and endorsing bad behavior.

📎 Further reading for this question: “Forgiveness — The Power and Freedom That Come From It” — covers the same distinction from Matthew 18: “Forgiveness isn’t excusing the wrong; it’s entrusting justice to God and letting Him heal your heart.” https://from2005toeternity.wordpress.com/2025/10/20/forgiveness-the-power-and-freedom-that-come-from-it/

6. Think about a time someone forgave you — maybe your wife, one of your kids, a friend, or God. What did that do to you? How did it shape how you try to lead at home?

Starting Thought: Receiving forgiveness can be just as transformational as giving it. Sometimes the most powerful modeling a dad can do is accepting grace well and letting your kids see you do it.

7. One of the strongest lines from the sermon was this: “Unforgiveness doesn’t imprison the offender — it imprisons the person holding onto it.” Where have you seen that play out in your own life or someone close to you?

Starting Thought: Bitterness tends to feel like power at first — like you’re holding something over someone. But it ends up being a weight you carry alone.

📎 Further reading for this question: “Forgiveness – Faithful Dads Rise: Unlock Hope Today” — explores what it looks like to break free from the patterns of bitterness and step into hope as a dad. https://bethedads.com/2026/01/forgiveness-faithful-dads-rise-unlock-hope-today/

8. If your kids watched how you handle being hurt or wronged — in your marriage, at work, with family — what lesson would they currently walk away with about forgiveness? Is that the lesson you want them to have?

Starting Thought: Kids don’t learn forgiveness from sermons. They learn it from watching their dads. This is a good one to sit with honestly.

📎 Further reading for this question: “Sowing Faith: How Dads Can Cultivate a God-Centered Family” — rooted in Luke 7:47: “whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” What we model in forgiveness is literally planting seeds of faith — or bitterness — in our kids. https://bethedads.com/2024/10/sowing-faith-how-dads-can-cultivate-a-god-centered-family/

📌 Forgive – KEY TAKEAWAYS

🔑 Your Debt Was Bigger Than Theirs The starting place for forgiveness is not the wound — it’s the cross. Before you measure what others owe you, remember what you’ve already been forgiven. A dad who stays connected to that reality leads differently — with less scorekeeping and more grace.

📎 Read more: “Redeeming Dads: Embracing Forgiveness for A Powerful Fatherhood” — https://bethedads.com/2024/02/redeeming-dads-embracing-forgiveness-for-a-powerful-fatherhood/

🔑 Forgiveness Is Not the Same As Forgetting Forgiveness doesn’t require you to pretend nothing happened, remove consequences, or restore trust overnight. It means surrendering vengeance to God and refusing to let bitterness do more damage to your heart than the offense already did. Wisdom and grace can — and must — coexist.

📎 Read more: “Forgiveness — The Power and Freedom That Come From It” — https://from2005toeternity.wordpress.com/2025/10/20/forgiveness-the-power-and-freedom-that-come-from-it/

🔑 What You Model, They Carry Your kids are watching. The way you handle being wronged — in your marriage, with your family, with people who hurt you — is becoming their template for what forgiveness looks like. Forgiveness sown in the home reaps a legacy of faith. Bitterness sown in the home reaps more of the same.

📎 Read more: “Sowing Faith: How Dads Can Cultivate a God-Centered Family” — https://bethedads.com/2024/10/sowing-faith-how-dads-can-cultivate-a-god-centered-family/

🔑 Bitterness Is the Longer Prison Sentence The person who wronged you may have moved on. But if you’re still replaying it, you’re still locked in. Unforgiveness keeps wounds open, feeds anger, and slowly shapes who you are as a dad and a husband. Forgiveness isn’t for them — it’s the key that opens a door for you, and it clears space in your home for something better to grow.

📎 Read more: “Forgiveness – Faithful Dads Rise: Unlock Hope Today” — https://bethedads.com/2026/01/forgiveness-faithful-dads-rise-unlock-hope-today/

🛠 Forgive – PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS (15 minutes)

1. Sit with your own debt first. Before this week is out, spend five quiet minutes thanking God specifically for something He’s forgiven you for. Name it. Let it be real. That’s the soil everything else grows out of.

📎 Deeper reading: “Freedom Through the Truth and Power of Forgiveness” — https://bethedads.com/2024/02/freedom-through-the-truth-and-power-of-forgiveness/

2. Ask if there’s someone you need to forgive. Be honest with God about whether you’re carrying bitterness toward anyone — your wife, a parent, someone from your past. You don’t have to fix it all today. Just be honest about where you’re at. Consider writing down the name(s) and praying over them specifically this week.

📎 Deeper reading: “Forgiveness — The Power and Freedom That Come From It” (covers what the symptoms of unforgiveness look like, and how Matthew 18 calls us out of them) — https://from2005toeternity.wordpress.com/2025/10/20/forgiveness-the-power-and-freedom-that-come-from-it/

3. Have one conversation with your wife. Ask her: “Is there anything between us that I haven’t fully owned or asked forgiveness for?” You may not get a big answer. But asking the question opens a door that a lot of marriages need opened.
4. Do something intentional with your kids this week. When a conflict comes up — and one will — try responding with grace instead of frustration. Afterward, if it goes well, name it out loud: “Dad made a mistake and I had to ask forgiveness for that.” Let them see the whole cycle.

📎 Deeper reading: “Sowing Faith: How Dads Can Cultivate a God-Centered Family” (how the everyday moments of forgiveness become seeds of faith in your kids) — https://bethedads.com/2024/10/sowing-faith-how-dads-can-cultivate-a-god-centered-family/

5. Pray instead of replay. The next time you catch yourself mentally rehearsing an old offense — replaying what someone said, what they did, how they let you down — stop and pray for that person instead. Even one sentence. God, I’m giving this to You. That’s a practice worth starting this week.

🎯 DAD CHALLENGE OF THE WEEK

The Forgiveness Forward Challenge

What it is: Identify one person — in your marriage, your family, or your past — that you’ve been holding something against. It doesn’t have to be a dramatic betrayal. It could be an old argument, a disappointment that never got fully released, or a pattern of bitterness that’s been quietly living in the background. This week, take one step toward releasing it.

Why it matters: Your kids don’t need a perfect dad. But they do need a dad who knows what to do with hurt — who shows them that grace is stronger than grudges, and that God can be trusted with justice. The most important thing you can model isn’t that you never get wronged. It’s what you do when you are.

Simple script — what to say to your kids at dinner or bedtime:

“Hey, I want to tell you something Dad has been thinking about. Forgiveness is one of the hardest things Jesus asks us to do. But you know what? God forgave me for everything — even the stuff I’m ashamed of. So when someone hurts me, my job is to forgive them the same way. Not because they deserve it. Because I didn’t deserve it either, and God forgave me anyway. That’s what I want our family to be known for.”

If there’s someone in your home you owe an apology to, let that conversation happen this week too. Don’t wait for a perfect moment.

🙏 CLOSING PRAYER

Father, thank You for the kind of forgiveness that doesn’t keep score. Thank You that when we came to You with a debt we could never repay, You didn’t renegotiate — You wiped it clean through Jesus. That changes everything.

We confess that we don’t always lead our homes out of that reality. We keep records. We replay offenses. We let bitterness take root in places where grace is supposed to grow.

Tonight, we ask You to soften us. Remind us what we’ve been forgiven. Give us the courage to extend that same mercy to the people who need it most — the ones who share our table and our roof.

God, make us dads who forgive well, because we’ve been forgiven much. Let that be the legacy we leave — not perfect fathers, but forgiven ones who pass grace forward.

In the name of Jesus, who paid every debt we ever owed — Amen.

📋 LEADER NOTES

Key Themes to Emphasize

• Forgiveness begins with humility — recognizing your own debt before measuring anyone else’s.
• Forgiveness is an act of the will, not a feeling. Emotions often catch up later.
• The distinction between forgiveness and reconciliation is critical — especially for anyone in the group who has experienced abuse or serious betrayal.
• God is a better judge than we are. Releasing justice to Him is not giving up; it’s trusting Someone more qualified.

What to Watch For

• Deep wounds in the room. This topic will hit some men in the group at a level you won’t see coming. Divorce, estrangement from a parent, a betrayal they haven’t told anyone about. Hold the space gently. You don’t have to fix anything — just make sure no one leaves feeling alone in it.
• The “but what they did was really bad” response. Acknowledge it. The sermon acknowledged it. Don’t minimize real pain — but don’t let the group get stuck rehearsing offenses instead of wrestling with the call.
• Men who need to hear they’re not the villain in their own story. Some dads carry guilt they’ve never resolved. For them, the starting point isn’t forgiving others — it’s receiving God’s forgiveness themselves. Be ready to sit with that.
• The forgiveness vs. reconciliation distinction. It will come up. Be prepared to be clear: forgiving someone does not mean removing consequences, restoring trust immediately, or allowing abuse to continue. Wisdom and grace can coexist.

Timing Guide

Handout Resources

🎥 Story Slam — The Power of Forgiveness (Phil’s personal story — share as a pre-session or post-session resource) https://youtu.be/tOHCePoPlPo?si=huZzcCl0CnwkxQZe

📝 Monday Sermon Reflection (From2005toEternity — Day 138, includes full sermon summary) https://from2005toeternity.wordpress.com/2026/05/18/lets-get-it-started-stepping-into-a-new-day-with-unknowns/

📝 Forgiveness — The Power and Freedom That Come From It (From2005toEternity — deep Matthew 18 study on bitterness and freedom) https://from2005toeternity.wordpress.com/2025/10/20/forgiveness-the-power-and-freedom-that-come-from-it/

📝 Love Slows Down – Day 3 (BeTheDads — forgiveness & Ephesians 4:31–32, includes Story Slam link) https://bethedads.com/2022/04/love-slows-down-day-3/

📝 Forgiveness: Planting Faith and Reaping Love (BeTheDads) https://bethedads.com/2024/09/forgiveness-planting-faith-and-reaping-love/

📝 Being Fathered by God – Day 8 (BeTheDads — forgiveness, faith, and Luke 17) https://bethedads.com/2022/07/being-fathered-by-god-day-8/

📝 Redeeming Dads: Embracing Forgiveness for A Powerful Fatherhood (BeTheDads) https://bethedads.com/2024/02/redeeming-dads-embracing-forgiveness-for-a-powerful-fatherhood/

📝 Sowing Faith: How Dads Can Cultivate a God-Centered Family (BeTheDads — Luke 7:47 and the connection between forgiveness and legacy) https://bethedads.com/2024/10/sowing-faith-how-dads-can-cultivate-a-god-centered-family/

📝 Forgiveness – Faithful Dads Rise: Unlock Hope Today (BeTheDads) https://bethedads.com/2026/01/forgiveness-faithful-dads-rise-unlock-hope-today/

📝 Freedom Through the Truth and Power of Forgiveness (BeTheDads) https://bethedads.com/2024/02/freedom-through-the-truth-and-power-of-forgiveness/

“God doesn’t require perfect dads — He uses faithful ones.” — BeTheDads

BeTheDads Small Group Session 16 | Series: The Stories of Jesus | bethedads.com