Pastor Hector Boucet

What do you do with the pain someone left inside you? Pastor Boucet opens a four-week journey into forgiveness — not as a feeling, but as a decision that breaks the chains of bitterness before they break you.

There are people who show up to church with a smile on their face — and years of pain behind it. People who have been betrayed by those they trusted most, abandoned by the ones who should have stayed, and wounded by the very hands that were supposed to protect them. Pastor Boucet opened this message by naming that reality plainly: unforgiveness does not stay quiet. It grows. It becomes poison. And left unaddressed, it will imprison everything GOD wants to build in your future.

The foundation of this entire series rests on a single, sobering truth: many people desperately want mercy from GOD while refusing to release forgiveness to others. That gap — between the grace we receive and the grace we withhold — is exactly where spiritual freedom is won or lost. Pastor Boucet anchored the night in Ephesians 4:32 and Matthew 18:21–35, calling the congregation to see that forgiven people must become forgiving people.

“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as GOD in CHRIST forgave you.”

Ephesians 4:32

Pastor Boucet went straight to Matthew 18 — the parable of the unforgiving servant — to show exactly what it looks like when a person receives mercy without allowing it to transform them. A servant is forgiven an impossible debt by the king, then immediately turns around and chokes a fellow servant over a fraction of what he himself owed. The message was unmistakable: we were sinners, guilty, separated from GOD, and yet JESUS forgave us completely. Not halfway. Not with conditions attached. HE washed us. HE restored us. HE gave us another chance.

When you truly understand how much grace GOD extended to you — the cross was not cheap forgiveness, it was costly mercy — it becomes harder to withhold that same grace from someone else. The cross changes the math entirely. And that is what Pastor Boucet called the congregation to reckon with: not just what was done to you, but what was done for you.

“If you have been forgiven much, you must forgive much.”

Matthew 18:21–35

“Forgiveness is not saying what they did was acceptable. Forgiveness is refusing to let a poison remain in your spirit.”

— Pastor Hector Boucet

Pastor Boucet was direct about what happens when unforgiveness is left to grow unchecked inside a person. It is not neutral. It does not stay still. Unforgiveness creates spiritual heaviness. It produces anger. It builds distance from GOD. And when the distance from GOD grows — Pastor Boucet asked the congregation plainly — who is waiting to move in? The enemy does not announce himself. He enters quietly, through bitterness, through resentment, through the wounds we refuse to bring to the altar.

The servant in the parable who refused to forgive ended up imprisoned — and that image is not accidental. Unforgiveness imprisons the one who holds it. Broken relationships, emotional torment, a choked prayer life — these are the fruit of a heart that has been wounded and has chosen to hold on rather than release. JESUS did not leave that on the cross as theory. HE taught it, modeled it, and then demonstrated it fully at Calvary, forgiving those who crucified HIM while the nails were still in HIS hands.

“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Luke 23:34

JESUS said those words not from a place of safety — but from the cross, with wounds in HIS hands and feet. If HE could forgive in that moment, the standard HE sets for us is not a small one. It is total. It is complete. And it is made possible only because the HOLY SPIRIT empowers what our flesh cannot accomplish on its own.

Pastor Boucet closed the first session of this series with a distinction that many in the room needed to hear: forgiveness does not erase the memory immediately. It does not mean what happened to you was okay. It does not mean the pain vanishes overnight. But what it does — what it accomplishes in the spirit — is remove the control that wound has over your life. You may still remember the pain. But you no longer have to live chained to it.

That is the gift of forgiveness. Not just to the person being forgiven — but to the one who chooses to forgive. It is the moment the poison loses its power. It is the moment the prison door opens. And it is a choice that cannot be made by willpower alone — it must be made with the HOLY SPIRIT, surrendered to FATHER GOD, through the finished work of KING JESUS.

“Unforgiveness will imprison your future. Bitterness will choke your prayer life. Pain will harden your heart if it is not surrendered to GOD.”

Pastor Hector Boucet

This is only the beginning. Three more sessions remain in this forgiveness series, and Pastor Boucet made clear that the goal is not just information — it is transformation. What stays in your heart is what matters. And what stays in your heart will eventually show in your life. The invitation tonight was simple: stop carrying what JESUS already paid to take from you. Choose forgiveness — not by your own strength, but by the power of the HOLY SPIRIT. Watch the full message below and let GOD continue the work HE started in this room.

Watch the Full Sermon

Hear Pastor Hector Boucet preach Forgiven People Forgive People live at The Gathering Church · May 12, 2026.

Reflect & Respond

Is there someone in your life you have been refusing to forgive — and what would it feel like to finally let GOD take the poison out of your spirit?