Transcript
I want to talk about the relationship between forgiveness and authority, but I want to say something about the Bible that is our guide. I say this a lot, but it bears repeating. I don't know if you've thought of this or not, but your Bible isn't arranged by topic. If you're interested in good biblical parenting, you can't just go to the passages that have the word "parent" in them or "children" in them and learn everything you need to know about parenting because the Bible isn't arranged that way.
Every Passage Shows Me Myself and God
It really is if every passage shows me something about myself and something about God and something about life in this fallen world, something about the disaster of sin and the operation of grace, then every passage tells me something about everything in my life. That's the way the Bible works and so, what's the relationship between authority and forgiveness? Some parents tend to think forgiveness is a compromise of authority.
Now, if you think about scripture, God is the ultimate picture of what forgiveness is about. In fact, the Bible says something shocking, that He remembers our sin against us no more. That's amazing. Because of His redeeming work, He literally turns his back on our iniquity. That's a beautiful thing, but never, ever does that compromise His Lordship or His authority.
In fact, this is really important to understand, parents. One of God's means of communicating and expressing His unchallenged authority is by forgiving us. He has the right to forgive. He has the power to forgive. He has the throne from which forgiveness flows. Forgiveness is not a contradiction of His authority. It's an expression of it and you see, part of what you want to do is have your children love your authority, love the way it's expressed, love the results of that authority.
And one of the ways that you lead children to love your authority is to hold high God's law while you hold high His forgiveness; and so, you don't build an attitude against your children. You don't break relationship with your children. You don't grow bitter against your children. You don't treat your children in light of their sin. Oh, do you get rid of the rules? No, you don't, but you exercise that authority in a spirit of forgiveness; and it's as authority and forgiveness meet that conviction, and change takes place.
