Transcript
So we're talking about grace-based parenting and the first thing I want to do is I want to clear up a misunderstanding. Approaching your children with grace is not minimizing wrong. It's never saying that wrong is right. Think with me. If wrong were right, grace wouldn't be necessary. The first thing grace does is say that wrong is wrong.
God Held His Standard High
When God responded to us in grace, He didn't say to us, "Okay, your sin's fine and forget My law. We'll just hang out." No, He held His standard of His law high. He held the reality of sin high and sent His Son to pay the penalty for our sin. Grace always takes wrong seriously, but what grace does is it's a particular approach to sin that is very, very different.
And I want to talk about the heart of this. The thing that is amazing as you read through scripture, as you see the operation of God's grace, the thing that hits you is His astounding patience. I always think of this when I read the prophets and God sends prophet after prophet after prophet after prophet to essentially say the same thing, and you think this God is incredibly patient.
You see, here's I think the problem for us is we want change to be an event and not a process. I want to walk in. I want to say to my child, "You know that was wrong," and I want my child immediately say, "You're right. I have a sinful heart. I'm [an] idolater. I worship all the wrong things and, therefore, I was disrespectful to you and I will never ever do this again. I will be an obedient, respectful child. Thank you and good night."
It just never happens that way. It's this slow, moving work of grace, where God is going to give me opportunity after opportunity to see the sin of my child, to talk about that in a biblical way, to help him to understand God's better way, to pray the gospel down into his heart. I do that again and again and again and again; and every time I'm doing that, the Spirit of God is working in the heart of my child.
Committed to the Process of Grace
You got to be committed to the process of grace. Change is almost never an event. Change is almost always a process. Now, isn't it wonderful the heavenly Father is patient with His children? God's still working on me. He hasn't gotten mad and walked away. He hasn't thrown me out of the family.
And so, my job as a parent is to make the invisible patience of God visible in the life of my children. I'm meant to represent His patient grace, willing to have this conversation again, willing to talk about the same issue again, willing to forgive again, willing to graciously discipline again, willing to correct again, never getting mad, never taking that personally.
Now, what you have to say is this. None of us can do this. I have no ability to be patient like that. I'm an incredibly impatient person, so if I'm going to be a tool of God's patient grace, I desperately need His patient grace in my life. I need to seek that grace again and again and again and, thankfully, that grace is available to me because He is for me, He is in me, and He is with me in every moment of my parenting.
