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Parenting out of the Gospel, Part 3

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How it looks when we parent out of the Gospel

What about you, the Christian parent? Do you feel that God loves you, or loves you more when you are obedient or self-controlled? Do you sense that he is more pleased with you when you successfully fight sin? Or do you ever feel like you have less of a right to go to him in prayer or song if you have done some bad things?  

“If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.” Psalm 130:3-4.

Parents, if you answered “yes” to any of the above questions it may reflect a desire to justify yourself (and your children) by the law. The bad news is that there is never a time that we have any right to fellowship with God based on the good we have done. The good news is that in Christ there is never a time we cannot fellowship with God, even when we sin and repent. God is the perfect parent who comes to his children on the basis of their sin and offers them forgiveness. Why? So that he would be feared. So that our hearts would melt and his love would transform them.  

Again, the main theme of the Bible is the work that Christ has done on our behalf. The good news of the gospel does not lead us to keep the checklist of holiness so that we might be acceptable to God. Instead, the Gospel leads us to embrace the areas we have failed so that we can ultimately embrace the one who has not failed, Jesus Christ. As we live in the grace and forgiveness of Jesus, his love transforms us. As we embrace Jesus, God is pleased with him and he is pleased with us, in that order.

Give Them Grace is a fitting title to this book because it highlights the first priority in parenting. If our parenting is truly shaped by the gospel of Jesus, we recognize that our children cannot live up to any standard of holiness, rather, they constantly need to be affirmed and accepted in their inability to please God. Accepting our children for who they really are (lawbreakers) is giving them grace. And grace is meant to lead them to repentance and faith in Jesus, the one who kept the rules for them, the one who is able to transform them through his love.

So lets go back to Jonah. It is wrong to conclude that the application of the story was that “we should obey God or else we will be punished.” What would a Gospel-centered application be? How about this: “we too are like Jonah who does not want to obey God. We too are like the Ninevites who need to be forgiven even though they don’t deserve it. God is so kind and merciful to us he sent his only son to die on the cross and spend three days in a very dark place, in the grave. He did this to pay for our sins. But then he rose from the dead so that he would make us good and we could go and tell others about how loving he is.” (Adapted from Give Them Grace, 37-38)

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