Receiving Grace from Others
Receives grace and forgiveness from other members of the family.
Having prepared our hearts to receive grace from one another, we are still in need of working on the way in which we intellectually understand and accept the grace given to us. We are amazing at rationalizing our actions to our benefit. Talk to your kids about how the window got broken and you might hear a story that does everything other than taking direct ownership for what happened. Just like our sinful hearts struggle with wanting to accept the truth of our sinful nature, our heads are likely also to struggle with individual instances of sin.
When our kids insist on saying to us “I didn’t do it” can often translate to “I didn’t mean to.” They may not even understand our insistence that they admit that they did in fact do what we may well have just witnessed them do. “Who left the light on?” This seems like a simple question. Just own up to what happened with transparent honesty and we can move forward, but our children may not be prepared to do so. They may not be ready to acknowledge that what they did was indeed something that they need to admit to. They may want to set the relationship right between us, but not comprehend what it takes to do so.
As parents, it can be frustrating to stand ready to give grace and forgiveness only to watch out kids double down, insisting and rationalizing their way out of or around the details of what took place. When reading 1 John 1, I wonder if John had an understanding of what it is like to be a parent when we wrote:
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:5-10)
Having just pointed us once again back to the beginning, as John did in starting out his gospel, he then begins to explore the nature of truth and its relationship to our lives as disciples of Christ. Have you ever tried walking in darkness? Does not work too well, does it? Many kids insist upon having a nightlight to avoid sleeping at night in total darkness. We rely upon the light in order to see and understand what is around us. God’s Word illuminates our hearts and minds allowing us the light to see the truth of our sin and God’s grace freely offered to us.
It would seem foolish to remain willfully in the dark, with the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ there available to us, yet when we are in rationalization mode, that is just what we do. When our kids want to make sure that the night light is on they demonstrate that they know better. If you have ever gotten out of bed in the middle of the night and stubbed your toe, you know the truth. You “know” where everything is. Nothing has moved since you went to bed, yet here you are stumbling about in the dark doing damage to your feet and possibly waking others up in the process, all because you needed a quick trip to the bathroom at 3:30 am.
We lie. It is at times just that simple. We lie to each other and to ourselves. While in the dark, the truth is not in us. We need to light from the Word of God to continually bring us back to the truth. Notice in verse 7 the connection between our relationship with one another and our practice of walking in the light of the Gospel. When we are stumbling in the dark, we are not able to manage truthful and honest relationships with one another let alone ultimately with God. John stresses the need for confession as has been discussed already and how we make God out to be a liar when we insist that we have not sinned.
This is the very transaction under consideration when working through many issues with our kids. When they try to rationalize their way around their sin, the sin in question sets down in the middle of our relationship, interfering with our ability to be honest and truly open with one another. Like God, we know that they are attempting in their own way to make us out to be a liar in their denial. Just like any of our attempts to avoid the truth of sin in our lives before God, our kids attempt to avoid facing the truth of what they did does in no way change reality, it merely postpones the ability for us all to move past and restore the damage done.
When our kids struggle to take ownership and face up to their sin by rationalizing their sin as if it were not sin, we need to help them look more clear-eyed at the reality of the broken relationship as well as any other direct consequences of their sin. Coming back to the light that was left on, yes, I have become that dad. I spend too much of my time turning things off around the house in order to save electricity. I don’t entirely know how I became the dad, but maybe paying the bills or knowing the costs has convinced me that a well-light room with no one in it is not the best use of resources, both energy and financial.
When I chose instead of just turning off the light to ask who left it on, I am not hoping to be told by everyone in the house that they are all innocent of the offense. Really, I am not upset about the light being left on. The denial is far worse than the forgotten light. I just want to remind the culprit to make sure to turn off the light and for the future remember on his own to turn off the light upon leaving the room. (Really the same goes for TVs as well. There have been times, I’ve come home to 2 TVs left on and no one watching. The boys are instead on their computers. Seriously!) I am perfectly ready to let the whole incident go if I only were to hear “Oh, sorry. I’ll go turn it off.” There really is no actual sin in leaving the light on. It is only when denial kicks in that parental frustration and sin enter in. We might paraphrase 1 John 1:9 as “If we confess our sins, mom and dad are faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Recognition and acceptance that our kids' sin is their sin is the beginning of their ability to restore their relationship with God and with us. We can model forgiveness by talking them through this transaction. Stressing their need to avoid trying to rationalize or avoid owning their sin, but rather to confess and seek forgiveness. Then we can help them learn to receive grace from ourselves and others.
