Should We Talk to Kids About Sin?

I once had a supervisor tell me, “Don’t talk to the kids at church about sin.”

Those of us that minster to kids don’t like to think of kids as sinners. We do what we do because we love kids. We love their hunger, and we love their “innocence.”

If we are honest with ourselves, however, we will admit that we tend to think of the kids in our class as either good or bad.

Some kids obey the rules, and some kids constantly challenge the boundaries. Both groups of kids, the compliant and the rebellious, are lost without Christ.

We reward the kids who demonstrate good behavior and punish the bad ones; however, if we look at the ministry of Jesus, He went out of His way to spend time with the bad kids.

Some churches talk too much to kids about sin, but it is usually designed to get kids to change their behavior.

Big Mistake!

We should talk to kids about sin, not to get them to change, but to lead them to Christ and let the Holy Spirit work in them.

On the other hand, many churches don’t talk to kids about sin at all. They will talk about virtues and the importance of obeying their parents, but this can leave kids with the impression that they can be good without Christ.

It is my sin that nailed Jesus to the cross.

If I do not have an understanding of my sin and the price that Jesus paid, I will not experience the grace of God. In other words, there is no understanding of grace if there is no preaching about sin. The whole point of talking to kids about sin is to lead them to Christ.

You want your kids to come to the end of themselves. You want them to have that feeling of “I can’t measure up” so you can tell them the good news. Jesus paid the price for your sins.

Read the first three chapters of Romans. If you stop reading halfway through chapter three, it’s depressing how messed up the world is, but beginning with verse 21, it begins to talk about the good news: how Jesus paid the price for our sin.

We need to walk our kids through this same experience, but it’s not as simple as “pray this prayer with me.” Our kids need to truly experience the grace of God for themselves.

When my son, Marky, was eight years old, I was scolding him for being mean to his sister. He looked at me with tears and said, “It’s too hard, Dad.”

“What’s too hard?”

“It’s too hard not to sin,” he responded.

When he said that, I realized I had an opportunity to talk to him about the grace of God.

Yes, talk to your kids about sin, but make sure your motives are right.

• Don’t talk about sin to get them to behave. That’s the law, and it doesn’t work.
• Don’t talk about sin to punish them.
• Talk to your kids about sin to lead them to Christ.

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Romans 6:23