Teaching Youth About Our Sinful Nature
In this series, How to Teach Difficult Doctrines, we’ll be offering reflections about how youth workers can teach and talk about difficult doctrines and issues. Some are challenging because they’re confusing, others because they’re controversial, and some because they’re simply difficult for youth to accept.
Helping young believers understand who they are is a central aspect of discipleship. As youth leaders, we should strive for biblical clarity when speaking into issues related to the nature of humanity, especially as our culture’s understanding of the self rapidly changes. We should seize every opportunity to reaffirm the key Scriptural truths that help build a proper foundation for understanding human identity. Failure to help students in this task could detrimentally shape their view of the gospel and, as a result, greatly stunt their spiritual growth.
One significant doctrinal component surrounding identity concerns sin and its effects on the human person. A true perspective on self must include an accurate awareness of what is often referred to as our “sin nature.” Using the term depravity as synonymous with the concept of a sin nature, R. Stanton Norman defines it as “the sinfulness, corruption, or pollution of one’s nature.” (A Theology for the Church, p.368) As he explains, “Our essential nature is corrupted; our relationships with God and others are disrupted. No capacity of our unregenerate nature is free from the pollution of sinful corruption.”
Essentially, our sin nature is comprehensive. While Scripture does not teach that humans are equally sinful, that every person engages in every form of sin, or that sinners are as sinful as they possibly can be, total depravity does mean that every dimension of our humanity has been corrupted by sin. Needless to say, this is certainly not a doctrine that is fun to teach! After all, such weighty matters can be difficult for students to reconcile with.
I’d like to offer six truths about our sin nature that will help you teach students this important but difficult doctrine.
1. We aren’t sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners
Sometimes we can place so much emphasis on sinful actions that we fail to deal with the root cause of our sinful nature. In reflecting on his own sin, David professed, “I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5). True repentance only happens when we acknowledge the reality that the sinful things we’ve done flow out of who we are as fallen people. We were born into sin, and sinful acts are the symptoms of this deeper issue within us. Our nature is the spring from which our actions emerge.
2. Sin breaks our fellowship with God
Paul writes in Ephesians 4 that “Gentiles,” or those outside of Christ, are “alienated from the life of God” (v. 18). In Romans 3:10-20, Paul strings together several quotes from the Old Testament to summarize the condition of fallen humanity. He says, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God” (v. 10b-11). Paul’s point is that our sinful nature keeps us from peace with God. In other words, sin has broken our fellowship with God.
3. The greatest need of every person is the miracle of regeneration
Paul reminds the believers who they were before their conversion by describing them as “dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked” (Eph. 2:1-2a). In Titus, he clarifies that salvation is “not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to [God’s] own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.” (3:5). Understanding our sinful nature helps students comprehend two crucial truths: salvation is wholly a gift of God, “not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:9), and those outside of Christ cannot love God or live a life pleasing to him because they are incapable of both without the Holy Spirit working in their hearts.
4. In Christ, believers will continue to battle against sin, but not without hope!
While it is true that sin affects every part of who we are, the redemption that we have in Jesus is even greater! The new reality for the believer is spelled out by Paul in Romans 6:6, “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.” He goes on to write in v. 11 that believers “also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus,” before commanding, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions” in v. 12. Although the reality for believers is that we are dead to sin and alive to God through the finished work of Jesus, sin is not yet absent from us. Because we are united to Christ and have received the Holy Spirit we now have the capacity to resist sin and to live in a manner that’s pleasing to God.
5. Our hearts are unreliable guides
We often want to believe that whatever feels the most natural to us is true. But as the prophet Jeremiah put it, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (17:9). Our emotions and feelings often seem like reliable guides, compelling us to submit to them as a natural response. But Jesus countered this sentiment when He said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matt. 16:24; Mar. 8:34; Luk. 9:23). We should continually remind young believers that we must be skeptical of even our strongest emotions and desires, being careful to always measure them against the perfect standard of God’s Word.
6. Our struggle against sin is temporary
As we help students grow in awareness of their sin nature, we can also confidently proclaim that the Christian’s sin nature has an expiration date. We need that encouragement during our struggles against it. We can all feel Paul’s anguish when he declares, “I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing! Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom. 7:18-19, 24). But we should also rejoice in the glorious truth that, “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through the Spirit who dwells in you” (Rom. 8:11). We are more than conquerors because of Christ, which means we press on in victory over our sin, knowing that even though we struggle to live out our calling now, one day, we will struggle no more.
Remember, the goal is not to try to cram all of these points into a single lesson. But if you pay close attention to each and every passage you study in preparation to teach, you will find many opportunities to highlight one or more of these points. Intentionality in drawing attention to how the Scriptures reveal the truth of our sin nature will help students develop a good understanding of themselves and of the redemptive work that the Spirit continues to work within them. Only then can we expect young believers to press more deeply into Christ and onward toward maturity in him.