Sin and Your Junior Higher, Part 2

May, 2007

by: Jay Underwood

A few months ago I started a new series called “Sin and Your Jr. Higher.” Unfortunately, this will now have to be a seriously shortened series! The first and only article so far was about the fact that yes, dear parents, your Jr. Higher is a sinner. I know this was probably hard for many of you to swallow, but those who are unsaved are sinners and those who may be saved are also sinners. Now because of time, we are going to skip ahead in our study and answer the question, “What is the astonished parent to do about their Jr. Higher’s sin?” To do this we’ll focus on first the unsaved and then the saved Jr. High son or daughter.

First the unsaved. What does the unsaved Jr. Higher need most of all? That’s right, salvation! They need to be confronted with the Gospel over and over and over again. They need to heart it from you their parents, their youth leaders; from anybody in their life who is a believer. And they need to hear it often. God may choose to save them after the first hearing, the 50th or the 1,000th so press on and never feel like you’re a broken record—you’re not, for the Gospel “is the power of God for salvation” (Rom 1:16). Now just because they are not saved doesn’t mean that you don’t discipline for their sin, but more on that later.

Second, the saved. Even if you’re pretty sure that your Jr. Higher is saved, they are still a sinner (1 Jn 1:8). What’s a Jr. High parent to do? Here’s four steps you can follow to help your Jr. Higher conquer their sin. When someone comes to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ through repentance and belief, Christ’s work on the cross satisfies God’s justice for all sin, past, present and future but they are still called to continually confess their sins to God (1 Jn 1:9). This would be the first step with your Jr. Higher. Help them to understand what their sin is (the last review article) and that because of their sin they have offended a perfect, holy and righteous God and they need to confess their sins to Him.

The second step would be to encourage them to confess their sin to any other person they have offended or sinned against. Along with this, they need to right any wrongs; i.e. if they’ve stolen something, return it; if they’ve cheated someone, pay them back; if they have been lying about homework and haven't done it, they need to catch up and turn it in. You get the idea.

The third step is about repentance or doing a 180 degree turn around; to literally turn away from something. This means to put off sin and put on righteousness (Rom 6:4-14; Eph 4:20-24). You need to take your son or daughter to these passages and show them that now that they are a Christian, they have the power to say no to sin and yes to righteousness. This is due to the fact that now they are new creatures in Christ (2 Cor 5:17) with the Holy Spirit indwelling them (Jn 14:16-17; Acts 2:38); they are no longer children of wrath that have to live in the lusts of their flesh (Eph 2:2).

The fourth step is whatever discipline you as their parent need to impose on them. Discipline literally means “to teach” and can be the toughest step for parents. It often seems to be tougher on us to discipline them than it does for them to be disciplined! Remember that discipline is Biblical—even God disciplines us! Read Hebrews 12:4-11 for a great exposition on why God disciplines us—there is a reason and it has to do with yielding “the peaceful fruit of righteousness” (Heb 12:11)! Likewise, we are commanded to discipline our children (Prov 22:6, 15; 13:24; 23:13-14) for the same reason.

The question then becomes how do you discipline and are you consistent in your discipline (this should be applied to the unbelieving as well as the believing)? Discipline has to be tough enough that it makes a serious impact on your Jr. Higher, whether that be through “the rod” or by taking away privileges, grounding, etc. You have to know what matters most to your Jr. Higher and be willing to follow through no matter how much whining, crying, or pleading they do. Some parents, for instance, could use the consequence of their child not being allowed to play in a sports game but they won’t go through with it because it affects their pleasure as well. So figure out what consequences have the biggest impact and stick by them (even if it affects your own enjoyment—after all what’s more important?). Lastly, be consistent. Don’t wait until things get out of hand before you kick in with the discipline but let discipline be the rule of the day and of course, let the punishment fit the crime.