Little Sins
Little Sins
Middle & High School Students
3.5 / 3.12 / 3.19 / 3.26
Little Sins is a four-session sermon series that will confront your students’ misbelief that there are such things as “little” sins. By discussing four sins they are sometimes tempted to see as less severe than others, Little Sins will challenge your students to see all sins as equally destructive and urge them to love God and their neighbor more sincerely.
Series Overview: When it comes to the sins in our lives, we’ll find any reason to make them not seem as bad as they really are. That’s how we end up with “big” sins like murder or adultery and “little” sins like gossip, pride, anger, and envy. Even though we can try to excuse these “little” sins away, the reality is that all sins are equally destructive to our relationships with God, our neighbors, and even ourselves. To rightly pursue holiness, righteousness, and love, we need to recognize sin for what it is – no matter how big or small we think it may be.
Week 1 – Gossip (Proverbs 18:21) | Gossip can seem harmless on the surface. What the person we’re gossiping about doesn’t know won’t hurt them, right? When we view gossip as a little sin, we run the risk of corrupting ourselves and everyone around us, not just the person we’re gossiping about. So instead, we should use our words to give life and build others up because that is the way of Jesus.
Week 2 – Pride (Romans 3:19-20, 27) | Pride might be one of the sneakiest little sins. It can manifest itself in many ways and can harden our hearts before we realize it. The Bible is clear that God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble, but what can we do to make sure that pride isn’t taking root in our lives? In order to combat pride, we need to have faith in God alone and make others more important than ourselves.
Week 3 – Anger (Ephesians 4:26-27) | Paul says that we should be angry yet not sin. So anger may not be a sin in and of itself, but it can become sinful depending on why we’re angry and how we respond to our anger. Anger can be devastating to our lives and the lives of others if we’re not careful, so we must learn to analyze our anger and rightly order our love.
Week 4 – Envy (James 4:1-3) | Comparison really is a thief of joy. When we compare ourselves to the people around us, we can quickly become discontent with our gifts, and that discontentment turns into envy, which only leads to resentment for everyone around us. So envy may seem like a little, internal sin, but it actually makes it impossible to love God, our neighbor, or ourselves.
iGroups give teenagers the chance to go deeper in relationships as part of a consistent, dedicated group that meets at GZi each week. iGroups allow students to make friends, build safe relationships and navigate faith and life together. In addition, students have opportunities to participate in fun outings throughout the year.