3-5s
Theme: God makes an amazing promise – that He will
forgive sin and enable us to know Him
Aim: That they realise that this is a wonderful
promise, that its fulfilled in Jesus, and that they trust this promise.
Big Idea – Look to Jesus
(big glasses with Jesus written on)
Intro:
Set a party scene with table cloth and streamers and banners. Get them to
colour a party hat to begin with.
Story with pictures:
[Slide 1]The Lord says,
“The time is coming when I will help the families of Israel
and Judah
and their children and animals to grow.
[Slide 2] In the past I
watched over Israel and Judah, to pull
them up and tear them down, to destroy them and bring them disaster. But now I
will watch over them to build them up and make them strong,” says the Lord.
[Slide 3] “Look, the time is coming,” says the
Lord,
“when I will make a new agreement
with the people of Israel
and the people of Judah.
It will not be like the agreement
I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
to bring them out of Egypt.
I was a husband to them,
but they broke that agreement,” says the Lord.
“This is the agreement I will make
with the people of Israel at that time,” says the Lord:
[Slide 4] “I will put my teachings in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
[Slide 5] People will no longer have to teach their neighbors and relatives
to know the Lord,
because all people will know me,
from the least to the most important,” says the Lord.
[Slide 6] “I will forgive them for the wicked things they did,
and I will not remember their sins anymore.”
“when I will make a new agreement
with the people of Israel
and the people of Judah.
It will not be like the agreement
I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
to bring them out of Egypt.
I was a husband to them,
but they broke that agreement,” says the Lord.
“This is the agreement I will make
with the people of Israel at that time,” says the Lord:
[Slide 4] “I will put my teachings in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
[Slide 5] People will no longer have to teach their neighbors and relatives
to know the Lord,
because all people will know me,
from the least to the most important,” says the Lord.
[Slide 6] “I will forgive them for the wicked things they did,
and I will not remember their sins anymore.”
The Lord makes the sun
shine in the day
and the moon and stars to shine at night.
He stirs up the sea so that its waves crash on the shore.
The Lord All-Powerful is his name.
and the moon and stars to shine at night.
He stirs up the sea so that its waves crash on the shore.
The Lord All-Powerful is his name.
Recap:
Do you remember how
Jeremiah had a really sad message for God’s people? They were going to be taken
away from their home and have to live in a far away land for 70 years because
God was angry with them.
Bible teaching:
Well…what’s this? [another
leader hands an envelope] It’s an invitation! To a party! I love parties. This
is an invitation to the best party ever! After all the horrible things that had
been happening to God’s people, this is brilliant! Even though God’s people had
messed up really badly and disobeyed God, He still longs for them to be living
under His wonderful rule forever.
Let’s listen to Jeremiah’s
wonderful message:
“The time is coming when I
will help the families of Israel
and Judah
and their children and animals to grow. In the past I watched over Israel and Judah, to pull them up and tear
them down, to destroy them and bring them disaster. But now I will watch over
them to build them up and make them strong,” says the Lord.
That sounds great. God is
going to rebuild their homes that had been destroyed. But that’s only a bit of
what God tells them to look forward to. It gets better. God makes a new
agreement with the people, a better agreement, it’s called a covenant.
Jeremiah said: “This is
the agreement I will make
with the people of Israel at that time,” says the Lord:
“I will put my teachings in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
People will no longer have to teach their neighbors and relatives
to know the Lord,
because all people will know me,
from the least to the most important,”
with the people of Israel at that time,” says the Lord:
“I will put my teachings in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
People will no longer have to teach their neighbors and relatives
to know the Lord,
because all people will know me,
from the least to the most important,”
God says that anyone can
know Him totally. He will help them to live His way. Those who love God will want
to do things His way and will hate doing things wrong.
Not only that, God then
said,
“I will forgive them for
the wicked things they did, and I will not remember their sins anymore.”
How amazing, all those
terrible things that the people had done could be forgiven.
This is all about Jesus.
Jeremiah is promising a day when Jesus will come and die on the cross for us,
so that we might be forgiven. When Jesus will send the Holy Spirit to help us
to live for Him. And when one day we will go to the best party ever, in heaven
with the Lord Jesus. Only Jesus has made that possible, by dying so that we can
know God totally.
Craft:
- Make party invitations
- Make party hats
Songs:
- Heaven is a party (Johnny Burns from How Cool is that)
- He Died Upon the Cross (Colin Buchanan)
- Jesus Died for all the children
- No more tears (both from A Very, Very Big God)
----
5-11s
Theme: God makes an amazing promise – that He will
forgive sin and enable us to know Him
Aim: That they realise that this is a wonderful
promise, that its fulfilled in Jesus, and that they trust this promise.
Big Idea – Look to Jesus
(big glasses with Jesus written on)
Intro:
Set a party scene with table cloth and streamers and banners. Get them to
colour a party hat to begin with.
Or recap the previous
weeks ideas: Look around, look back, look to the future, look up, don’t look.
(could do as Captain’s Coming style game)
Story with pictures:
[Slide 1]The Lord says,
“The time is coming when I will help the families of Israel
and Judah
and their children and animals to grow.
[Slide 2] In the past I
watched over Israel and Judah, to pull
them up and tear them down, to destroy them and bring them disaster. But now I
will watch over them to build them up and make them strong,” says the Lord.
[Slide 3] “Look, the time is coming,” says the
Lord,
“when I will make a new agreement
with the people of Israel
and the people of Judah.
It will not be like the agreement
I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
to bring them out of Egypt.
I was a husband to them,
but they broke that agreement,” says the Lord.
“This is the agreement I will make
with the people of Israel at that time,” says the Lord:
[Slide 4] “I will put my teachings in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
[Slide 5] People will no longer have to teach their neighbors and relatives
to know the Lord,
because all people will know me,
from the least to the most important,” says the Lord.
[Slide 6] “I will forgive them for the wicked things they did,
and I will not remember their sins anymore.”
“when I will make a new agreement
with the people of Israel
and the people of Judah.
It will not be like the agreement
I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
to bring them out of Egypt.
I was a husband to them,
but they broke that agreement,” says the Lord.
“This is the agreement I will make
with the people of Israel at that time,” says the Lord:
[Slide 4] “I will put my teachings in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
[Slide 5] People will no longer have to teach their neighbors and relatives
to know the Lord,
because all people will know me,
from the least to the most important,” says the Lord.
[Slide 6] “I will forgive them for the wicked things they did,
and I will not remember their sins anymore.”
The Lord makes the sun
shine in the day
and the moon and stars to shine at night.
He stirs up the sea so that its waves crash on the shore.
The Lord All-Powerful is his name.
and the moon and stars to shine at night.
He stirs up the sea so that its waves crash on the shore.
The Lord All-Powerful is his name.
Talk
[Someone brings an
invitation]. I wonder what this is? [Open it]. Wow, I’ve been
invited to a party! I love parties – I
can’t wait. Wow, I’m really looking
forward to it already. It’s from a
really good friend of mine, but it doesn’t seem to say when it’s going to be,
it’ll be great – I’m so excited, I wonder when it is?
Who can tell me what you like about a party? Parties are
great and something that we all look forward to. Has anyone got a birthday coming up? Do you remember when that is? And are you looking forward to it? Well I’m really looking forward to this
party, it says there’s going to be cake and everything.
Do you know though, we have something even better to look forward
to than even the bestest, biggest party ever.
This week we’ve been hearing about what Jeremiah has been telling
to the people of Israel.
Have they been having a party and having fun? No, just the opposite. We've heard about how they have disobeyed God
and about how they are being punished for doing wrong things. I’m
sure all of us have been punished for doing wrong things and it’s not
nice. And it’s far worse when we do something wrong against God than
against our parents or against our teachers at school.
God is so much more important than our teachers, or our parents or
whoever looks after us. God made the whole world, everything in it. He made us and the Israelites, he had given
them everything they had. And the Israelites had an agreement with God
that they would love him and follow his rules.
But we’ve heard about how they broke that agreement. That’s what
they were being punished for. And we’ve had lots of sadness all week as
Jeremiah’s told us why things have been bad for the Israelites.
But in today’s true story from the bible God tells them that they
have something amazing to look forward to – even better than a party. The
Israelites were suffering a horrible time, and here God is telling them that
it’s going to get better.
In these verses Jeremiah gives them a really happy message from
God. Jeremiah tells us that they have a
great day to look forward to. On that day God's going to stop
punishing them. It will be the end of
their homes being destroyed and, instead, God’s going to build their homes back
up again.
Our passage starts with: The
Lord says, “The time is coming when I will help the families of Israel and Judah and their children and
animals to grow. In the past I watched over Israel
and Judah,
to pull them up and tear them down, to destroy them and bring them disaster.
But now I will watch over them to build them up and make them strong,” says the
Lord.
That sounds great. But that's only a bit of what God
tells them they can look forward to. It gets better. God makes a
new agreement with the people, a better agreement.
Jeremiah said: “This is the
agreement I will make with the people of Israel at that time,” says the
Lord: “I will put my teachings in their minds and write them on their hearts. I
will be their God, and they will be my people.
People will no longer have to teach their neighbours and relatives to know the Lord, because all people will know me, from the least to the most important,” says the Lord.
People will no longer have to teach their neighbours and relatives to know the Lord, because all people will know me, from the least to the most important,” says the Lord.
The people weren’t following God’s teachings and that’s why they
were being punished. But God says he’s
going to write his teachings, how they should live and who God is, on their
hearts.
That’s a funny thing to say.
Who knows where their heart is?
That’s right, here inside us.
Have you ever tried writing on it?
Don’t, you can’t and you might hurt yourself. The problem for the people of Israel
was that they broke the agreement with God, they didn’t do what he asked them
to do. The old agreement, it’s like they
took God’s invitation and just left it, ignored it, ripped it up and were
horrible to God.
We can’t be friends with God who is perfect and pure and special
if we don’t follow his ways and thank him for what he’s given us. We can’t go to his party.
And that’s where the people were – being punished from God for
doing wrong things, for ignoring the old agreement, the teachings. But God says there’s a time to look forward
to when he’s going to put his teachings in their heart so that they never forget
him, never loose them. They will be in a
close relationship with him again, not like when sin gets in the way. In fact, he will forgive us for our sin, for
the wrong things we do and let us be friends with God again. Because people would still do wrong things
and turn away from God, but God says he’d forgive them and not punish
them.
God’s got a great party waiting for them. But they all ignored God and so couldn’t go
to his party. But now, God says he will
still be their friends and they can still come to his party and they won’t be
punished for the wrong things they have done.
Jeremiah then tells us that God said: “I will forgive them for the wicked things they did, and I will not
remember their sins anymore.”
Well good things did happen – a bunch of years later the
Israelites did come back to live in the special land. But it wasn't quite
right, they still did wrong things and God still punished them. But they
still had the party to look forward to.
And then Jesus came. Jesus
was special, Jesus was God’s son and he never did anything wrong. Can you imagine that; someone who didn’t ever
do anything wrong, who never said anything not nice to his friends, who always
did what his parents asked. So Jesus didn’t
deserve the punishment that we all deserve.
But Jesus was punished, Jesus died to take away the punishment for our
sins and make us friends with God again.
That’s really amazing. We have
done wrong things, but he was punished for them.
Through Jesus God makes a new agreement with us. He invites us to a party but we will never
ignore the invitation, loose it or not get to go, because it’s right here in
our hearts. If we love Jesus we can go
to the biggest, best party ever, in heaven with God.
Loving Jesus and being a Christian means that he takes the
punishment that we deserve and we are friends with God again. We get an invitation to the final, biggest
party. Because one day the bible tells us Jesus is going to come back and
everyone who loves Jesus has been forgiven for the wrong things they do and
will go to live with God forever in heaven. Those who don't will be
punished. On that day - that's going to be the best party ever, that's
the thing to look forward to.
Table time:
Put pictures in order and
answer these questions –
Knowledge
- What did God say He was going to do?
- Who will He do this for?
Understanding
- When did God do this?
- How did God do this?
- How do we know God is able to do this?
Application
- What’s the most amazing thing about what God has done?
- Have you taken Jesus’ wonderful invitation of forgiveness and a changed heart?
Funsheets
Memory verse:
Jeremiah 31:34
all people will know me,
from the least to the most important,” says the Lord.
“I will forgive them for the wicked things they did,
and I will not remember their sins anymore.”
from the least to the most important,” says the Lord.
“I will forgive them for the wicked things they did,
and I will not remember their sins anymore.”
