A Sweet Opportunity. Seeing the GOSPEL in HALLOWEEN. Path Through the Narrow Gate

Transcription

1 A Sweet Opportunity Seeing the GOSPEL in HALLOWEEN Path Through the Narrow Gate

2 A Note to Parents: Fall is in the air! (Which means that Halloween is right around the corner.) Try as you might, you probably won't be able to escape from Halloween this year. If you need to buy eggs from the grocery store during the month of October, Halloween will be there waiting for you. Facebook, magazines, car commercials, kids' school crafts, the neighbor's yard decorations -- whether we love it or hate it, we are surrounded by Halloween. How are you going to talk to your children about Halloween this year? When your little girl is horrified by a scary decoration hanging in your neighbor's yard, what are you going to say? When your son mentions that vampires are cool, what will your response be? When your daughter wants to know why people are so obsessed with death, what will you say? How can you discuss a holiday that celebrates death, evil, darkness, and fear with your kids? A Sweet Opportunity: Seeing the Gospel in Halloween is a Bible study designed to help you talk to your kids about Halloween and the gospel. A Sweet Opportunity will show your kids how the gospel relates to six different aspects of Halloween - Trick or Treating, Costumes, Darkness, Fear, Evil, and Death. Discussion questions will help your children work through their own ideas of Halloween, while being challenged to think a little deeper about what it really means. Encouraging Bible verses will remind your children that God is still in control and that Jesus has conquered darkness, fear, evil, and death. You don't have to avoid Halloween this year. You can openly talk to your kids about what the Bible has to say about Halloween. You can use Halloween to share the Gospel with your kids. Why not get started? I strongly encourage families to go through this Bible study together, talking about the questions and deciding what their own approach to celebrating Halloween will be. This Bible study will talk briefly about hell and vampires, so please glance over the lessons ahead of time to make sure that it is suitable for the maturity levels of your children. Thanks! Anna Joy Lowell Please feel free to make multiple copies of this Bible study for any children or grandchildren in your immediate family. If you are a teacher, you may make multiple copies for the students in your classroom. You may not make copies of this Bible study to distribute to other people outside of your family or classroom. The graphics in this Bible study were purchased from Prettiful Designs and Edu-Clips

3 Lesson One Trick or Treat Finding Our Satisfaction in the Lord Welcome to "A Sweet Opportunity: Seeing the Gospel in Halloween". Over the next several days, we are going to be studying some Bible passages that help us to think about Halloween. There will be questions for you to answer and verses to look up, so make sure that you have a pencil or pen and a Bible handy. What do you think about when you think about Halloween? On the lines below, list some things that come to your mind when you think about Halloween. There are no right or wrong answers, so have fun with this! I hope that this Bible study will talk about some of the things that you wrote down on your list. Today, though, I want to talk about "Trick or Treating." (Is that on your list?) 1

4 "Trick or Treating" is a common tradition at Halloween. You may have gone "trick or treating" yourself or seen other people do it. What do people do when they go "trick or treating"? What are people hoping to get? After people get candy or other goodies, do you think that they are happy? How long do you think that their happiness lasts? As humans, we often spend our whole lives "trick or treating". No, I don't mean that we literally get dressed up in a costume and go knocking on people's doors for our whole lives. But, we are always hoping to get something bigger and better that will make us happy. We can't wait until we can buy or get something new, or do something fun, or be at/ watch/ eat/ play something that will make us happy. We often think, "If I could just (you fill in the blank), THEN I would be really happy." But after we get something new or do something fun, how long does the happiness really last? An hour? A day? A month? A year? Once the happiness is gone, we have to search for something even bigger and better that will bring us even MORE happiness. Just like the "Trick or Treaters", we think that if we just knock on enough doors and get enough candy, we will someday find lasting happiness. 2

5 Have you ever really wanted something only to find out that it did not bring lasting happiness? Talk about it or write about it below: To be satisfied means that we have everything we want and need. We don't need or want anything else. We don't need to knock on any other doors because we have the one thing that will give us joy FOREVER. Nothing on this earth will ever truly satisfy us. There is only one thing that can give us true satisfaction and joy forever. That one thing is having a relationship with God. God created us to love Him and to worship Him. Only God can fulfill all of our wants. Only God can fill all of the empty, sad, lonely, and crying parts of our hearts. Before God can give us satisfaction, though, He must change our hearts to want and desire Him. Our hearts are filled with sin. Instead of turning to God to fulfill our wants and to satisfy us, we think that we can satisfy ourselves by living life our own way. But, as long as our hearts are full of sin and empty of God, we will never find satisfaction in anything that this world offers us. Only a relationship with God will ever give us true and forever joy, peace, and satisfaction. When we find our satisfaction in God, we don't have to go on "Trick or Treating" the rest of our lives, always hoping to get something better at the next door. We already have everything we need in God. Let's Go to the Bible: Read Psalm 107:8-9. What does the LORD do for the children of men, according to verse 9? 3

6 Read Psalm 37:3-5. God will give us the desires of our hearts when we do what? Read Psalm 17:15. When does the Psalmist say that he will be satisfied in this verse? What do you think that this means? Let's Pray: I am praying that God will change my heart and cause me to delight in Him and find satisfaction in Him instead of the things of this world. I am also praying for my neighbors and the people around me who will be out trick or treating this Halloween. I am praying that they will find a relationship with God that will bring them true satisfaction. I am praying that God will give me opportunities and boldness to speak with people about Him, rather than being too shy or scared. I am also praying for you, that you will find your satisfaction in God alone. I am praying that your heart would be stirred to seek Him and love Him. How about you? What are you praying for as you think about these things? 4

7 Lesson One Trick or Treat Finding Our Satisfaction in the Lord Further Discussion: Read John 4:5-30, What was the difference between the physical water that the woman was drawing up from the well and the spiritual water that Jesus was offering to her? The woman at the well was a spiritual "Trick or Treater", always going from one door to the next door, hoping to find satisfaction in the things of this world, but always ending up unhappy and dissatisfied. Where had she looked for satisfaction and fulfillment in the past? (See verse 18) Do you think that she had found satisfaction in this lifestyle? Why or why not? What are some other places that people frequently look for satisfaction? Do you agree or disagree that the "candy" of this world can never bring lasting happiness? Why or why not? This woman finally found true satisfaction in Jesus Christ. She was so excited that she left her waterpot at the well and ran to tell other people about her Savior. Have you found satisfaction in Jesus Christ, or are you still looking for satisfaction from the things of this world? 5