Bottom line. The good news of Jesus is for everyone, and all of us need to do our part.

Transcription

1 WHO WILL GO? Bottom line. The good news of Jesus is for everyone, and all of us need to do our part. Objectives. For students to: -Discover the story of Jonah -Identify people in their lives who they aren t willing to share their faith -Develop tools to share their faith with others Key Passages. -Jonah 1:1-3; 4:1-11 -Matthew 28:18-20 Memory Verse. Matthew 28:19 Summary. When Jonah was called to be one of the first missionaries, he turned and ran. Jonah did not want to share the Word fo the Lord with the Ninevites because of his own personal beliefs. But God sent us into the world to preach the gospel to everyone. It is not our place to pick and choose, only to go and serve. WHO WILL GO SUMMARY

2 OBJECT LESSON Item needed: Your favorite Rated G Movie on DVD, Blu-Ray, etc. How many of you all are a fan of one of my favorite movies? Share with the kids the movie. Tell them when you first saw it, why you loved it then, and why you love it now. If you haven t seen this movie, the good news is - you can! You see, this movie is rated G. G stands for General Audiences. It means that this movie has nothing offensive, nothing questionable in it. There s no bad language, no excessive violence, nothing to offend or teach bad things to kids. How did this movie get to be rated G? There s a group of people at the Motion Picture Association of America who watch every movie made in Hollywood. They rate every movie based on a very strict set of standards, giving them a rating of G, PG, PG-13, or R. If a movie gets an R-rating, you have to be at least seventeen to get in and see it. But rated G movies are okay for everyone - and believe it or not, historically, rated G movies make more money than rated R movies! The gospel is a lot like a rated G movie. It s not restricted to a few select people. It s for everyone. And God wants his people, Christians, to share that message with everyone. That s why it s so important that all believers get involved in missions. Missions are a way to take the gospel to the all of the Earth and share the love of God with people who otherwise might never hear it. The good news of Jesus is for general audiences - anyone and everyone. If you get the opportunity to be a part of that mission, don t let it pass you by! WHO WILL GO OBJECT LESSON

3 POWERPOINT GAME Where in the world: animal edition The Powerpoint game this week will show names and pictures of different animals. Students have to guess on which continent the animal lives. Suggestions for this game. Panda Bear (Asia) Koala Bear (Australia) Penguins (Antarctica) Honey Badger (Asia) Bearkat (North America) Jaguar (South America) Wildebeest (Africa) WHO WILL GO POWERPOINT GAME

4 ICE BREAKER Have you ever been to a foreign country? WHO WILL GO ICE BREAKER

5 LESSON What do you think of when you hear missions? Most people get images of people living in huts, dressed for a safari, with a machete in one hand and a Bible in the other. Some get images that are a bit more realistic: people building schools and churches, giving medical aid to those who need it, or distributing food. Whether people think of adventurers with machetes or doctors and helping hands, they almost always think the same thing - they see someone else doing it. They don t see themselves going to a foreign country, getting their hands dirty, and sharing the gospel. We re beginning a series on missions today, and the first thing I want to challenge you with is this: I want you to picture yourself going out there and doing the work that God has set before us. Not full-time, not even part-time, but some time in your life. Whether it s half the world away or in your own backyard, there are missions needing workers all around us. We re going to start our study of missions by looking at a missionary from the Old Testament. When most people think of missionaries in the Bible, they remember Paul and Silas, or Paul and Barnabbas, traveling all over the Roman empire. But long before Paul and his friends took the gospel to the world, another man was called by God to go to a foreign land and share the gospel. Read Jonah 1:1-2 You all remember Jonah, right? Jonah was a prophet of God, one of the chosen men to whom God delivered messages to Israel. God used the prophets to keep the people of Israel faithful to him and warn them when they were risking his judgment. He also gave the prophets messages about the Messiah - Jesus - who would deliver them one day. But God had a different mission for Jonah. He wanted Jonah to deliver a warning to the people of Ninevah- the enemies of Israel. Let s see how Jonah responds to this call. Read Jonah 1:3 WHO WILL GO LESSON PAGE 1

6 LESSON Jonah responds to God s call by hopping on the next ship headed out to sea. Something that Jonah doesn t mention here in his book you should know about Ninevah - it was a land locked city. You can t get to Ninevah by boat. So there was no question as to what Jonah s intentions were - he wanted to get as far away from Ninevah as he could! Sadly, this is how most of us respond to the call for missions. People are all too happy to give money to missionaries when they come to church, but when it comes to going out and doing real mission work, everyone sits on their hands and waits for someone else to volunteer. But God makes it very clear how we are to respond to the call to missions. Read Matthew 28:18-20 There s nothing in that passage about us choosing our mission assignment. It s pretty straight forward: go and make disciples. There are two things I want you to catch from this passage and also from the story of Jonah. First of all, this call is for everyone. Jesus didn t single out the disciples. He didn t restrict the call to people like Peter or Mary Magdalene or any of the others that had followed him faithfully for three years. His calling is to all who believe. You may not ever leave the country. You may not ever leave our city. But make no mistake: the call to missions is for everyone. God expects all of us to pray, to give, to serve - and especially to GO. The second thing I want you to remember is this: God wants us to share his word with everyone. We don t get to pick and choose. The gospel is for everyone, and God expects us to take it to everyone. Jonah did not want to deliver God s message to Ninevah because they were enemies WHO WILL GO LESSON PAGE 2

7 LESSON of Israel. Truth be told, Jonah wanted to see God destroy Ninevah. It took three days in the belly of a whale to convince Jonah to do as the Lord asked. But look what happens after Jonah visits Ninevah and the people of Ninevah repent. Read Jonah 4:1-4 Jonah was angry at the Lord for sparing the city! People believed the Lord because of Jonah, and Jonah got mad about it. God had another message to deliver, and this time, the message was for Jonah. Read Jonah 4:5-11 Have you ever heard the expression, You re not the center of the world? Or how about, It s not about you? That s what God is saying to Jonah. Jonah was consumed with his own wants. He was so angry Ninevah was spared and so angry that he lost his little shade tree, he wanted to die. But God comes in and reminds Jonah, that city of people is more important than your little shade tree or any of your petty desires. How lucky are we to have a God who loves people that much! How selfish are we for not seeing the world as he does. God is calling all of us to serve him, here in this country and around the world. We are blessed to know Jesus as our Savior have an obligation to tell others the good news that was told to us. We have no right to tell God where we will go or whom we will serve. God s love is for anyone and everyone. When God places the call on your life, there s only one answer to give: Yes! WHO WILL GO LESSON PAGE 3

8 DISCUSSION Break the ice. 1. What do you think of when you hear people talk about missionaries? 2. Have any of you ever been on a mission trip? 3. If you were offered a chance to go on one tomorrow, where would you most want to go? Where would you least want to go? Study the story. 4. What did God ask Jonah to do? 5. What did Jonah do instead? 6. Why did Jonah refuse to go to Ninevah? 7. What did Jesus commission his followers to do in Matthew 28? 8. How did Jonah feel after the Ninevites believed in the Lord? 9.What happened to the shade tree that Jonah enjoyed as he watched the city of Ninevah? 10. What message was God trying to send to Jonah through the shade tree? SAY: Jesus Christ came to Earth to die for our sins. He left the work of spreading the news of his death and resurrection to His followers. At first, the followers of Christ - all Jews - only shared the good news with other Jews. But through Peter and Paul, God opened the doors for the whole world - Jew and Gentile - to know Christ as their Savior. In other words, if the Jews had not learned to look at Gentiles as people God loved and wanted to save, we might not even be here! Live it out. 11. Is there anyone God says we should exclude from knowing about the gospel? 12. Why do you think we try to pick and choose whom we will share the gospel with? [So many reasons to discuss here! Fear of the unknown, fear of being in a place where no one speaks English, fear of strange food, an unwillingness to go and WHO WILL GO LESSON PAGE 1

9 DISCUSSION live in poverty, or the most common case with the people we live and work with our own judgment of others sins. See where the kids take this question and follow their lead.] 13. How many of you remember the story of the Good Samaritan? Can someone recap that story for us? SAY: The true meaning of this parable isn t as obvious to us. In our culture, a Good Samaritan is anyone willing to help someone in need. To the people who first heard this story, there was no such thing as a good Samaritan. Samaritans were a different race than the Jews, and the Jews hated them. They would take the long way around Samaritan territories and cities to avoid even being in their presence. The idea that a filthy Samaritan would help a good and upright Jew was unthinkable and revolutionary. In the same way, we need to learn to look at people we consider different or inferior or unworthy through God s eyes. 14. Let s close with two questions a little closer to home. First, is there someone you may have told the Lord you could NEVER share the gospel with? 15. Will you commit to praying for that person, and if the Lord opens the door, to share God s love with them? [Sharing Christ with others is scary for most students. If you have extra time, help students walk through good ways to share their faith with others. What does this look like? How can they meet the physical needs of others? How can they be present among their friends and those within their sphere of influence?] Dear God, Thank you for loving us and sending Jesus to die for us. Thank you for the obedience of the early missionaries who carried the gospel to the world. Give us a willing heart to go where you lead us. In Jesus name, Amen WHO WILL GO DISCUSSION PAGE 2

10 GAME TP Sculpture Prep. Items needed: A large package or two of toilet paper Play. Choose three two teams of three from the audience. The game is a race to see who can make the best toilet paper sculpture in three minutes using one of the three team members as the model/frame for the sculpture. The Game. Each team will choose its model. The model will pose in a statuesque way, and when the race begins, their teammates will wrap them in toilet paper. Judging is purely subjective and will be left to either a panel of volunteers acting as judges or audience applause. Take it to the next level. Add some of your favorite adult volunteers as your sculptures. If you want to make the challenge more difficult find pictures of some famous artist sculptures for your students to make out of T.P. WHO WILL GO GAME