Bible Story God's greatest promise Matthew 1:18-24; Luke 1:26-38 Today s Takeaway Thank you, God, for Your promises. Weekly Verse "God is not a man, so he does not lie. He is not human, so he does not change his mind. Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through?" Numbers 23:19 (NLT) Theme Verse For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6 (KJV) 2
Skit Skit Information The Thank you Notes to God skits will require two people. One person will play himself (the straight character), and the other person will play the character in the skits. It will work best if you can find a person willing to commit to being the character for the entire series. Character Bio The character s name is Suzie. (Could also be Bobby if you would like to make it a male character). Suzie is an overgrown 4-year-old with a huge appetite for adventure. She is always trying to do something nice for someone, but ends up making a huge mess. Consider putting your character in onesie PJs (the sillier the better), or in over-sized PJs. Have the character always dragging or carrying in a huge teddy bear or stuffed animal with her. 3
Leader: I wonder if we will see that silly Suzie again this week. I think I was really getting through to her last week about just saying "thank you" to her parents instead of trying to come up with some extravagant way of thanking them. We will see. Suzie: While the leader is talking, Suzie comes in, wearing Christmas PJs. Leader: Hi Suzie! I am so excited to hear about what happened when you went home last week. Suzie: Huh? I'm not sure what you are talking about. Leader: Last week we talked about how you can just tell your parents how much you love them and thank them instead of trying to prove it to them. Did you do that? Suzie: Oh yeah, that! I DID do that, and my parents seemed to really like it. Leader: That's awesome Suzie. So, I guess you don't have any crazy long stories to tell me today, right? Suzie: Well, it depends on what you consider to be crazy long stories... Leader: Oh no. I'm just going to sit down again because I'm guessing it's going to be crazy and long. Suzie: Do whatever you gotta do. You know how Christmas is right around the corner? Leader: Yes, it is coming up... Suzie: Well, Christmas is my absolute favoritest holiday of all the holidays, and it's my mommy's favorite too! I just knew that I had to do something special for Christmas since it's the best holiday in the whole world. Leader: I don't like where this is going already. Suzie: What is the first thing everyone does at Christmas time to get ready for Christmas? Leader: Take a really long nap? Suzie: No! Naps are lame. Christmas decorating, of course! Now, I know that it's definitely Daddy's job to put up the lights outside, but I thought I could be a huge help with decorating the inside of the house for Mommy. After all, Mommy is always doing so much work around the house, cleaning, doing laundry, shopping, cooking, and she 4 Skit
Skit deserves a break for once! Leader: I'm not sure that you "helping" with the Christmas decorating is going to give your mom a break at all... Suzie: You might be right, but you know it's the thought that counts anyways, right? Leader: I don't know about that... Suzie: Well, Daddy had already brought all the Christmas boxes down from the attic so it was super easy for me to get started. I figured it would just be best to take everything out of the boxes and lay them out all over the floor to get a good idea of what I would be working with. Leader: That doesn't sound too bad. How many boxes are we talking here, 5? Suzie: More like 20! I had no idea we had so many Christmas decorations. They took up the floor in the living room, kitchen, dining room, bathroom, decorations everywhere. Leader: What did you do next? Suzie: Well, I thought about decorating the tree, but I'm too little to reach the top. Then I thought about getting the Christmas plates out, but I already broke like 5 of them last year. Then, I thought about pulling out my mommy's Nativity sets and arranging them, but I broke all of the baby Jesuses last year in an accident. Leader: Wow! You sure did a lot of thinking. Did you actually do any decorating? Suzie: Actually, no! I decided it would be better to come here and see what you thought I should do. Leader: That is actually surprisingly a good choice for you, Suzie! One question, you did clean up all the Christmas decorations and put them back in the boxes before you came here, right? Suzie: Oh no! I totally forgot about that! I gotta go before Mommy and Daddy wake up to find Christmas decorations everywhere! 5
Game: Christmas Categories Supplies Post-it notes (Christmas colors if desired) Pencils, crayons, or markers No setup is required for this game. Setup How To Play 1. Everyone can play. This game is meant to be played in small groups. Either break your kids into groups of 5-10 kids, or use this game in your usual small group time. 2. Give each kid a stack of post-it notes and a pencil, crayon, or marker. 3. For each round the leader will call out a letter and the kids must write a Christmas word that begins with that letter. 4. Give the kids 10 seconds to write their word then have everyone share their word with the group. Give a prize or piece of candy to anyone who writes a word that no one else wrote. 5. Optional Variation: If you have younger kids, allow them more time, or allow them to draw pictures. You may choose not to make it a competition with younger kids. 6
Message Supplies A Bible in your preferred version (New Living Translation is used in this message) Angel wings and a halo A pillow A broom A big wrapped present (save this for week 6) Setup Wrap up a big box with a big teddy bear or other universal Christmas gift inside of it. Save this present for the object lesson for Week 6. Have a big bulletin board, white board, or foam board set up on a wall or stand on which kids can put their thank you notes. We will do this at the end of the message each week. 7
Message Introduction Have you ever made a promise to someone? Allow kids to respond. That promise that you made isn't worth much unless you come through and keep your promise. Sometimes we mess up, and make promises we can't keep or choose not to keep. However, there is one person who we can always count on to keep His promises to us, God. God made many amazing promises to His people in the Bible. We looked at one of the best promises He made to all of us last week. Can anyone remember what it was? Allow kids to respond. That's right, Heaven. We wouldn't even have a chance at seeing Heaven if it weren't for God greatest promise, the promise of Jesus' birth. Bible Story Today, we are going to look at several passages throughout the Bible that all point to God's promise of Jesus' birth. I am going to need two volunteers to come up and play Mary and Joseph for the beginning of our story. Choose one boy and one girl to come up, and have them stand on opposite sides of the room. Joseph will need to be with the pillow and Mary will need to be with the broom. We are going to first take a look at when God made the promise to Mary in Luke 1.The Bible doesn't tell us what Mary was doing, but we know she was hanging out at her house, so we are going to say she was sweeping the floor. Hand Mary a broom and have her begin sweeping. God sent the angel Gabriel to Mary. I need a beautiful angel. Choose a kid to play the angel and put the wings and halo on them. For comedic effect, choose an older boy. Gabriel said to Mary, "Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!" Speaking to girl playing Mary: Mary, how would you react to an angel randomly visiting you while you were cleaning the house? Allow Mary to respond. Well, the Bible tells us that she was confused and disturbed. I guess the angel wasn't as pretty as we thought. Gabriel had a lot more to tell her. He said, "Don't be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God! You will conceive and give birth 8
to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!" Wow! I'm sure that was a lot to take in all at once for Mary! She still wasn't sold on the angel's promise. She said, "But how can this happen?" Have Mary say it to the angel. Gabriel replied, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy and he will be called the Son of God." At this point, Mary was like, ok, this sounds legit. Actually she said, " I am the Lord's servant. May everything you have said about me come true." Let's give our Mary a hand! Lead kids in applauding Mary and have her find a seat. We are not done with the angel quite yet! In Matthew chapter 1, we see that God sent an angel to Joseph as well. Now, we don't kow if it was the same angel, but we only have one costume. We do know that the angel came to Joseph in a dream. Have Joseph lay down with his head on the pillow and pretend to be sleeping. The angel said to him, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." The Bible tell us that all of this occured to fulfill the Lord's message through his prophet: "Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means 'God is with us.'" More on that in a minute. So Joseph woke up from his dream, have Joseph get up, and he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife. Let's give Joseph a hand. Lead kids in applauding Joseph and have him find a seat. Let's take another look at the end of that passage, when it said all of this occurred to fulfill the Lord's message through his prophet. Does anyone know what that is talking about? Allow kids to respond. It is talking about a promise that the prophet Isaiah wrote in Isaiah 7:14 predicting Jesus' birth. How long ago do you think that was written? 9 Message
Message Allow kids to respond. Isaiah wrote that promise about 750 years before Jesus' birth. How could he have possibly known that Jesus was going to be born? Allow kids to respond. That's right, God told him, so that he could in turn, tell all of us. That's not the only time we see this happen in the Bible either. The prophet Micah also wrote about Jesus' birth in Micah 5:1-2 about 700 years before Jesus was born, and predicted that he would be born in Bethelehem. This is the craziest one yet. Have you ever heard of Jacob in the Bible? Allow kids to respond. Way back in Genesis 49:10, the first book of the Bible, Jacob talked about Jesus being a descendant of the tribe of Judah. That was over 2,000 years before Jesus was born! Life Application/Object Lesson Why do you think God included those promises of Jesus' birth so long before Jesus was born? Allow kids to respond. I think one of the reasons was to show us that when He makes promises to His people, He keeps them. Pull out the Christmas present. Christmas is coming up in a just a few weeks. How many of you love presents? Allow kids to respond. Does anyone love seeing your presents under the tree, getting to shake them and wonder what they could possibly be? Allow kids to respond. That has always been one of my favorite parts of Christmas. Now, when you see your presents all wrapped up and looking beautiful under the tree, what do you expect to find in them on Christmas morning? Allow kids to respond. We expect to find awesome presents we might have asked for inside. We would never expect an empty box. Seeing those Christmas presents all wrapped up and waiting for us to open them, they are kind of like God's promises to us. We can know without a doubt that God's promises are going to come true. God doesn't make empty promises. Some of God's promises have already come true, like Jesus' birth, but others we may still be waiting on. Today, let's thank God for His promises. You can be as specific as you like. When you are done, you can post them on the bulletin board. Allow kids to write thank- you notes for a couple of minutes. 10
Post-it notes Game: Christmas Word Art Supplies No set up is required for this game. Setup How To Play 1. Everyone gets to play this game! If you have a larger group of kids, pair the kids up or assign them to groups. 2. Give each kid or group a stack of post-it notes. 3. Give them 5 minutes to create any Christmas word using the post-it notes on the ground or on a wall. Give kids examples of short Christmas words if they need help. 4. The kid or team that creates the best Christmas word art wins. 11
Small Group Questions 1. What are some of God's promises in the Bible? 2. Do you feel like God has promised anything to you? What is it? 3. If you were Mary or Joseph, how would you have reacted to the angel's message? Why? 4. Do you think God will keep all of His promises? Why or why not? 5. Has anyone ever broken a promise to you? How did that make you feel? 12
1. What is our new series called? Answer: Thank you Notes to God Review Questions 2. To whom did an angel appear to in our Bible story today? Answer: Mary and Joseph 3. In which books of the Bible can we read about Jesus' birth? Answer: Matthew and Luke 4. What is Today's Takeaway? Answer: Thank you, God, for Your promises. 5. What is our Christmas theme verse for this series? Answer: "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6 13