John 3:16 eternal life

John 3:16 eternal life Big Idea: Heaven is a wonderful place Key verse: John 14:6 - Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. Thoughts for leaders This lesson involves an opportunity for children to give their lives to Christ. We purposefully avoid becoming a Christian or giving your heart to Jesus language in this lesson, but you can choose to use that if it works for your group. We also strive to avoid making it sound like saying the magic prayer is a free ticket to heaven. The Scriptures make no mention of such a prayer, but they do take seriously the call to follow Christ. We strive to make the gospel accessible to all children, without watering down the truth that following God is more than just a prayer said once upon a time: it s becoming a new creation! All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Reader s Version, NIrV Copyright 1995, 1996, 1998 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIrV and New International Reader s Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc. 1

Supplies list: Attention Grabber Teaching Time Small Group Memory Verse Can t say that! cards printed & cut out (or make your own) 1 minute timer - Prayer journals - Copy of small group for each leader - Brown, yellow, red & green M&Ms - Small stones or pebbles - printouts of craft 1.40 for each child - printout of craft 1.41 (1 per group) Craft Table - Print craft 1.40 one for each child - Markers, pencil crayons, stickers Games Pens Blank paper Copies of tickets, cut out 2

Can t Say That! Can t say that! cards printed & cut out (or make your own) This game works best for groups of 5-30 people. You may want to split your group up if it s more than that, or call 6-10 people to the front to make up two teams to compete in front of an audience. Leader: Let s call up two volunteers to play Can t Say That! (Call up two volunteers. Reading skills are needed, so it may be wise to pick an older youth or volunteers). These volunteers are each going to get some playing cards that give them a place to go for a vacation, or an activity you might do on vacation, and it s the job of this half of the room (or all the girls) to try and guess what or where that place or activity is. If you guess it right, then go on to the next card and see how many you can guess in one minute s time. The only catch is, there are three words on each of the cards that you cannot say as clues. The other volunteer will read the card, and if you accidently say one of those words, he or she will make a buzzer sound and you ll have to go on to the next card without getting any points. Once your one minute is up, we ll switch and the other volunteer will do the same thing, with different clues, for this half of the room (or all the boys). Let s give this a go! Time the volunteers and let each team play for one minute. Leader: Thank you for your participation in Can t Say That! Now, has anybody here actually travelled to any of these places? Would anybody like to? How do you know it would be fun? If I had free tickets for you to go to any place in the world you wanted, would you take it? Today we re talking about a place probably nobody here has ever been to. But I know I, for one, really want to go there someday! We re going to talk about heaven! 3

Can t Say That Playing Cards Leaders: Pick and choose which cards will be recognizable to your group, or make your own cards listing local venues which the kids have heard of, but may not have actually been to, such as a sporting team event, local amusement park, etc. Amusement Park Rollercoaster Haunted House Cotton Candy The Beach Beach Sand Ocean Zoo Animals Cages Zookeeper Waterslides Swimming Pool Slide Disneyland Mickey Mouse Magic Kingdom California Bowling Alley Pins Ball Strike Camping Tent Campfire Marshmallows Skate Park Skateboards Ramps Cement Make your own Make your own Make your own Make your own 4

If you actually did win a trip to an amazing place: let s say, Hawaii, and you knew it would be all expenses paid and any of your friends and family could go if they wanted to, would you go? Of course! Not only would you go, you would probably do a lot to get ready for it, too! You might tell all your friends, or find books or go on the internet to see what it s like there. You might even start packing! That s a little bit what it s like with heaven. Jesus already paid the fee for us to go there, by living on earth and dying on the cross. After he died, though, he came back to life and is offering us a free chance to go to heaven, if only we ll take it! Now, none of us have been to heaven probably like most of us have never been to Hawaii so how can we find out more about it? The Bible is kind of like the travel guide to heaven. It tells us that there are mansions 1 in heaven that Jesus is getting ready for us to live in, and that the whole city is filled with jewels and looks like gold 2. We know that we get new bodies in heaven, and everything will work like it should 3! We know there will be a lot of happiness there, and nobody will cry or be sad or ever be in pain. In fact, it won t even ever be night time there, and nobody will ever die 4. There are streets, walls, cities, rivers and trees in heaven. 5 We know there will be treasures there, and they won t go bad, or get old, or get thrown away or get stolen. 6 Best of all, we know that heaven is where God sits on the throne 7 that s right, the God who loves you so incredibly much is the One in charge! That s the best part of all we ll get to be with God! Our memory verse this month has been John 3:16. Can we say it together? John 3:16 - "God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son. Anyone who believes in him will not die but will have eternal life. 1 John 14:2 2 Rev 21:18 3 I Cor 15:42-44 4 Rev 21:4,24 5 Rev 22:1-2, 6 Mat 6:20 7 I Kings 22:19 5

(Teaching Time continued) Spiritual versus Physical life is a difficult concept to grasp. Children have an especially difficult time with this as they tend to view the world very literally and have a difficult time with abstract concepts. It is important to allow time to ask questions and talk about this topic. Now there s something you need to know about this verse. When it s talking about eternal life, it s actually talking about heaven. That s because the Bible talks about people us having two parts: one part is the physical part. That s the part we can see, like our eyes, nose, hair and toenails! The other part is the spiritual part: that s the parts we can t see, like our thoughts, feelings, and who we are. So when it says in John 3:16 if you believe in Jesus you will never die, it is talking about dying a spiritual death: it means even though your body might die, you, the real you, doesn t have to! The real you can have eternal life in heaven! And that sounds pretty great to me! What does the verse say we need to do to get this eternal life in heaven? Believe in Jesus! It s really that simple! But, like we learned last week, believing means more than just saying I believe it means doing something about it! When you really believe that Jesus died for us, we ll do anything to say thank you to Him for that! When you really believe, you start to love Jesus, and want to act the way He does. Really believing in Jesus starts to change you but don t worry! He always changes us for the better! We re going to pray together, and if there s anyone here who wants to believe in Jesus the way this verse is talking about, you can say this prayer quietly to God in your heart. If you do that, make sure you tell one of our leaders! We d love to celebrate that with you and help you as you start learning what it s like to believe in and love Jesus the way we do! Let s bow our heads together. Father, thank you for giving us your son, Jesus, so that when we believe in him, we will have eternal life with you in heaven! I know I don t deserve this gift: there are so many things I have done that made you sad. Please forgive me for hurting you and other people. Help me to not just SAY I believe in you, but to really live it! I want you to begin to change me to be more like you. I want to make you happy with my life! Amen. 6

Brown, yellow, red & green M&Ms enough for one per child Small stones or pebbles enough for one per child Leader: We re going to do a yummy exercise that helps us remember what it means to believe in Jesus! Because he lived, died and came to life for us, we can choose to follow him, live like him, and go to heaven to be with him. Let s eat these M&M s and find out what the Bible says about following Jesus. Give each child a brown, yellow & red M&M, as well as a small stone or pebble. Keep aside enough green M&Ms for each child as well. Brown - Creation Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. When God made the heavens & the earth, it was all meant to be a perfect and wonderful place where we could live together forever! When we eat this brown M&M we can be thankful for the earth God created for us. Red - Love Ephesians 2:4 - God loves us deeply Red is the colour of you got it! Love! Red represents how much God loves us! Stone - Sin Romans 3:23a Everyone has sinned. Wait a minute! What is this doing here? It doesn t belong with our M&Ms! And just like this stone doesn t belong, the stone represents sin. Sin is all the things done that hurt God or others. Can you think of some examples of sin? You can all eat the stone, now, to remember how sad it was when people started sinning. What? You don t want to eat the stone? It doesn t taste good? Well, the good news is we re not stuck with just a stone! God did something to trade our stones in for something wonderful! 7

(Small group continued) Green new creation 2 Corinthians 5:17 - Anyone who believes in Christ is a new creation. The old is gone! The new has come! God did something wonderful! Because he loved us so much, he sent his son, Jesus, to die for us, so we could trade in our stones for a new life. Green represents a new life in Christ! If you want, you can trade me your stones for a green M&M. This reminds us that we can t keep both: we can t keep on living in ways that hurt God and believe in Jesus. It s one or the other. So we can keep our stones our sin as long as we want, but if we want to live for Jesus, he takes our old garbage and trades it for a brand new life in Him! If you have not had large group teaching time, take the time to pray with the children in your small group. Leader: We have talked a lot about believing in Jesus today. It s something you have to decide whether you are going to do or not nobody can make you follow Jesus, and nobody can make you believe in him. But some of you today might really want to start over, to trade your sin in for a new life that Jesus offers. If you want to do that, pray quietly in your hearts with me while I pray out loud. If you don t want to, that s okay, but please be respectful and sit quietly until we are finished praying. Let s bow our heads together. Father, I am so grateful that you gave your son, Jesus, so we could have a new start on life! I know I have done many things that have hurt you or hurt others, and you call that sin. I want to trade in my sin for a new heart so I can live to please you instead of hurting you. Please forgive me, and make me into a new creation so I can live for you! Amen. If you have had large group teaching, and children have had opportunity to pray, take the time to go over discussion questions and pray together using prayer journals. Discussion Questions: - what is the hardest part about believing in Jesus? - What do you think heaven will be like? 8

Copy of pg 11 Memory Verse for each child Copy of pg 12 Memory Verse (signs only - one per group) Pencil crayons Monthly memory verse John 3:16 - "God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son. Anyone who believes in him will not die but will have eternal life. Weekly memory verse John 14:6 - Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. Use the memory verse hand out (page 11) to learn this week s Bible verse. Try saying the verse with only the signs as prompts (page 12). Then, try saying the verse with no prompts at all! 9

John 14:6a Jesus Said: 10

John 14:6a Jesus Said: 11

Print craft 1.40 one for each child Markers, pencil crayons, stickers The craft is simply using imaginations to make pretend postcards from heaven. The children may need some prompts to get this activity started. Remember to be positive: just because I don t think there will be video games in heaven doesn t mean it s wrong to imagine them! CS Lewis had an entire world created when he imagined heaven, so let the kids run wild with their imaginations as well! Leader: Heaven is an amazing place! In James 1:17, the Bible tells us that Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. (NIV) That means everything good in life comes from God! The Bible also says No one's ever seen or heard anything like this, Never so much as imagined anything quite like it What God has arranged for those who love him. (I Corinthians 2:9, The Message). That means we can t even imagine how good heaven will be! It will be better than the best things we have already on earth! Wow! We re going to use our imaginations to guess the kinds of things that might be in heaven! Use what we know like there will be no sadness or violence and then use your imagination to think of the absolute best things you can think of, and we can draw pictures to make our own postcards from heaven! 12

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Good news! Have 1-3 leaders hide somewhere with a pen not too hidden, as they do want to be found. Create a home base with a blank piece of paper to keep track of point and extra tickets Create tickets (game 1.40 printed on coloured paper) about 10 per child. Assign leaders/older children to be interrupters (about one for every five-ten children) whistle When you know good news like heaven, you want to tell the whole world! That s what we re going to do in this game. In this game, there are 3 leaders who are hiding somewhere (give game boundaries: basement of the church, one block around the community centre, or a field area. If you must be in a gym or open area with no hiding spaces, just make sure you have extra interrupters so it s difficult to get through to the leaders). Your job is to find them, and tell them the good news! When you do that, they will sign your ticket and you can bring it back to home base for points. The only problem is, there are people who don t want you to tell anyone the good news we call them the interrupters! They will try to stop you, and if they tag you, you must give them your ticket. If you have no ticket, just come back to home base and we ll give you a new one to start over. Try to tell as many leaders the good news as you can to get the most points! The words you have to tell them is Jesus is the way. Can you say that? When you hear the whistle, come back to home base and we ll see if the interrupters stopped the good news from getting through or not! 14

Games 1.40 15