How Can I be Okay?

 Preface: This isn't "writing" per se, this is the first of three posts that will be lesson outlines from the VBS our church is conducting this week. The titles are, Where Did I Come From?, Am I Important, and How Can I Be Okay? My hope in sharing is that if you work with kids, or simply are interested in answering these questions for yourself, you will be edified.


How Can I Be Okay?


Gold bean bag

  • Do you ever feel broken? Like something inside of you just isn’t right? 

  • The last couple of days the kids have been working on a verse, Gen 1:1, In the beginning, God created…

  • The Bible starts not with people, not with some slog beginning with an immense hydrogen explosion, but with God. A speaking God. A God who speaks life into being

  • What did God call his creation? Very good (v31)

  • Part of that very good creation was an image-bearer: people

    • Kids, who made everything? God!

    • So, who made you? God!

    • So, who’s the boss? God is!

  • Right, God is the boss. And he gave people a job: take care of creation, and reflect what God is like, 1:26-27, 2:15

  • We were made to mirror what God is like-but do we?

    • What went wrong?

  • Kids, who’s the boss? God!

    • But remember, that’s good news. Why is it good news?

    • Who loves you? God!

  • Right, God loves you, and he knows everything. So when he makes a rule, it is a rule that flows from his love.

    • How many rules did he give to Adam and Eve? 1 rule!

  • Genesis 2:16


Black bean bag

  • In Genesis 3 we read about that start of everything that goes wrong: a snake comes into the garden. Gen 3:1-13

  • The snake comes with a terrible lie: God doesn’t love you. God doesn’t care about what’s best for you. Be your own boss, your own ruler. 

  • And the woman and the man both eat the fruit, and the black poison of sin takes root in their hearts


  • Did you know, that is the same poison that lives inside your heart? 

  • 3:15, God promises a Rescuer to fix things

  • The whole rest of the Bible is the story of God preparing a people to be the family of the Rescuer

    • But guess what? They keep failing, because the are full of sin, just like you and me

    • And do you know what the worst part of sin is? It cuts you off from God’s presence: you can’t be covered with sin and enjoy standing before God

  • So what’s going to happen?


Red Bean Bag

  • God wasn’t going to leave people separated from him forever.

  • John 3:16. God sent his Son into the world

  • But was Jesus just going to rescue his people out of the bad place, like a prince swooping in to take away the princess?

  • No, there was a price to be paid. Romans 6:23

  • Jesus came and shed his blood to cover your sins


White bean bag

  • Did you remember where I said you couldn’t stand when you’re covered in sin? 

  • The Bible says if you trust in Jesus, his blood covers your sins, and you get to wear his perfect righteousness. You get clean clothes! It’s called being forgiven

  • Have you ever had to ask for forgiveness? You can be forgiven by God, and live with him, because of what Jesus has done. 

  • You can’t do anything to earn it: it’s a free gift


Green bean bag

  • But this free gift of life isn’t the end of the story. Because eternal life is a real life that starts now

  • So we need to grow. How can we grow? We pray, read the Bible, go to church to spend time with other people who have been forgiven by Jesus. And we tell other people about what he’s done. 

Big Lesson: who made everything? Who made you? Who loves you? Who gives the gift of forgiveness and life to all who ask? God!

Comments

Post a Comment

Subscribe to the Stopping to Think newsletter:

Popular posts from this blog

A quick thought on Christian thought.

Okay, so it's late, so I'm gonna keep this short.  But I'm gonna ask you a few questions and ask you to think through them critically, because I believe your answers to them will radically affect your beliefs...let me rephrase, they do  radically affect your beliefs, this will simply aid us in identifying this circumstance.  When we read the Bible we often come up with questions.  This is good, and healthy.  Questions encourage thought and when we question and subsequently find answers our thoughts are more firmly established, faith is built, etc.  But there are times when we come to Scripture and are troubled by what we find.  Times when God exercises speedy justice and we question His fairness.  Times when we see something go unpunished and question His justice.  Times when we come up against a doctrine (eg, predestination) that seems to contradict our view of who God is and/or how He operates.  In times like these it is of extreme importance to keep in mind that things s
Read more

Confederate flags and loving our brother

I open with a question: Is it inconsistent to call for the removal of Confederate flags (from state-owned properties, as well as Christians dissociating themselves from this flag voluntarily), while not calling for similar treatment of Old Glory? This question has been raised all over my Twitter feed, and perhaps most prominently in a blog post by Douglas Wilson . The US flag does, after all, stand for a number of reprehensible things itself. In our past we have the horrors of slavery...quite the same ones as the Confederacy, come to think of it. We have the massive injustices of murder, land theft, and more of the Native peoples of North America. Currently we murder our babies in the millions. And of course I'm just hitting the lowest of the low notes. So, is there a difference? I believe the answer is, most definitely, yes. First of all, as Wilson labors in his post, flags mean a lot of things, including what a nation should  be. We might say, aspires to be. All men
Read more

Why Christians don't understand the same-sex marriage debate-and thus are losing it.

I want to make a few brief comments on marriage, and the debate over whether or not homosexual marriage should be created by our government. I use the word "created" very intentionally. Note: none of my thoughts or ideas here are original, and most are being expressed by some in this ongoing national debate. However, they are certainly the minority, and so I have decided to add my small voice to the choir. It seems to me that, while not universally, the general slogan of those opposed to same-sex marriage (from here on "SSM") is that they "support traditional marriage and traditional values." Less frequently I hear of a support for "Judeo-Christian" values. Here is my rub with both of these terms, especially the former-they utterly miss the root of this entire issue. The question is not whether marriage should conform to what is traditional. If it were, of course marriage could change into whatever we would like it to. This is because traditi
Read more