Jesus gets rid of our sin

Okay, still way behind.  For the first lesson of the new year, January 6^th, I wanted to follow up on the theme of salvation.  But first, we talked about how it is a new year, and a lot of people try to make resolutions to change.  I’m afraid most of our kids don’t think ahead in that way!  So instead we looked at some ways God might want us to change.  We had our two teenage volunteers act out a lot of bad behaviors & ask if God would like this kind of behavior:  dropping candy wrapper on the ground, watching TV instead of doing homework, being mean to another kid, complaining instead of praying, bragging instead of being thankful, having a temper tantrum, being greedy, stealing, worshipping idols.  Of course the answer was always no! (Or at least it was supposed to be…)

                We put up a list of these bad traits and had everyone write one or two of them in black permanent marker on a hard-boiled egg.  Said this is like our hearts when they are full of sin.  But if we let Jesus take our sin away (one of the kids helped peel the egg), then we are clean and smooth again.  And pleasant to be around just like this egg is good to eat! (everyone got a slice)

                So then we moved into our Bible story about how we need Jesus to help us get rid of our sin.  We introduced a picture (covered by clear plastic) of a man who was controlled by sin.  His clothes were torn and dirty (someone sticks on a ragged paper garment), his hair was long and uncombed (someone draws on messy hair), he never took a bath (someone smears dirt all over arms & legs) and he had wounds from hurting himself (someone sticks on a couple of bandaids).

                Does everyone who sins look like this?  NO!  Most of us, when we sin, it doesn’t show.  But if we keep on sinning, it gets more and more obvious.  Even if we don’t look this bad, still, people don’t like us very much, just like no one liked this man at all!  Everyone was afraid of him.  Except Jesus (one of the kids chosen as Jesus).  Actually this man was afraid of Jesus!  He thought Jesus was going to hurt him.  He knew that Jesus wanted to get rid of his sin, but he thought he was such a bad sinner that the only way Jesus could do it would be to get rid of him!  Is that true?

                No!  and that’s something else to remember.  Even when you have a lot of sin in your life—laziness, temper, selfishness—that’s not the real you, that’s only the sin inside you.  The real you wants to be a good person, right?  And Jesus loves YOU, even when he doesn’t like your sin.  And He loved this man.  So he commanded the evil spirit that caused him to sin to come out of him—and it did!  It jumped right out and went into a bunch of pigs that were nearby.  They all went crazy and jumped into the sea and drowned!  (Everyone got a little paper pig to throw into a bucket of water)

                What happened to the man?  He was no longer afraid or scary.  Jesus’ disciples helped him clean up and gave him better clothes to wear.  (wiped off plastic, had different kids add nice clothes, neat hair, smile)  He was so happy!  He told everyone what Jesus had done for him.

                To illustrate how unpleasant it is to have to walk around with sin in our hearts, we all had to “crab walk” over to “Jesus” who would help the person up so they could walk freely again.  I found this idea online but with the twist that the kids were supposed to do this with a book on their stomach.  That wasn’t just hard, it was impossible for me when I tried it; the book kept sliding off.  So we just did the crab walking and that was plenty hard enough!

                Mrs. Wong was a great coach though!

                So then we asked, if it feels so good to get rid of our sin, why don’t we just get rid of it ourselves?  Because it’s not that easy!  To illustrate this, we gave them all dirty coins and had them try to scrub them with toothbrushes.  Not much progress was made.  Then one by one they got to put their coins in a solution of salt and vinegar and watch them magically become bright again!  That’s like Jesus does for us!

                This lesson wasn’t quite long enough, even after having some snacks and tidying the room, we were just a tad early going over to the adult room.  I realized afterward, I had not had any time for prayer, which is not a good idea any week, but especially on a day we were talking about salvation!  OOPS!