Is Jesus The Messiah?: Week 12

We've got two puzzle pieces left on our puzzle, which means this coming up week is make it or break it for Jesus. He's got to do something pretty powerful for us to be convinced he's the messiah, and as the kids reminded me this week, if that last puzzle piece doesn't fit, Jesus ain't our man. We're all hoping he is--we've started to really like this guy!

So this week we looked at the prophecy that says the Messiah will be betrayed by a close friend. In addition, the prophecy said that the price for the Messiah's body will be thirty silver coins, that the coins will be given to the potter and thrown to the temple, and that Israel and Judea will be scattered as a result.

The first part we looked at was whether Jesus was betrayed by a close friend. We talked about how Jesus' closest friends were the disciples, and how we knew Judas was one of his disciples. They went to church together, broke bread together.... And Judas was in charge of the money and the scheduling of the whole operation. Judas was of course secretly a thief. But, alas, it was Judas that betrayed Jesus. Check.

We talked about the thirty coins... When Zechariah wrote about the thirty coins, they were worth a lot more. In fact, the thirty coins were the price of a single slave. As time passed, the value of the coins went down, but the price stayed the same. By the time Jesus was betrayed for thirty coins, it was equivalent to about 25 bucks in today's time. You couldn't even buy a Wii game with that! Check.

Judas was so overcome with grief and remorse that he'd betrayed Jesus that he threw the coins into the temple. (CHECK). However, Jewish law prohibited money being put into the temple that had been come by illegally. So, the people gathered up all of the money and sold it to buy a potter's field (money to the potter, check).

As a result of Jesus' crucifixion, there was a huge fight between Israel and Rome. Because of this, one section of Israel stayed with Israel, and the other section joined what is now Palestine... In this way, Judea and Israel were scattered. (check).

Next week is Easter, and we're all so excited to see if Jesus is who he says he is! I'm thinking he is!!!

A break in the schedule...

My totally awesome brother filled in for me and miss Amanda and miss Danielle this weekend, as all three of us were unable to be at church. So, instead of updating you on a lesson plan, I'll update you on where I was this weekend. I saw God move in some really awesome ways!

My senior year of high school God called me and some of my friends to start an Anglican youth retreat for the diocese. This was an incredibly awesome and challenging experience and tested my faith in many ways. However, it was one of the single most growing things God has ever called me to, and I'm so thankful for it. The retreat occurs twice a year, and now, three years later, we're heading onto #8 in December. #7 was this past weekend, and I attended the church service that occurs for the community of believers in the diocese. There's a story that was told that blew me away, brought tears to my eyes, and still leaves me in awe of how much God loves me, and how resourceful He is. The fruit of obedience lasts for longer than a few seasons and is impacting people even today.

There was a young senior who is 18 years old at this weekend. He had been raised actively pagan, and had only become a Christian two months before. His friends signed him up for Dynamos and he went. On Saturday night, they were having a prayer section. As the kids filed out, Father Andrew offered to anoint each one of them and seal the healing work of the prayer session. This young man said okay, but then asked Father Andrew, "actually, can you baptize me tomorrow? Is there a service we can do it at, or something?" Father Andrew started to say yes, but then he decided they would baptize him that night. So they went down to the Suwannee River, filled a cooler with muddy river water, and started a bonfire. Now, normally during a baptism, a parent or someone presents the candidate and offers to help him/her in his spiritual walk. However, nobody was here for this kid. So the entire retreat filled with candidates and team members stood up, and as a community presented this kid for baptism. They dunked his head in the cooler of muddy water and baptized him in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I heard him tell this story at the closing service, and was in awe. His face glowed, and you could tell he was just alive with the Spirit. It was so incredible to see the change in this kid!

The spirit is alive and moving in our community and in the hearts of our kids. Dynamos is a wonderful reminder to me that what God says He's going to do, God does. That when we say "yes" to God, God continually says "yes" to the fruit that pours out of what we're doing. I would never have thought this retreat would be the catalyst for a baptism, but the work I did three years ago, and the obedience I had then is impacting people today. It's my prayer and hope that we can all live into this and start saying "yes" to God more often because it impacts more than just our current situation. I hope that we can instill in our kids the way of living a life that says YES to God. Reckless abandonment of our own lives for His purposes.

Also, Congratulations to the Strickland family :) So great to have another kid in our Ministry to pour into!

Is Jesus The Messiah?: Week 11

Before I go on, let me just give a shoutout to my pal Ava who's been reading these things! HEY AVA!

Alright, so this week we talked about a whole set of prophecies. I gave each of the kids a notecard. The notecard had one of three questions:

• How do these verses show Jesus' purpose?
• What do these verses tell us about Jesus' death?
• What do these verses tell us about what happened after Jesus' death?

There were about 4-5 sets of verses in each category. Each one had an Old Testament Verse on the back and a New Testament verse below it. Each of the verses showed part of what we've been studying about Jesus being the Messiah. Here's a good list:

• He came as a ransom for our sins.
• He died on a tree.
• There were nails in his hands and feet.
• No bones were broken on his body.
• They cast lots for His clothes
• He divided the spoil (criminals) with the strong (himself)
• He didn't speak
• Prayed for his accusers
• Marked among transgressors
• Rejected by everyone
• Spat on and struck

The kids got in groups according to their questions, then answered the question with their particular cards in front of everyone. We went over the crucifixion, the beatings of Jesus, and everything Jesus went through for us. We added about 12 pieces to the puzzle, which is awesome. The kids are starting to guess what the picture is. We even had one kid say she didn't need to know anymore, she was convinced. AWESOME.

Is Jesus the Messiah?: Week Nine

We were planning on splitting the kids to learn two different really important prophecies this Sunday, but instead we ended up keeping them all together to learn one. Thus, we're relying on a bit of "homework" (but is the bible really homework?) so the kids can learn as many of these awesome puzzle piece prophecies as possible. We won't hit all 200, but we're going to hit a good number of them!

I gave all of the kids a take home card with three bible verses/stories underlined. The old testament verse is Psalm 78:2. It basically said that the Messiah was going to speak in parables. Parables are pretty simply stories that describe or teach. Here's what I didn't know about parables before planning this lesson: A ton of people spoke in parables, it wasn't just Jesus. So this prophecy seemed so common to these people, and it made the future Messiah seem like a real king or teacher--only high end people did this. But here's the really cool part. Jesus spoke in his own form of parable. If you think of it like a group of categories, there are a category of parables that ONLY Jesus told! This is just plain awesome to me!

The parables can be split up into a few categories, but all of them before Jesus had one common thing. They were all told to explain things that were already written in the Old Testament. There was no new information! It reminded me of the story of the boy who called wolf... It's just a story on a truth we all already know--don't lie! No new information, just a new story to present it. That's the old way of doing parables. Now let's look at Jesus' new category!

Jesus basically spoke in four different types of parables. If you were to break them down, you'd categorize them as nature, discovery, contrast, and trustworthiness. The common thing between all of these was that Jesus ALWAYS spoke in parables about God's kingdom. Other parables were about the law and religious things, but Jesus spoke straight to the kingdom and the face of God. Take the parable of the mustard seed--it shows how vast God's kingdom is, and how small it starts but how great it will become.... Then the parable of the hidden treasure--it shows that we can happily abandon EVERYTHING to follow Jesus... Then the parable of the pharisee and the tax collector--it shows us how much God loves the lost and wants them back (in addition to the "unlost", whoever they are)... Then the persistent widow--it shows us God's trustworthiness no matter what is going on in our lives.

Jesus' parables were different because they didn't focus on explaining what God had already said. They focused on explaining WHO God is and HOW God acts! Jesus' parables couldn't be told with authority by anyone... except HIM. Who better to tell about God's kingdom and God's face and God's character than God himself! What I think is so AWESOME is that God wants us to know about him SO MUCH that he came down to earth not just to die for us, but to TELL US about his love and his awesomeness. Now, that's a God that loves his people!

If you look at the New Testament example in Matthew 7:24-27, you see an awesome parable about the foolish and wise men who built their houses on various foundations. Jesus is awesome in this parable. The basic point is listen to God! Don't build your house on anything that will fade away, but build it on the rock, the only thing that will stand. The parables prove to us that Jesus knows God better than anyone else--nobody else can talk about him the way Jesus can! So, we should build our houses on the foundation of God, because God doesn't shake! God stands strong!

Then read Matthew 13:34-35. We see in this that Jesus fulfilled the promise! Not just because the gospel writers wrote that he did, but we all see countless times in scripture where parables are how Jesus chooses to communicate. In fact 1/3 of the Gospels is filled with Jesus' parables and Jesus explaining God to us! NOW THAT'S COOL.

So, that's the homework for the week... Here's what we actually talked about yesterday morning:

We read Isaiah 35:5-6 and talked about what the verse was basically saying. Basically, God's saying that we're going to know the Messiah because he's going to be making lame walk and blind see and all of that fun stuff. AKA MIRACLES! We defined a miracle as something impossible that God makes impossible. These miracles show God's love not only to the quarantined person ('cause people had to be out of the town when they were sick) but also to the family because it reunited them! It's awesome. Ask your kids about it, they'll probably talk about how Molly was quarantined and then we got her back.