Fruitful - Day Two Bible Lesson - Self-control

Younger Kids Bible Lesson

PDF version of this lesson: Fruitful 021 Bible Day Two Younger.pdf

Jesus taught us how to pray. Jesus helps us to be good.

The Lord’s Prayer
Matthew 6:9-13 (ESV)

(Jesus said,) “Pray then like this:
‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For yours is the kingdom and the power
and the glory, forever. Amen.”

The Lord’s Prayer
Matthew 6:9-13 (ERV)

(Jesus said,) “So this is how you should pray:
‘Our Father in heaven,
we pray that your name will always be kept holy.
We pray that your kingdom will come—
that what you want will be done here on earth, the same as in heaven.
Give us the food we need for today.
Forgive our sins,
just as we have forgiven those who did wrong to us.
Don’t let us be tempted,
but save us from the Evil One,
For the kingdom and the power
and the glory belong to you forever and ever. Amen.'”

Have you ever prayed to ask God for something?

How often do you pray? Every day? Only when you are at church? When you are afraid? When you need to ask God for something? When someone is sick?

There are all kinds of reasons people pray. Some people pray every day when they wake up, to thank God for another day of life. Do you think that’s a good reason to pray?

Some people pray when someone they love is sick or hurt, and they know that God can help. Do you think that is a good reason to pray?

Many people pray just to praise God for who He is and all of the great things He has done. Do you think that is a good reason to pray?

There are so many different ways to pray! Do you think it’s good to use just one of the ways, or lots of them?

Just like your parents love you and talk to you all the time, God loves it when we include Him in our daily life. He loves us and wants us to talk to him all the time—not just when we are afraid or have a big request for Him.

One day, Jesus taught His followers a prayer that they could use when they talked to God each day. He didn’t mean that these words are the only ones we should use when we talk to God. He gave us an example of a really good prayer that actually has a lot of different kinds of prayer all rolled into one!

We read it at the beginning of class. Let’s take a look at what each part means…

Our Father in heaven…

This part reminds us that God is a good Father who loves us. We’ll learn more about that tomorrow!

hallowed be your name.

‘Hallowed’ is an old-fashioned word for ‘holy’. In this part of the prayer, we are telling God that we wish everyone on earth would praise His name and know that He is holy.

Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

In this part we are praising God and telling Him that we wish everyone on earth would praise Him and honor Him and follow Him, just like everyone does in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

This is a tiny part of the prayer, but it is one of the most important parts! It reminds us that we need to talk to God daily! It teaches us that we don’t need to worry about the future. Only God knows what will happen in the future, and He’s got everything under control. We should trust God to provide what we need for today.

and forgive us our debts (or sins, or trespasses) as we also have forgiven our debtors (or those who have sinned against us, or those who have harmed us).

Did you notice that we’re asking God to forgive us exactly like we forgive others? Most of the time, we are not very good at forgiving others. We get upset when people do or say bad things to us, and we stay mad at them instead of forgiving them. We are actually terrible at forgiveness! That’s where the Holy Spirit can help us with today’s Fruit: Self-control. When we are not able to calm down and forgive someone, the Holy Spirit helps us do that. Without the Holy Spirit, we are terrible at forgiveness (and a lot of other things), but if the Spirit of God is working in our lives, we will find that we are able to forgive like Jesus.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

In this part of the prayer, we are asking God to guide our steps every day. We are admitting that when we try to make our own way, we often get into trouble with temptation and sin—but when we follow the Spirit, we will get into a lot less trouble. This is part of self-control too! We are telling God that we don’t want to handle self-control on our own—because that leads to a lot of mistakes—but that we want our self-control to come from the Holy Spirit.

Do you ever have trouble controlling yourself?

Do you ever get angry and say or do things that you wish you hadn’t?

If someone is mean or bad towards you, do you lose your temper and treat them the same way?

Have you ever tried to have better self-control on your own? Did it work? Did it work for a little while and then go back to how it was?

Try asking God to help you with self-control. He sent the Holy Spirit to help us bear fruit that will make our lives better and allow us to serve Him better. One of those ‘fruits’ is self-control. God promises He can help us with that, so we should remember to let the Holy Spirit do that!

What Fruit of the Spirit have we learned about so far this week?

Kindness, Gentleness, Self-control

Let’s say today’s Truth together:

Jesus taught us how to pray. Jesus helps us to be good.

Let’s say The Lord’s Prayer together:

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For yours is the kingdom and the power
and the glory, forever. Amen.

Prayer

A prayer is provided with each lesson as an example of possible things to pray for each day. The prayers are not intended to be used word-for-word, although you can use them that way if you need to. You should also try to include specific prayer requests from your kids and specific things that they are thankful for in your group’s prayer time each day.

Thank you God for sending Jesus to teach us how to live and to help us know You. Thank you Jesus for teaching us how to pray. Thank you for sending the Holy Spirit to help us be kind and gentle, and to have self-control. Please help us remember to talk to You in prayer every day. Please help us to have self-control and forgive others, even when that’s not easy.

Activities

Coloring Sheets
Word Search
Fruit Identification