Fruitful - Day Four Bible Lesson - Love & Joy

Younger Kids Bible Lesson

PDF version of this lesson: Fruitful 041 Bible Day Four Younger.pdf

God is love. (1 John 4:8)

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16

You can read about Jesus' death, burial and resurrection in the the book of Luke in the New Testament. Here’s where to look:

Jesus' Death, Burial, and Resurrection Betrayal and Last Supper: Luke 22: 1-46 Arrest: Luke 22:47-64 Death: Luke 23 Resurrection: Luke 24

In today’s lesson we will talk about some of the things that happened in those chapters. If you want to read the whole story later, read all of Luke chapters 22, 23, and 24 in your Bible.

God created the world to be a beautiful place where we could live in perfect fellowship with Him. From the very beginning, though, people chose sin instead of following God’s instructions.

If a friend asked you what sin is, how would you answer?

Sin can be any bad thing we do. We can think of sin as disobeying God, or doing things our way instead of God’s way.

Have you ever disobeyed your parents? I think we all have. Sometimes we don’t even realize that we are disobeying until a parent reminds us that they told us not to do something.

When the first people, Adam and Eve, chose their way over God’s way, sin came into the world. Everything fell out of harmony. All of the people born after Adam and Eve have had to experience the consequences of sin. We all struggle with it. No matter how good we try to be, we often make choices that lead us to sin.

We can’t be good on our own. We can’t say that we don’t know we are being disobedient, because God ’s Word, the Bible, tells us exactly what sin is. We need to ask God for help with sin. The good news is that God loves us and made a way to take care of our sin and bring us back to Him. God promised to send someone to be the final sacrifice who would set us free from our sin.

Who remembers what we learned about on Monday? Do you remember learning about a special baby being born in a stable? It was Jesus! The angel promised the shepherds that the birth of Jesus would be good news of great joy for all people.

God sent His only Son, Jesus, to get rid of sin so that whoever believes in Him can live with God forever in heaven. That’s good news for us, but some bad things had to happen to Jesus to make God’s plan work.

Jesus knew what would have to happen to Him to defeat sin. He reminded the disciples many times that He would be arrested and killed, but that He would defeat death and return to them.

Jesus was arrested and accused of many crimes, even though he was innocent of all of them. His accusers didn’t understand God’s promises. They couldn’t see that Jesus was the one God had been promising for centuries! They put him to death as a criminal on a cross.

After Jesus died, the Romans took Him down from the cross and gave His body to a man named Joseph, who had Jesus buried in a tomb that Joseph owned. The Romans rolled a large stone over the entrance to the tomb.

Why do you think they put a big stone over Jesus' tomb?

They heard that Jesus said He would be killed and return to life in three days. They were afraid that some of Jesus' friends would steal Jesus' body and tell everyone that He had risen from the dead. Maybe they were thinking that when He did rise from the dead He wouldn’t be able to get out of the tomb because of that big stone.

Early on Sunday morning, after the Sabbath, some women who loved Jesus went to His tomb with spices to put on Jesus’ body. When they got to the tomb, the large stone covering the entrance had been rolled away! They went inside to find Jesus’ body, but He was not there!

Suddenly, two men appeared in shining robes. They were angels! The women were so afraid. The angels asked them why they were looking for Jesus in a tomb. They said that Jesus was not there because He was alive! He had risen from the dead, just as He had promised! Then the women remembered Jesus’ words.

The women were so excited that they ran to tell the disciples what had happened. The disciples didn’t believe them! Peter decided to run to the tomb and see it for himself. He ran there as fast as he could.

When he got to the tomb and looked inside, he saw that the tomb was empty except for the linen cloth that Jesus had been wrapped in. He was so happy! Jesus was alive!

The Romans paid the guards at the tomb to say that someone had come and taken Jesus' body away, but over the next forty days, hundreds of people saw and talked to Jesus. It definitely wasn’t a trick like the Romans wanted people to think. Jesus was alive!

Jesus rose from the dead, proving that He really is God’s Son. He showed us that He has power over death and sin. Because He rose from the dead, we know that everything He told us is true.

You can make Jesus the King of your life by inviting Him into your heart. When you give Him control of your life, His Spirit guides you and takes care of you, and you can get to know him more and more as you study the Bible and pray.

When you give your life to Him, you can know that someday you will be with Jesus forever in Heaven. What an amazing gift! God loves us and sent Jesus to save us, and what Jesus did for us brings us great joy!

The love and joy that we receive from God are listed as fruit of God’s Spirit. Do you remember the verse that tells us about the fruit of the Spirit? Does anyone want to try to say it for us?

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Galatians 5:22-23

Did you notice that love and joy are the first two fruit in the list?

Love is such an important part of who God is that the Bible says ‘God is love.’ in 1 John 4:8. Since God is love, it must be true that if we have His Spirit in us we will love others.

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

Kindness, Gentleness, Self-control, Goodness, Faithfulness, Love, Joy

Let’s say today’s Truth together:

God is love. (1 John 4:8)

Let’s say today’s verse together:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16

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 loving us and sending Jesus to take away our sin. Thank you for helping us learn this week about your love for us and the good news about Jesus. Thank you for sending the Holy Spirit to help us to be loving like you. Thank you God for the joy you bring to our lives.

Recommended Activity

Teach your song the old Bible School song, I’ve Got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy and sing it with them.

I’ve Got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy

Verse 1:
I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy
down in my heart, down in my heart,
down in my heart.
I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy
down in my heart,
down in my heart to stay!

Chorus:
And I’m so happy, so very happy
I’ve got the love of Jesus in my heart.
And I’m so happy, so very happy
I’ve got the love of Jesus in my heart!

Verse 2:
I’ve got the peace that passes understanding,
down in my heart, down in my heart,
down in my heart.
I’ve got the peace that passes understanding,
down in my heart,
down in my heart to stay!

Chorus

Verse 3:
I’ve got the love of Jesus, love of Jesus
down in my heart, down in my heart,
down in my heart.
I’ve got the love of Jesus, love of Jesus
down in my heart,
down in my heart to stay!