|
Welcome back!
In church right now Pastor Darren is talking about community in church, how the church isn't a building but it is a community of believers. This is the kids video that being shown in church this week.
The church is the group of believers that gather together. Everyone that gathers together has a unique set of gifts and talents, did you know that? The gifts and talents that God gives us are also known as spiritual gifts and that is what we are going to be looking at today. Before we get started though, let's sing a couple of songs! Click the videos below and sing along.
Sunday School WorshipMusic Video: Thankful from DIG IN on Vimeo.
God has given each of us special gifts through the Holy Spirit that can live in us. The Holy Spirit is God with us. It’s a gift that God is with us and that he gives us special talents we can use to love him and others!
Since the Holy Spirit is living in us, lets take a couple of minutes to think about where, if we could choose anywhere, we might like to live... would you like to live in the mountains or beside the ocean? in a treehouse, in a castle, on a boat? Why would you pick to live there? Each of these places could be fun to live. Today we’re learning that when we believe in God, his Spirit lives—he lives in us ! Now that might sound a bit weird, but don’t worry. We’ll learn more about what this means later. What do you think it means to have the Holy Spirit living in us? Talk-About Video 10: Andy's X-Ray from DIG IN on Vimeo.
So....? Why do you think that the Holy Spirit isn't something you can see on an X-ray?
In this video Cammie explained that the Holy Spirit is “the presence of God that’s always with us.” Despite what Andy thought, you can’t see the Holy Spirit in an X-ray. But that doesn’t make him any less real! When we believe in Jesus, the Holy Spirit lives in us. We can’t see him on an X-ray, but we can see him by how he helps us live right and comforts us in times when we might be upset or have choices to make. Games
Guide Line
The Holy Spirit can live in us and guide us. That means he leads us and helps us know where to go and what to do. Let’s play a game where you’ll work together to guide a pen into a cup.
Talk About It
What role did the fishing line play in this game? How does the fishing line remind you of how the Holy Spirit is in our lives? Even though we can’t see the Holy Spirit, he guides us and helps us know where to go and what to do. When we believe in God the Holy Spirit lives in us.
Hungry Fish (Easy Prep: Use the painter’s tape to make X’s on the floor. 1 X for every 5 or 6 kids.)
Let’s play a game where our friends pretend to be hungry fish. But these fish are stuck to the bottom of the ocean right where they are. We can pretend we’re food trying to swim past them without getting touched. If they touch us, we go back to the start and try again.
Hungry Fish Get Help
Its hard for our hungry fish to catch their food! This time, our fish will have some help. Choose another child to join each child on the X, so there are two kids at each X. One child will keep his or her feet on the X. The second child can stand as far away as possible while holding the hand of the first child. The second child will also remain in one place. Have the remaining kids line up along the wall. Play the game as before, having kids go back to the start and try again if they get tagged. Remind tagger teams to keep their feet in place. Talk About It It was hard for the hungry fish to catch their food alone. It was much easier with help. There are lots of things that are harder to do alone. We all need help sometimes, like if we need to move heavy furniture, trying to understand math homework, or maybe finding our keys. God knows we need help sometimes. Sometimes God sends people to help us. But God’s Spirit can help us, too. When we need help making good choices or knowing what to do, he’s there. The Holy Spirit can live in us and help us when we need it. Bible Lesson
As you know, today we’re learning about something called spiritual gifts.
Can you think about a person who has given you a really great gift? Maybe it was a Christmas or birthday gift, was it something you had waited a long time for? or was it something that was a complete surprise? We’re going to learn more next week about what some spiritual gifts are. But this week, we’re going to focus on who gives them to us! They’re called spiritual gifts because the Holy Spirit gives them to us. The Holy Spirit gives us gifts when we believe in Jesus, because when we tell God that we believe in him the Holy Spirit can live in us. Listen to this... Romans 8:11 says....
"God raised Jesus from death. And if God’s Spirit is living in you, then he will also give life to your bodies that die. God is the One who raised Christ from death. And he will give life through his Spirit that lives in you."
So the Holy Spirit can live in us when we belive in Jesus, and he gives us spiritual gifts, let's find out more about what the Holy Spirit does in our lives.
The Bible tells us the Holy Spirit is the giver of all spiritual gifts. 1 Corinthians 12:4 says "There are different kinds of gifts; but they are all from the same Spirit." and verse 11 says.. "One Spirit, the same Spirit, does all these things. The Spirit decides what to give each person." What does a megaphone do? A megaphone helps us to speak louder. The Holy Spirit is kind of like a megaphone because he speaks up for us! Listen to this... "I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper. He will give you this Helper to be with you forever. The Helper is the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him because it does not see him or know him. But you know him. He lives with you and he will be in you." '"But I tell you the truth. It is better for you that I go away. When I go away I will send the Helper to you. If I do not go away, then the Helper will not come." When Jesus talked about the Holy Spirit, he said the Holy Spirit can live in us and be our advocate. An advocate is someone who speaks up on behalf of someone else. For example, if someone was a victim of a crime, an advocate would speak up to get the person the help he or she needs. The Holy Spirit can live in us and be our advocate. This is how the Bible describes it in Romans 8:26.... "Also, the Spirit helps us. We are very weak, but the Spirit helps us with our weakness. We do not know how to pray as we should. But the Spirit himself speaks to God for us, even begs God for us. The Spirit speaks to God with deep feelings that words cannot explain." Have you ever wanted to pray but didn’t know what to say? We are welcome to talk to God anytime. But sometimes we don’t know what to say! When that happens, the Holy Spirit can be our advocate who hears what’s in our hearts and puts it into words as a prayer to God. Let's read John 14:26 together, listen for something else the Holy Spirit does... "But the Helper will teach you everything. He will cause you to remember all the things I told you. This Helper is the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name." Can you think about your favourite teacher? What is it about them that makes them your favourite? Jesus said the Holy Spirit will teach us and remind us what Jesus said. One way he does that is through the Bible. Sometimes when we’re reading the Bible, a verse seems to jump out at us. That’s the Holy Spirit making sure we pay attention to that verse! When the Holy Spirit lives in us, he teaches us. Okay, let's see what's next... What does this sign make you think of? 
When a driver sees a stop sign, he or she stops. Without that sign, the driver might crash into another car! The Holy Spirit does something similar. Let me show you what I mean.
"When the Helper comes, he will convict the people of the world of their sin, about being right with God, and about judgment." This verse has some hard words, like convict. But basically this verse means that the Holy Spirit tells you when to stop doing something that’s bad for you or to start doing something that would be good for you to do. We don’t always know right and wrong. But the Holy Spirit does! Sometimes you’ll feel a little check in your heart that you’re doing something wrong. That’s because the Holy Spirit can live in us and give us that inside feeling that we need to stop. We won’t necessarily see a stop sign, but we’ll get a feeling. 
Let’s see what else happens when the Holy Spirit lives in us.
Some people who wear glasses can see a little bit without them. But some people would be walking into things without their glasses! The Holy Spirit is kind of like a pair of glasses because he guides us.
"But when the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you into all truth. He will not speak his own words. He will speak only what he hears and will tell you what is to come. The Spirit of truth will bring glory to me. He will take what I have to say and tell it to you."
What’s one thing you know is true? God is so big that there’s always more we can learn about him and the longer we know God, the more the Holy Spirit can guide us into truth about God! These verses mentioned one thing the Holy Spirit will show us that’s actually another gift. 
The verses we read said the Holy Spirit will tell us about the future. How cool?!
How do binoculars remind you about knowing the future? Binoculars let us see farther in front of us than we could see on our own. And when the Holy Spirit lives in us, he can show us things about the future that we’d never know on our own!
So that brings us to our last and final gift today.... What could it be? The last thing we’re learning about the Holy Spirit is this... 1 Corinthians 12:5-6 says...
"There are different ways to serve; but all these ways are from the same Lord. And there are different ways that God works in people; but all these ways are from the same God. God works in us all in everything we do."
When the Holy Spirit lives in us, he gives us each a spiritual gift. A spiritual gift is something you’re good at, but it’s different from a talent. The Holy Spirit could make you good at kindness, giving, or being wise.
Next week we’ll learn more about what all those gifts are. For now, the important thing to know is that they don’t come from us. Every gift we learned about comes from the same source: the Holy Spirit. They may feel like they’re coming from us, because the Holy Spirit lives in us when we believe in Jesus, but they’re special gifts he gave us to serve God! PRAYER
Dear Holy Spirit,
We thank you for all the gifts you give us. We thank you for being our advocate, teaching us, convicting us, guiding us and showing us about the future, and giving us spiritual gifts. Help us use our gifts to serve God, In Jesus’ name, Amen ActIVITY
Click on the image below to print of this activity sheet, or collect one from the church office.
Comments are closed.
|
RSS Feed