CORRESPONDING LEVEL WEB #s Defenders: 040803 Detectives: 030803 Developers: 020803 JESUS CHRIST MATERIALS NEEDED Bible; Teacher Preparation Guide (optional supplements: K4T songbook and PowerPoint files of lyrics) SUGGESTED ORIGINAL KIDS 4 TRUTH SONG All I Find in You SUGGESTED HYMNS All Hail the Pow r of Jesus Name, Fairest Lord Jesus! OTHER SONG SUGGESTIONS Older kids: He Is Lord, Let s Talk About Jesus, Isn t He Wonderful? Younger kids: He Is Lord, He Is King T H E B A S I C S PRIMARY TRUTH Jesus Christ is God. PRIMARY SCRIPTURE PASSAGES Titus 2:13; John 8:58 WHAT THIS DOCTRINE REVEALS ABOUT GOD Only God Himself could send Himself to Earth and become totally human (yet without sin) and still continue to be totally God. Only He is wise enough to think of such an idea, and only He is powerful enough to carry it out. KNOWLEDGE OBJECTIVES By God s grace... The child will understand the importance of knowing the biblical Jesus. The child will understand that Jesus Christ is fully God. The child will will see the danger of believing in the false christs described by cults and false religions. The child will learn the importance of checking all beliefs to see whether they match up with the Word of God. ATTITUDE OBJECTIVES By God s grace... The child will genuinely believe in the deity, the divinity, of Jesus Christ, that He is truly God come in the flesh. The child will respond to this wonderful mystery in great awe. (See 1 Timothy 3:16.) The child will want to live in such a way that reflects God and God s will, as Christ Himself did while living on Earth. P R A Y E R 1
T E A C H I N G P H A S E I N T R O (about 10-20 minutes) OPENER* If salvation comes only through Jesus Christ, then it is very important for us to know Who He is, and to believe in Him as He has revealed Himself to be. The Bible teaches we can know Him through faith in what the Word says about Him. BIBLE DRILL (#1) Whom does the Bible say we must believe in, in order to have eternal life? John 3:36 BIBLE DRILL (#2) Whom does the Bible say we must know in order to have eternal life? John 17:3 By God s grace, we can come to know God the Father through faith in His Son Jesus Christ. Jesus is the divine Object of our faith. What does it mean to say someone is divine? To be divine is to be God! Because Jesus is Himself God, we can trust Him for forgiveness of our sins past, present, and future. We can trust Him with our everlasting souls! ILLUSTRATION Have you ever talked with someone about a friend you think you have in common? Let s call him Joey. At first, it seems that both you and your friend have become acquainted with the same Joey. But as begin to talk more and more about Joey, you and your friend realize that you ve been talking about two different Joeys! Perhaps they have different physical features, or maybe they play for two entirely different soccer teams. They might have the same first name but different last names. Maybe they don t even live in the same country! One Joey might live in Los Angeles, and the other may live in Casablanca. Even though they share the same first name, the Joey you know may not be the Joey your friend knows. That they are both named Joey actually doesn t mean much at all! There are many, many Joeys in this world. Understand this: Even though someone might say he worships someone he calls jesus, he may not actually mean the same Jesus that true Christians know. What makes a Christian a true Christian is knowing the true Christ! *NOTE: In the intro, we want to recap the primary truth and set the stage to use the primary truth to point the learners back to God. I N S T R U C T I O N & R E I N F O R C E M E N T (about 10-20 minutes) COMMENTARY Many cults and false religions acknowledge someone that they call jesus, and they do hold him in high regard but their jesus is not really the Jesus of the Bible, and so he s not really God. Anyone who likes or respects Jesus but who says Jesus was only a prophet or a teacher or a super-hero or a story character is not a true believer. People who do not worship Jesus Christ as He has revealed Himself God s Word (as totally God!) are not able to be true Christians, because they don t have an understanding of Who the true Christ is! The most important thing in life is to know Jesus Christ. In knowing Him, we can know God: He is God. God has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. If we do not acknowledge (accept, believe) Jesus as He has so clearly shown Himself, we are failing to worship the God of the Bible rightly in spirit and in truth. 2
ILLUSTRATION How silly would be if you had a friend with red hair, blue eyes, and a very kind disposition and yet, when describing him to others, you chose to say he has black hair, brown eyes, and that he throws temper tantrums all the time? Would you truly be describing your friend? No. What s even more dangerous than falsely describing your friend is letting people get the wrong impression of Who Jesus really is. People ought to describe and define Jesus in a way that flows from the Bible and agrees with the Bible, NOT basing their views of Him upon their own opinions or wishes! COMMENTARY False religions, cults, other faulty views about Christ Sometimes, people think of Jesus the way they think of Santa Claus. All He wants to do is give me good things, they think. But Jesus is coming someday to judge the world. Do you think of Santa Claus as a judge? Some people think of Jesus as only a good teacher, and not as God Who has come in the flesh. But would a good teacher command people to believe in Him as the only way to heaven, if He were not really God? Would a good teacher claim to be God, if He were not really God? If Jesus wasn t truly God, then His teachings were not truly good. Since He claimed to be God, He would ve been teaching lies if He wasn t truly God and good teachers don t teach lies. Some people think that Jesus is angry and needs His mother Mary to calm Him down. Or they think that Jesus is just too busy to spend time on human beings. In fact, instead of praying to God through Jesus, some people attempt to come to God through prayers to Mary or to another one of Jesus servants. They think that simply coming to Jesus cannot be enough to get to God. But what does the Bible say about that type of thinking about Jesus? BIBLE DRILL (#3) John 14:6 Some cults teach that Jesus is not truly God, but that He is just kind of close to being God. Jehovah s Witnesses teach that Jesus is actually the archangel Michael! But what does the Bible say about that type of thinking about Jesus? BIBLE DRILL (#4) What does the Bible say about Jesus as compared to angels? Hebrews 1:4 Mormons teach that Jesus and Lucifer were actually spirit-brothers, and that the reason for the animosity between the two is that Jesus plan to redeem the world was accepted and Lucifer s was rejected. BIBLE DRILL (#5) Who does the Bible teach created all things? Colossians 1:16-17 Muslims believe that Jesus was just one of many prophets of their god Allah. They consider Jesus to be on the same level as their respected prophet Mohammed. But what does the Bible say about that type of thinking about Jesus? BIBLE DRILL (#6) Luke 2:11 Revelation 5:12-13 3
COMMENTARY Do these cults and other false religions believe in the Christ of the Bible? No. They believe in a christ that they have manufactured (made up, crafted on their own) from their own imaginations. A man-made christ is not the true Christ! Believing in a christ who isn t God will never save anyone. We must believe in Jesus Christ as He has revealed Himself so clearly in the Word of God. And how has He revealed Himself? He has revealed Himself as the One true God. ILLUSTRATION When a mountain climber climbs up a mountain, he puts trust in things like rope and metal spikes. He needs those tools in order to support the weight of his body. Wouldn t it be terrible if a mountain climber put all of his trust in a weak rope? Suppose that the mountain climber packed his things, and the rope he packed looked like it was very strong. He even gave it a hard tug to test it, but it seemed totally trustworthy. Little did he know that on the inside the rope was weak, weak, weak. Mountain-climbing is already kind of a dangerous adventure, but it s all the more dangerous if you re mistakenly confident that your weak equipment will help you climb successfully. DISCUSSION This mountain climber we ve been talking about may have put his trust in a bad rope. Although the rope seemed okay when he packed it, it would not be able to save the climber s life if he should slip on the mountain. The rope would give way under the climber s weight. If something terrible like that happens, what would we have to say was the climber s mistake? [He placed his trust in the wrong object, a rope that would not be strong enough to save him.] Satan works very hard to deceive people into thinking they are trusting in the right Christ, even when they are believing in a false christ. Why is that? Because he is sly and wicked and wants only the worst for those people. He likes to twist and turn God s Word to give people a false assurance that they are true believers. He has created many unbiblical christs to believe in, and he works all the time to keep people from placing their confidence in the true Jesus Christ of the Bible. But there is only One true Jesus Christ. He is the only trustworthy One, and we must trust in Him that He is Who He says He is. Millions of people put their trust in a false christ, but a false christ has no true power to save us from our sins. Only the Jesus Christ of the Bible (the perfect God-Man Who came and died for our sins and rose again the third day) has the power and authority to forgive sins. He is real! COMMENTARY Christians believe that Jesus Christ is God. We believe He is a true Deity (DEE-uh-tee), or you could say we believe in the deity of Christ. Deity means divineness or divinity, the fact of being God. There are several good, biblical reasons to believe in the deity of Christ. Remember, we must always go back to the Bible to be sure of the truth. Here are a few of the Bible reasons we should believe that the Jesus Christ of the Bible is also the God of the Bible: 1. Jesus Himself claimed to be the great I AM, a name used only for the one true Jehovah God. (See John 8:58.) 2. God the Father addresses Jesus Christ as God. (See Hebrews 1:8.) 3. Jesus did many things that only God could do. (See activity in Appendices or If Time section.) ( ) (Here would be a great place to insert what you learned from your Teacher Truth Study.) 4
GETTING BACK TO GOD* {Recap WHAT THIS DOCTRINE REVEALS ABOUT GOD: Only God Himself could send Himself to Earth and become totally human (yet without sin) and still continue to be totally God.} What mere human being could have thought up the idea of a divine God coming to Earth to live a sinless life and to receive punishment from Himself for His people s sins? Only God is wise enough to think up such an idea, and only He is powerful enough to carry it out. God is pleased when we acknowledge that the Jesus Christ of the Bible is one and the same with the God of the Bible. God wants us to worship Him in spirit and in truth. He wants us to worship Him as He really is, so He sent Jesus Christ to show us Himself. Jesus says that nobody can come close to the Father except through Him, and that is because He Himself is God. No mere human being could get himself or other people to God. A God Who would go to such elaborate lengths to reveal Himself to us must indeed be worthy of praise and love. God has given us a great mystery in the deity of Christ. We cannot understand how Jesus Christ could be fully man and fully God at the same time. But He is. There is great glory for God in this mystery, because only God Himself could make it happen. For us, it s a mystery to accept by faith. And God is pleased when we take Him at His Word, when we respond to Him in faith. Jesus Christ is the Living Word God s Message in the flesh and He has declared the Father to us. To know God the Son is to know God the Father. *NOTE: Teachers, please remember that this section should include the fruit of your Teacher Truth Study and one or two personal illustrations or anecdotes from the Personalize It! activity in the Teacher Preparation Phase. A P P L I C A T I O N & A S S E S S M E N T INTERNALIZE IT! from Teacher Preparation Phase (about 5-10 minutes) You might begin this section with: Boys and girls, as I ve been preparing for this TruthTime Lesson, here s what God has been showing me... You might continue by saying: Because of what God is teaching me, here s what is going to be different in my life during this next week... You might conclude with something like this: Finally, here s what God has taught me about Himself through these truths... DISCUSSION TIME QUESTIONS Why is it important to believe in Jesus Christ as God s Word reveals Him to be? What are some beliefs about Jesus that go against the Bible s teachings about Him? Why is it important to know Bible verses that teach us clearly Who Christ really is? Why does the devil try very hard to keep people from believing in the true Christ? 5
A P P E N D I C E S O R I F T I M E (optional) ACTIVITY Bible Passage Look-up Look up these verses and describe the things that Jesus Christ did that only God could do: Matthew 8:26-27 Matthew 14:19 John 2:11 John 8:58 John 6:64 John 2:25 John 21:17 Matthew 18:20 John 2:19 1 Timothy 6:16 Revelation 19:10 6