By George Nielsen
This week we have continued the Winter session of extra Bible Curriculum lessons for 5th graders, "The Bible is God's Message for Me" (‘BGMM’). We are covering the major topic of The Kingdom of God. We also used the ‘On the Right Path’ (‘OTRP’) diagram when explaining our answers to questions raised by students.
This class began with review of the idea from last week’s music video featuring The Newsboys performing the song “God’s Not Dead (Like a Lion)” -- “He’s living on the inside, roaring like a lion (not croaking like a frog)." The upbeat music and the imagery in the lyric are intended to emphasize how God Almighty is Active, not passive, Dominant, not weak or cowardly, and the King, like a lion who is king of the jungle. (A link to the video is provided at the end of this Blog post.)
Last week, students made comments, about sin and God hating sin, and our review today included restating these comments. A student commented on how God’s hatred of sin should carryover to hatred of us, the sinners. Hatred of sinners does appear to be the logical conclusion from the truth that God hates sin, BUT this logic is not descriptive of how God actually considers mankind. God loves mankind. God’s ways are higher than man’s ways, and they reflect God’s grace, mercy, and love. This was explained used John 3: 16 and Romans 5: 8 as Scripture references.
Then another copy of the class handout titled “The Gospel of the Kingdom” was distributed, and there was a very brief review of the first page, which was covered last week. (Click HERE to link to a copy of the Handout.) Mark 1: 14-15 is the key verse, and the review emphasized the teaching in verse 15, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”
Repenting is more than just admitting that we have sinned. We acknowledge our offense against God and we agree to turn away from it, turning to Jesus for forgiveness and for help to defeat any temptation to commit that sin again. Believing the gospel includes belief in salvation through trusting in Jesus as our Savior, and also belief that Jesus is the King. But this is not just some theoretical belief, it has an impact on us, in our own life. Jesus is our King, and we serve Jesus.
Next, the students read from part of the Class Notes handout. The information read was:
The Holy BIBLE Will Help You Learn About HIS KINGDOM
God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.
The first step in that plan is -- “Come to JESUS”
The next step is to BE His Disciple -- “I Serve JESUS”
You recognize and submit to His Lordship and Authority
GRACE is God showing His love to you even though you don't deserve it. You can't earn God's grace; you can receive it as a gift. You do not deserve to be saved from sin and to have eternal life. But God showed His grace by sending Jesus to be our Savior, redeeming us out of slavery to sin and the devil. Jesus was punished for us.
You can actually receive that grace when you Come to Jesus - this means that you are saved from sin's punishment when you trust in Jesus as your Savior.
Then, returning to the information from page 2 of the Gospel of the Kingdom handout, we covered the teaching on Jesus’ kingdom being a spiritual kingdom -- that the Kingdom of God is within you. Finally, we discussed the idea of submission to Jesus’ Lordship and authority. This requires obedience and service, and the examples given were from the Scripture passages on page two of the handout -- The Great Commission, from Matthew 28, and The Good Samaritan, from Luke 10.
The students were instructed to take The Gospel of the Kingdom handout home and give it to their parents, so they could help them with further study and with the Memory Verse practice, since no student had memorized Mark 1:14-15. The students who had made the handout into a paper airplane and thrown it were rebuked verbally for doing so. The Class Notes handout was returned, for use next week, the Memory Verse assignment from last week was assigned again, and the class ended by saying our closing prayer.
The Memory Verse assignments are the same as last week: Mark 1: 14-15 (NKJV), and the Emphasis verse for this month will also continue into February, John 3: 16 (NIV).
Click on the Video title to link to YouTube and view the video discussed in today’s class:
“God’s Not Dead (Like a Lion)” --- The Newsboys
A Blog post with remarks about the national Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative holiday has been published There was insufficient time during the past two weeks to make any remarks in class about Dr. King, racial discrimination, and the civil rights movement.
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