Scripture: Matthew 18-21-35
Faith + Open: Welcome the children to children’s time. Begin
by asking them how school is going and about their friends.
Faith + Share: (If you
have an object that perhaps was damaged by a friend or sibling bring it in to
show the children. You can use it to talk about how it reminds you that your
relationship with your friend/sibling is more important than the object.)
Say: “you know one time my friend/sibling broke something that was mine. I
really liked this thing and I was so mad when I found out that they broke it! I
didn’t want to talk to that person for a really long time. They said that they
were sorry, but I didn’t believe them. I even told them back “I forgive you”
but I didn’t really mean it. I wanted them to be sad like I was and I even
thought about breaking something of theirs! Has that ever happened to you where
you were that mad at someone who broke or took something that was yours? Well,
even though I felt that way for a while, I began to be sad that I was having
fun with my friend anymore. They knew that I was still mad so they did not play
with me at school or after school. I wanted to be friends again so I had to
really mean the words “I forgive you” and act like a friend again. This is so
hard isn’t it?? But have you ever accidently broken a toy of a friend or
sibling? Yeah, I have too, you feel really bad don’t you and the only thing you
can say is “I’m sorry.” We feel really good when that friend forgives us and
still wants to play with us though, right! Right!
God loves us very much and in our Bible story today Jesus
says that we are to forgive people over and over to be a good friend and show
God’s love to them. God forgives us over and over and over and over….and so we
should love our friends and everyone we meet that much too!" (You may need or want to say at this point
that if someone is hurting you that you, forgiving them doesn’t mean you have
to hang out with them and let them hurt you again.)
When we forgive, we are praying that we want everyone to be
the kind of friend who helps each other and not hurt each other. This is very
hard and we have to ask God to help us every day! Jesus taught his disciples
the Lord’s prayer which talks about forgiveness for this reason! We will mess
up, which is why we ask God and our friends to forgive us! God does not want us
to be hurt or to hurt anyone so we have to talk to each other to get along!
This is why learning the Lord’s Prayer can help us with this.
Faith + Prayer: Lead
the children in a short prayer followed by the Lord’s Prayer:
Dear
forgiving God, we thank you that you love and forgive us when we mess up.
Please help us to be kind to one another too! Thank you for sending Jesus to
show us how to love people. Jesus taught us to pray…Lord’s Prayer
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