Scripture: for teacher background: John 14:1-3; Acts 1:1-11; 1 Thessalonians 4:14-17; 5:1-11; 2 Thessalonians 2; 2 Peter 3:10-13 Revelation 1:7 Matt 24
Making contact:
Have you ever flown a kite? It is wonderful
when it lifts up off the ground and soars into the air.
Another amazing
experience that only a few people have had is to go in a hot air balloon.
You
sit in a basket and this great big balloon is filled with hot air and you are
carried up into the sky.
Exploration:
What is Ascension Day all about? Ascend means UP. Who went up?
Yes, Jesus was taken up into
heaven 40 days after His resurrection.
He had appeared many times to His
friends, ate food with them and taught them things and then he took them to a
mountain and while He was speaking He was lifted up into the sky and then a
cloud covered Him and they couldn’t see Him again.
There were 2 angels there
who spoke to the disciples and gave them a wonderful promise that just as Jesus
had left to go into heaven, so He would return again one day.
This will be Jesus, Himself.
There are over
300 references to the 2nd coming of Jesus in the New Testament and
it is a bit of a puzzle as to how exactly it will all happen, but there are
some things that are certain.
Jesus will have His glorious new body that He had
when He was raised again – human but more special. (Phil 3:21) This body can
live in Heaven or on earth, can move through space without a space suit, even
eat and pass through locked doors.
Only 2 angels were there that day He
ascended but when He comes back, thousands of angels will come with Him. (Matt
25:31 Jude 14)
Only eleven disciples saw Him go up but
millions will see Him return. It will be very noisy – God will speak, the
archangel will shout, the trumpet will play and people will be rejoicing. When
He came as a baby, a single star guided the people to show the way, but when He
returns, lightening will blaze from the east to the west. (Matt 24:27)
The Bible says He is coming back to Jerusalem
Jesus will come again as the King – crowned
with glory and honour and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess
that He is Lord. (Phil 2:10,11)
Application
Many of the parables
speak about this. We need to be faithful, obey all He has asked us to do and
love, serve and obey Him with all our hearts.
He has asked us to be pure and
kind and He has asked us to spread the Gospel to get as many people ready for
Him as possible.
We need to live as children of the light and we need to be
wise and make the most of the time we have. We need to grow in our knowledge of
God and learn all about Him
Challenge to Mission
This lesson gives us the biggest challenge
to mission. How will we feel on that wonderful day when our friends and family
don’t know the King?
We need to be doing our very best to tell them all and
warn them too. Jesus is the King and will be coming again one day.
Let’s be
faithful and spread the Good News and pray for people to accept the truth and
to be born again.
Consolidation
Worksheet. It has the
chorus of a song – Jesus is coming again. There is the memory verse and extra
Scripture verses for the older children.
The children can glue cotton wool on
the cloud and colour Jesus in. The shapes with dots need to be coloured in.
Belief statement:
We believe Jesus
ascended into Heaven and will come again
Memory Verse
“Look, He is coming on the clouds! Everyone
will see Him, including those who pierced Him.” Rev 1:7
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