Year B. 2nd Term. Lesson 8. The fruit of the Holy Spirit

 Scripture: for teacher background:  Galatians 5:13-26 John 15 Matthew 7:15-23

Luke 6:45 1 Corinthians 6:19,20

Extra note to teachers: Tell the children to bring empty toilet rolls and old wrapping paper for next week.

Making contact:

How do we know what tree is what? We wait to see if there are apples or apricots or nuts or figs. By their fruit you know which tree is which.

Have the tomato plants there that the children planted a few weeks ago. If they aren’t ready, have some ripe tomatoes to show them. Show them one plant without fruit first and let them try and guess what kind of plant it is. 

They won’t know, probably. Then show them a plant with tomatoes on them. Now it is easy to see what kind of plant it is.

 Exploration:

If I wanted to play the piano like Beethoven or the violin like Vanessa Mae or play soccer like Renaldo, I would need to have that person’s spirit inside me.

What is so amazing about God is how He gives me His Holy Spirit to live right inside me.

The result of this, or the FRUIT of this is that I begin showing signs of His Spirit inside me – I start sprouting things that are a bit like God – look – here comes a tiny shoot – what is it – wait for it – yes – it’s a tiny bit of love…..kindness……patience………

The Bible calls this the fruit of the Spirit and gives us 9 fruit. – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, humility, gentleness and self-control.

Jesus taught us in John 15 that He is the vine and we are the branches and that if we remain very close to Him we will bear much fruit.

 So that’s the secret, Christians aren’t automatically full of fruit – we have to stay close to Jesus. It’s like in the vine, the branches need to be directly attached to the main branch so that the sap can come up those veins and into each branch to feed and water each branch.

Sometimes a piece of cork grows in a plant and the leaves fall off – in autumn. The cork stops the sap going through. 

Now we don’t want to be autumn Christians, we want to be evergreen, so what is the cork and how can we get rid of it?

The cork is sin and we need to ask the gardener to cut it away – to wash our sins away, then we need to stay close to Jesus and the sap, the Holy Spirit will flow again and the fruit of the Spirit will grow.

Challenge to Mission

Let your fruit show – whom can you show love to, or kindness this week?

Be a FRUITY Christian. By our fruit people know who we are.

 Consolidation

The worksheet has pictures of all the different kinds of fruit representing the fruit of the Spirit.

See if the children can learn them off by heart. A song would help.

Memory Verse:

Gal 5:22  

"The Spirit produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility and self-control."