Scripture: for teacher background: Matthew 25:14-26
Making contact:
You could begin an initiative where the children become
entrepreneurs. One way of doing this is asking them what talents they have for
making things that could be sold.
In our youth group when I was a teenager we were all given some money from a
fund. We then bought material and things to make our products and then sold
then and paid back the money into the fund.
I bought crochet cotton and made crosses.
Some of us doubled or tripled the amount we
were given. This is known as Talents and it is based on this story.
For example you
buy a packet of clothes pegs and some glue and made them into a rocking chair
ornament. Then you could buy more pegs and more glue.
Exploration:
Today’s parable is about a lot of money. A master was going
on a long journey and he decided to divide up his money between 3 servants and
to ask them to handle it well while he was gone.
He gave the first servant 5
000 coins, the second servant 2000 coins and the third servant 1 000 coins. The
first servant doubled the money by investing it.
And so did the 2nd
servant.
The 3rd servant thought to himself that the master was a
tough guy and he would rather better bury the money.
After a long time the
master came back. He was very, very pleased with the first 2 servants.
He put
them in charge of much larger amounts. He was very angry with the 3rd
servant who buried the money.
The master
called him bad and lazy and said at least he could have put in straight into
the bank and it would have earned some interest.
He told him to give the money
to the first servant, and to throw this useless servant into the darkness where
he would cry and grind his teeth.
Application
There are 3 kinds of people in this parable.
There is the
undertaker – what does an undertaker do? He sees to the funeral service
and burial of a dead person. In the story the undertaker servant just buried
his money.
Secondly there was a caretaker. A caretaker
takes good care of the tenant in a building. This servant took good care of the
master’s money and the master was pleased.
Then there was the risk taker. This man put
himself out and took risks to grow the money. That can be very scary. It is
scary to do this kind of Kingdom work – to tell other people about Jesus, to
teach Sunday school, to become a minister or a missionary, to sing in a Gospel
band or to work on a project for people with aids and HIV.
Jesus has given us all the means to serve Him and grow His
Kingdom. We have the wonderful message of the Gospel as well as talents and
education, knowledge and other resources to make a difference in this world and
to spread the love and light of Jesus to many people.
Some people might do more than others, but what is terribly
disappointing to God is people who do absolutely nothing.
So invest your time,
money and energy into God’s Kingdom and watch it grow!
Challenge to Mission
How are you living until Jesus returns?
What will He find
you doing when He comes back?
What are you doing to work for God’s Kingdom? In the Lord’s
Prayer we pray: “May Your Kingdom come, may Your will be done.”
Are you doing
God’s will to spread His Word? Are you working in any way to help God in this
world or are you just living for yourself and burying the Gospel somewhere in
your heart?
Remind the children of the mustard seed parable where the seed
grew into a large tree.
If the talent initiative is too big and difficult you could
ask the children for one small donation for one of your church’s outreaches. –
A bar of soap to give to an outreach for the homeless; a pencil each to give to
a literacy outreach.
The worksheet shows the Master and the three men- the risk
taker, caretaker and undertaker.
Under a pile of fruit and money the children can fill in
what God has given them that He wants them to use.
E.g. time, good health, talents,
brains, skills, money, possessions. (All resources)
They can draw fruit on the memory verse tree and write what
they can do for God in the fruit.
Memory Verse
“I chose you and appointed you to go and bear much fruit,
the kind of fruit that lasts.” John 15:16
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