Scripture: for teacher background: Matthew 12:33-37 and John 15:1-17
Making contact:
Show the children the difference between shaking a bottle of
water and a bottle of soda water or coke.
If you are inside use soda water
otherwise you’ll need to go outside.
What is inside the water that is coming out? Carbon Dioxide.
This is actually why you burp after drinking a fizzy drink.
It is actually a poison and
the body doesn’t want it.
What’s inside will eventually show.
If a person has poisonous thoughts, they will show
eventually in some bad action.
If a person is full of love and kindness this will show.
Sometimes it’s when we are really shaken up that the real stuff shows.
SO even
very polite, nice people start swearing and throwing things around if they get
shaken up and get angry. What’s on the inside always comes out eventually.
Exploration:
Jesus didn’t use fizzy drinks as His story. He used fruit
trees.
He said to have good fruit you must have a healthy tree. If you are
getting bad fruit, its because the tree is bad.
A tree is known by the fruit it bears. A good person will
bring good things out of their heart and their mouth will be full of good things.
The mouth speaks what the heart is full of.
A bad person will speak bad things.
Jesus warned us in this passage that on Judgment Day we will
have to give account of every useless word we have spoken. Our words will show
who we really are.
If we have asked Jesus into our hearts, we have the best
treasure right inside us.
He washes away all the dirt and makes our hearts and
minds clean.
He lives inside us and helps us be good on the inside so that our
words are never ugly.
If we still have things inside us – like spiders in dark
corners weaving a web of ugliness, those ugly things will come out and we need
to say sorry to Jesus and then ask Him to kill that ugliness in that dark corner
in our minds!
One of the last stories Jesus told before He died for our
sins was about the vine. It isn’t really a parable, but it works just like one.
He said He is the vine. The vine is the main plant in the ground. He then said
that we are attached to Him like branches. We actually grow out of Him. THEN we will bear fruit because of His Spirit flowing in us and through us.
Application
If any of the branches don’t bear fruit, He cuts them off.
Jesus said
the secret of bearing good fruit is to stay close to Him.
Remain connected to
Jesus and the fruit will be automatic. You can’t grow fruit on your own – you
need the Holy Spirit inside filling you with His fruit – love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility and self- control.
These stories today are teaching us to get things right inside.
The outside will take care of itself and just flow with good things. We can’t
just try to be nice on the outside when inside we are dirty and bitter.
Let’s
ask Jesus to come and spring clean the inside and live in us more fully, so the
beautiful fruit will come out of our lives.
If you are doing this lesson on Pentecost Sunday then explain how the Holy Spirit came on that day and the disciples had a flame of fire on their heads. They praised God in other languages and from that day on they were so brave on the inside. They had power to preach and they had the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
Without our own Pentecost, we will not be able to have this power or this fruit. We need to ask the Holy Spirit to come and fill us.
In this story of the vine Jesus says: “I chose you and
appointed you to go and bear much fruit, the kind that lasts. This is my
command – love one another.” (John 15:16,17)
The worksheet shows a healthy fruit tree bearing good fruit.
The children can write the 9 fruit of the Spirit on the fruit: love, joy,
peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility and self-control.
(As listed in Galatians 5:22)
On the bad tree they can list bad things – hate, rudeness,
pride, jealousy, and selfishness. Galatians 5:19-21 will give more ideas.
Memory Verse
“If you stay joined to Me and I stay joined to you, then you
will produce lots of fruit.”
John 15:5
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