NT-06

"Young Jesus at the Temple”

Big Idea

Nobody's perfect, except Jesus.

 

Verse

Romans 3:23 - "...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. " (NIV)

Materials

Masking tape,   Marker or pen,   Measuring tape,   Scrap of paper

Setup

Place a strip of tape on the carpet to one side of the teaching area.

Activity

1. Write the verse on a chalk/wipe board and read it as a group once.

2. Explain the following:

    Our big idea for today is "Nobody's perfect, except Jesus." This verse tells us that all of us have sinned. To sin means to disobey God's commands, or instructions, to us. All of us, at one point or another, have disobeyed some of God's commands.
    God, as well as his son Jesus (who is also God), have never sinned. That's part of God's glory. He's completely perfect. We all fall short of God's perfection because, well, nobody's perfect.
    To help us understand what falling short means, we're going to do a little long jumping as we learn today's verse. There's a goal that I want us to try to jump to, but I'm not going to tell you what that goal is until after we've learned our verse. In fact, I'll write it on this piece of paper. (Secretly write "1,000,000,000 miles" on the scrap of paper and put it in your pocket.) Then, we'll see if we met our goal, or fell short.

2. Select a volunteer to erase one word of the verse from the board. Read it through as a group. Have your volunteer then stand on the masking tape line and jump as far as he/she can. Mark where he/she landed with a strip of tape on the floor. Write his/her name on the floor. Repeat this entire process until all the words have been erased or all the children have jumped. Use the measuring tape to measure exactly how far the farthest jump was. Explain the following:
    You did a great job jumping and made it really far! But did you make it as far as our secret goal? (Have a child come up. Hand him/her the scrap of paper and have him/her read it out loud.) My secret goal was one billion miles. Even though you jumped really far, you fell way short of reaching that goal. In fact, it's impossible for anybody to jump that far. We'll all fall short.
    And it's the same way with obeying God's commands. It's impossible for a person to obey God 100% their entire lives. Jesus is the only one who has ever obeyed God his entire life, and that's because he was God inside a human body. Praise God for Jesus!