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Jesus Breaks �Barriers

Month 6| week 3: INVITE

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WELCOME!

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Shrinking islands

Let’s Play!

Shrinking Islands

Materials Needed: Two large tablecloths (Alternatives: blankets, sheets of butcher paper or tarps)

Spread the sheets on the floor with a large space between them. Divide the group into two equal teams. Ask the teams to stand around the two “islands”. Explain that the team will have 5 seconds to get every member of their team on top of their island. If any teammate has a foot off of their island at the end of that 5 seconds, they are eliminated from the game.

Here’s the catch: The “islands” will be folded in half every round, making it progressively more difficult for the teams to fully gather on them. The team with the most students still on their island after 5 rounds is the winner. Continue the game past round 5 if there is enough space on the “islands.”

Great job finding ways to keep your island mates safe! Helping one another is always a win in this game and in life.

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Digging deeper

Option 1: Student Leader shares Gospel message (sample provided below).

Option 2: Student Leader shares testimony.

Option 3: Guest Speaker shares testimony or Gospel message.

Option 1: Gospel Presentation Sample

Have you ever noticed how people have a natural talent for dividing into groups? When we’re kids, we play boys versus girls on the playground. In school, we split up based on the level of classes we take or the clubs and teams we join.

From the beginning of time, humans have divided ourselves into groups of “us” versus “them” based on family, ethnicity, social status – you name it. Within our group, we feel safe. Outside our group, we feel vulnerable.

These boundaries we draw around ourselves cause so many of the world’s problems. Wars are fought, and people are enslaved and mistreated based on their group. On a more practical level for us – have you noticed how hard it is for people to relate across these lines? If someone has the “wrong” political opinion or belief system, it’s the norm to just cancel them, to write them off as evil and ignore anything they might say.

This culture of division makes us scared. We’re scared to step out of line, scared of people who are different from us, scared of being rejected by our own group.

In the face of all this fear, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is really good news. Listen to what God’s Word says to the boundaries and labels we use to separate ourselves:

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So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Galatians 3:26-28

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:26-28)

If you think our world is divided, it’s nothing compared to the Roman world that the earliest Jesus followers were living in. In that world, different ethnic groups kept to themselves; women and slaves were property; the entire society was built on hard boundary lines of social status.

To that reality – which was pretty much all the world had ever known – the Gospel said: No more. No more to the tribalism that kept God’s image-bearers divided – no more to the sexism and classism that devalued so many of the people made in God’s image.

In Christ Jesus, those boundaries go away, and the only identity that matters is our shared identity as God’s children which we are able to receive through faith because of what Jesus did for us.

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What did jesus do for us?

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But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility…

Ephesians 2:13-14

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His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

Ephesians 2:14-18

His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. (Ephesians 2:14-18)

Did you catch that? Jesus destroyed the barriers; he broke the boundaries. Because of what he did for us on the cross, we can be reunited with God and with each other. Have you ever noticed that the Church is the most diverse institution in the world? Your local church community may not be – but globally, the Church is made up of people from every single culture, every language, every social status – all of us being united into one family and sharing in one Spirit.

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So what…

What would it mean if I were to receive my identity as God’s child through faith in Jesus?

Tool time

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Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

Ephesians 2:19-22

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22)

Through Jesus, God is redeeming a new family for himself. In a world broken and divided by sin where we are constantly fighting over things like skin color and wealth and culture, God is building a new home where all people are welcome.

In this new home, God doesn’t erase our differences. He redeems them! God values diversity – and in God’s home, diversity doesn’t lead to division. Instead, it leads to a beautiful unity.

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Key idea

Jesus reflects a God who loves people we may label as unworthy

of his love.

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Let’s pray

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Let’s celebrate!

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Thanks

See you next time!