‘Jesus Died For Me’ Childrens Lesson on Jesus’ Death

BIG IDEA: Jesus Died For Me

AIM: The aim of this session is to help children see that the Son of God laid down his life for them – he took their place. It aims to give children an opportunity to respond to the good news of Jesus!

SONG IDEAS:

1. ‘Real Love’ by Hillsong Young & Free

2. ‘To Be Like You’ by Hillsong

3. ‘This is Living’ by Hillsong Young & Free

GAME IDEAS:

1. Fruit Salad. Children grab a chair and sit in a circle. You allocate a fruit to each child, using only a small number of different types of fruit (depending on the group size). One child stands in the middle. That child calls out one of the fruit names and all the children labelled with that fruit must quickly swap placed. The child in the middle must try and sit down in one of the spare seats as everyone swaps places. If they find a seat then the person without a seat becomes the child in the middle. When the person calls out ‘Fruit Salad!’ everyone must swap places.

2. Change Chairs If.  This game is very similar to Fruit Salad, but click on the link to see the different variations of how you can play it.

 

SET the Scene:

Read Luke 23:26-43.

1. ‘Animated Easter Story’

2. ‘For Me’ by GraceLink

3. ‘Lego Easter Story’ by BW Animations

4. ‘Easter Play’

5. ‘The Death of Jesus’ by Luke the Book

6. ‘Jesus Gave It All’ by Life.Church

7. ‘Jesus’ Sacrifice’ by Saddleback Kids

 

SPOT the Simple Meaning:

1) THE CROSS = JESUS DIED FOR ME

Have a giant cross or the symbol of the cross or many different types of crosses to show the kids. Say: The third point in the 4 Points is “Jesus died for me.” Jesus died on the cross so that we can be set free from sin. Our sin had separated us from God because He is perfect and can only be around perfect things. The bible says that the punishment for sin is death (Romans 6:23) – because sin is so destructive and hurts so many people. So God sent Jesus to live a perfect life and die a perfect death.

 

2) JESUS DIED FOR ME BY TAKING MY PLACE

a) Beauty and the Beast clip where Belle takes her father’s place.

b) Play a game where one of the leaders must get pied if they lose. The winning leader then decides to take the place of the loser and gets pied instead.

c) For older children/youth use the clip from the Hunger Games where Kat takes her sister PrimRose’s place in the Hunger Games – games where everyone dies and there is only one winner that survives.

Say: Have you ever got stuck? [share a personal story if you have ever got stuck anywhere]. It’s horrible when you get stuck and you can’t get out of a situation. That’s exactly what the bible shows humankind was – stuck. The people kept being told about God but they would always go against Him after some time. We would always do wrong. We need something drastic to happen because we could not save ourselves from our sin. So Jesus stepped in. He took our place. Jesus died and all the sin of the world was placed on his shoulders. He took the punishment we deserved. Just like when you don’t do your homework and you get sent to your room or when your bedroom is messy so you get grounded or your parents stop you watching TV/YouTube or on your devices/consoles. It’s like Jesus said – I’ll do that. I’ll take that punishment? Why? It all comes back to the first point – because he loves us. You see.

 

2) The cross = love.

[Show image or similar]

So that’s the third point. Jesus died for me. It means he took my place because he loves me. —- We can know the love and forgiveness of Jesus by asking him into our lives as our Lord and Saviour. If you would like to ask Jesus into your life today for the first time, please pray this prayer with me. Father God thank You for who You are. Thank You Jesus that You came, you lived a perfect life and died a perfect death. I believe that You are God’s Son and that You died and rose again three days later. Please come into my life and be my Lord and Savior. Holy Spirit please help me and lead me. Amen.

 

SEARCH the Scriptures:

In several small plastic eggs put one or more of the bible verses. Choose two children as volunteers to play or use everyone in a team relay game. Encourage the children to go to the line where the eggs are laid. Using one hand to hold a child’s fishing net (mini or regular size) they must scoop up an egg and return. The winning team or child is the team or child with the most eggs at the end.

Bible Verses:

Christ himself died for you. And that one death paid for your sins. He was not guilty, but he died for those who are guilty. He did this to bring you all to God. His body was killed, but he was made alive in the spirit. 1 Peter 3:18.

This is how we know what real love is: Jesus gave his life for us. So we should give our lives for our brothers. 1 John 3:16.

But he was wounded for the wrong things we did. He was crushed for the evil things we did. The punishment, which made us well, was given to him. And we are healed because of his wounds. Isaiah 53:5.

Jesus died in our place to take away our sins. And Jesus is the way that all people can have their sins taken away, too. 1 John 2:2.

You know that Christ came to take away sins. There is no sin in Christ. 1 John 3:5.

For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son. God gave his Son so that whoever believes in him may not be lost, but have eternal life. John 3:16.

The greatest love a person can show is to die for his friends. John 15:13. Christ died for us while we were still weak. We were living against God, but at the right time, Christ died for us. Romans 5:6.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. Can you remember the points so far?

2. What does it mean to you that Jesus died for you?

3. Do you believe it? Why/why not?

4. What does this news make you want to do?

5. How does this news make you feel about Jesus?

 

SENSE How You Feel:

How does it feel to know that Jesus died for you?

1. Make Colour in Cross.
2. Create Cross Suncatchers
3. Make cross popsicle stick decorations
4. Create a mini resurrection garden together as a group
5. Create a cross finger print picture altogether. Each child has a different color paint and makes fingerprints over a pre-printed outline of a cross. (most of these activities can be found on Baker Ross)

 

SEEK God:

Say: Jesus’ death on the cross means that we can have life forever with him, but it also means that we can know him right here and now. Let’s respond to this good news.

Prayer Activities:

Place post it notes on a cross with reflections of thanks. Plasters (bandaids) on a cross prayers with your name on it to thank Jesus for dying for you. This week is a great opportunity to give children to ask if they want to ask Jesus to come into their lives.