Matthew 18:21-35

Two men enter with a prisoner in chains.  They bring him before a king and throw him down.  The king addresses the prisoner.

KING: “My records show that you owe me $3,267,500.  Pay today, or I will sell you, your wife, your children and all you own to pay the debt.”

SERVANT: “Oh, please, your Majesty!  Please have mercy on me!  I can’t pay you today, but I will!  I promise!”

KING: “Hmmmm… On second thought, there’s no way you could every pay off such a large sum.  You seem repentant.  Your debts are completely forgiven.”

SERVANT: “Really?  Completely forgiven?  Oh, THANK YOU, your Majesty!”

The servant leaves, bouncing out of the room while thanking the king.  As soon as he leaves the king’s presence, however, he comes across a man in the hallway and begins yelling at and choking him.

SERVANT: “You lousy rat!  Where’s that lunch money you borrowed from me?  You better pay up!”

MAN (falling on his knees): “Oh, I will!  I will!  I promise you will have all your money back, but I don’t have it on me today!”

SERVANT: “Don’t have it on you, huh?  Guards!  Arrest this man and throw him into prison!  He owes me money!”  (Guards enter and take man to prison.)

Several of the king’s servants observed the unforgiving servant’s behavior, and they quickly reported it to the king.  Enraged, he demands that the unforgiving servant be brought before him.

KING: “I’ve heard how you treated the man who owed you lunch money.  Because you are such an unforgiving servant and couldn’t overlook such a small amount after I had forgiven you of so much, I’m ordering you to be tortured by my guards until you’re ready to forgive that man.”

Isn’t it silly that the unforgiving servant couldn’t forgive a few dollars after he had just been forgiven millions of dollars?  God says that ‘s what it’s like when we won’t forgive people for things they’ve done to us.  Compared to how much God had to forgive us for, it’s like the difference between millions of dollars and lunch money.

When we won’t forgive others, our relationship with God suffers.  It’s like being in prison.  It won’t keep us from getting into heaven, but it will make life miserable.  But if we will forgive those who intend to harm us, God forgives us and fixes our relationship with Him again.

Time

10-15 minutes
Audience

Children, Teens, Adults

Description

This object lesson teaches about how God brings good things out of bad and uses the metaphor of turning lemons into lemonade.

Scriptures

• Romans 8:28
• Galatians 5:22

Materials

• Several cow patties if you can find them.  If you can’t, use a bag of fertilizer and just explain that many fertilizers include animal waste.
• A pot of fragrant flowers
• A piece of fruit that most people would enjoy eating

Preparation

• Lay out materials for the lesson.
• Practice the script.

Procedure

Use the following script (or modify to suit your needs):

• “Who knows what this is?”  (Hold up dry cow patty.)
• “Right?  It’s a cow patty.”  (Pass it around to kids.)
• “Now, it doesn’t smell too bad right now, but who has ever smelled a fresh one?” (Acknowledge responses.)
• “They’re stinky, aren’t they?”
• “So, you probably wouldn’t go around smelling them, would you?”
• “But would you smell this?”  (Hold up flowers in a pot.)
• “Sure, because it smells good, right?”
• “Did you know that this (hold up another cow patty) was used to make this (hold up flowers) smell so good?”
• “How did that happen?”  (Take responses until someone mentions fertilizer.)
• “Right!  Cow manure is one of the most common ways to fertilize plants and flowers.”
• “How many of you would eat this?”  (Hold up cow patty.)
• “But would you eat this?”  (Hold up fruit.)
• “Believe it or not, there’s some of this (hold up cow patty) in this (hold up fruit).”
• “God made it so that plants and flowers take the nutrients out of the manure and reuse them to help the fruit and the flowers grow.”
• “God doesn’t waste anything.  He even takes bad stuff (hold up cow patty) and turns it into good stuff (hold up or point to fruit and flowers).”
• “If God can do that with cow poop, He can do that with the bad stuff in your life, too.”
• “Some of the stuff that happens to us really stinks, but God will use it to do good stuff in our lives so that we come out smelling like a rose.”
• “He can use those bad things to create fruit in our lives like the fruit He talks about in the Bible.”  (Have volunteer read Galatians 5:22).
• “So, whatever bad stuff happens in your life, give it to God to use as fertilizer, and He will bring good fruit out of it.”  (Have volunteer read Romans 8:28.)
• “God will use everything to bless you if you trust Him with it!”  (You can use the Rhyme Time below to reinforce the lesson.)

Rhyme Time

If we trust Him and obey, God makes bad things go OUR way!

30 minutes
Description

This object lesson looks at the different clothing Joseph wore and asks the question, “do clothes really make the man?”  The old adage means that how you dress says a lot about you, but in Joseph’s case, he was the same person in any costume.  However, no matter how good Joseph was, he couldn’t be good enough to impress God just through his good works.  God isn’t interested in what we DO until He changes WHO we are, and that only happens when we accept Jesus as our Savior.

Scriptures

• Genesis 37-50
• Isaiah 64:5-6
• Isaiah 61:10

Materials

• Several smocks (Loose-fitting fabrics that simply have a hole in the middle to fit over the head (for quick changing during the lesson) and a belt to tie them off.  You can do more elaborate costumes if you want, but these simple outfits will work.)
  • One plain white smock (to start the story)
  • One “coat of many colors”
  • Two dingy-colored or burlap smocks (for slavery before being sold and for prison)
  • One nicer white smock (for serving Potiphar)
  • Two even nicer smocks (for when Potiphar put Joseph in charge of his entire estate and for when Joseph comes up from prison)
  • One even nicer, nicer smock (for when Joseph was put in charge of Egypt – “robes of fine linen”)
  • One “filthy rags” smock (to represent our “righteousness”)
  • One “golden” smock (to represent the righteousness of Christ)
  • Gold chains costume jewelry
  • Ring costume jewelry

Preparation

• Practice the script.

Procedure

Use the following script (or modify to suit your needs):

• “There is famous saying that ‘Clothes make the man.’”
• “It means that what you wear says a lot about you and that people will judge you based on the clothes that you wear.”
• “I think we ought to be careful about judging people based on the clothes that they wear.”
• “They could be a great person inside of terrible clothes.”
• “For example, Joseph wore many clothes in his lifetime, but for most of his life, Joseph was the same person underneath those clothes.”  (Ask for volunteer to come to the front, and put the plain, white smock on him or her.)
• “Here’s Joseph, a young man of 17 years.”
• “Look closely at him.  I want you to tell me if he changes when he gets his new clothes.”
• “Joseph had 11 brothers, ten older than him.”
• “In Hebrew culture, the oldest son was supposed to get the best treatment, but Joseph’s father loved him more than all the others, because he was the firstborn son of Rachel, Jacob’s favorite wife.)
• “To show his love for Joseph, Jacob gave him a fancy coat to wear.”  (Put coat of many colors on volunteer.)
• “Look closely; is it the same person or a different person underneath?” (Acknowledge responses.  Hopefully, the participants will agree that Joseph was the same person no matter what he was wearing.)
• “This made Joseph’s brothers really jealous and angry with him, and they got even angrier when Joseph started having dreams about ruling over his brothers.”
• “The next time the brothers were out shepherding their sheep, Joseph’s father sent him to check on them.”
• “He made the mistake of wearing his fancy robe to go and find them.”
• “The brothers were all wearing the clothes of smelly, dirty shepherds, and here came Joseph, wearing the clothes of someone who didn’t have to work because he was so special.”
• “When they saw Joseph with his fancy coat, they were furious with him and talked about killing him.”
• “In the end, they decided to sell him to a passing group of slave traders.”  (Put the dingy-colored smock on the volunteer.)
• “What do you think now?  Is it the same Joseph, or did the clothes change him?”  (Acknowledge responses.)
• “The slave traders took Joseph to Egypt and sold him to an Egyptian, named Potiphar.  There, he was given the clothes of a servant.”  (Put nicer white smock on volunteer.)
• “Same Joseph or different?”  (Acknowledge responses.)
• “Joseph served Potiphar so well that Potiphar soon promoted him and put him in charge of everything in his household.”  (Put even nicer white smock on volunteer.)
• “Is he different yet, or is he the same Joseph he was when we started the story?”  (Acknowledge responses.)
• “But then a terrible and unfair thing happened!  Potiphar’s wife accused Joseph of doing something he didn’t do, and Potiphar was so angry that he threw Joseph into prison.”  (Put second dingy smock on volunteer.)
• “Do these clothes make him someone different?”  (Acknowledge responses.)
• “Joseph was in prison for years, but he served the prison warden so well that the warden put him in charge of everything in the prison.”
• “There came a day when Pharaoh (the king of Egypt) had a few dreams that bothered him.”
• “No one could interpret the dreams for him, but he learned from one of his servants that Joseph had the power to interpret dreams.”
• “Pharaoh called Joseph up from prison, and they dressed him in nicer clothes to prepare him to meet Pharaoh.”  (Put second even nicer white smock on volunteer.)
• “Has he changed?”  (Acknowledge responses.)
• “Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams for him, and Pharaoh was so impressed that he promoted Joseph to the 2^nd highest level within Egypt.  Only Pharaoh was more powerful than Joseph.”
• “Pharaoh had Joseph dressed in robes of fine linen and put gold chains around his neck and an important ring on his finger.”  (Put even nicer, nicer smock, gold chains and ring on volunteer.)
• “Even in this really nice set of clothes, isn’t Joseph still the same person underneath?”  (Acknowledge responses.)
• “In this new role, Joseph did even better than he did in all his other roles.”
• “He helped the Egyptians to save some food during the good years when there was lots of food, and when the famine came, there was plenty of food for everyone in Egypt and in the surrounding nations.”
• “So, here we have Joseph with his eight different sets of clothes.”  (Show all eight smocks.)
• “But the Joseph underneath is the same Joseph no matter what he is wearing.”
• “Joseph always did his best and served those in authority faithfully, and in the end, he was recognized as a great and wise leader by Pharaoh.”
• “Joseph was a pretty impressive guy!”
• “When we read about him, most of us think it would be pretty cool to be like Joseph.”
• “But you know what?  No matter how impressive Joseph is to us, he doesn’t impress God just because he was a good person.”
• “The Bible tells us in Isaiah 64:5-6, ‘How then can we be saved? All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.’”
• “What that means is that even the ‘best’ person in the world – the one who does the most good things – looks like he is dressed in filthy rags to God.”  (Put filthy rags smock on volunteer.)
• “We can’t save ourselves from Hell just by being good – not even if we are as a good as Joseph was.”
• “You see, God doesn’t care what you DO until you change WHO you are, and there is only one way to change WHO you are in God’s eyes…you have to accept Jesus (God’s Son) as your Savior.”
• “Two thousand years ago, Jesus died on a cross to save us from our sins.”
• “He had to do that because we sin.”
• “You sin, I sin…everyone who has ever lived sins.”
• “The Bible says that the penalty for sin is death.  That means separation from God.”
• “But God loved us so much that he didn’t want us to be separate from Him.”
• “So He sent His Son, Jesus, to take the penalty of our sin for us.”
• “Jesus died on a cross to pay for our sins.  Then He rose from the dead to give us new life!”
• “But you have to accept what Jesus did for you.  It’s a gift, and He won’t make you take it.”
• “If you want to, you can still pay the penalty for your own sins, but that would be a terrible waste of the gift Jesus bought for you when He died on the cross.”
• “But here’s what’s cool about accepting Jesus’ gift!”  (Have someone read Isaiah 61:10)
• “This Scripture is talking about two of the things Jesus did for us by dying on the cross.”
• “The first is that He clothed us with salvation.  In other words, we get to go to heaven.”
• “The second is that He dressed us up in a robe of righteousness.  In other words, He covered our unrighteousness (our filthy rags) with His righteousness.”  (Put golden smock on volunteer.)
• “Now THIS impresses God!”
• “When we accept Jesus as our Savior, He covers our sinfulness with His perfection.”
• “Then, whenever God, the Father, looks at us, He sees the righteousness of His Son, Jesus.”
• “This is the only set of clothes that will ever change WHO you are, because it makes you a child of God.”
• “It has nothing to do with what you DO, because it’s a gift from Jesus.”
• “You can’t earn it.  You can only accept it.”
• “So in a sense, clothes really do make the man, but in God’s eyes, there are only two types of clothes that say anything about WHO you are.”
• “Are you wearing the filthy rags of sinfulness? (Show the filthy rag smock.) ….or the righteous robe of a child of God?”  (Show the golden smock.)
• “I hope you will accept the wonderful gift Jesus bought for you.  He really wants you to have it!”  (Thank and dismiss volunteer.  At this point (depending on your tradition), you might want to make an invitation for the audience to accept the gift of salvation and the robe of righteousness that Jesus has purchased for each of us.)