Hey guys this sunday's lesson is on Forgiveness.

I find it quite app that it was just last week that i was talking to John my brother about the bible and we were talking about the exact verse or story that we are going to teach our kids today.

Key verse for this lesson is taken from:

Ephesians 4:32
Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.


We will also be looking at the parable of the unforgiving servant, which is found in Matthew 18: 21- 35




As usual there are three main points that we want our kids to take home.

They are:

1) A forgiving spirit comes from the trust in his finished work on the cross
2) To Forgive is not the absence of anger to sin or the absence of serious consequences for sin
3) True forgiveness comes from your heart




Tuner:  The rock:


Bring in a load of rocks, preferably large ones if possible, and hand each student a rock (it needs to be big enough so that it is uncomfortable to hold and would get in the way of normal activity). Some of the rocks can be bigger than others. Give the students the rocks at the beginning of the lesson. As you start the lesson, tell the students they cannot put their rocks down, they must hold them constantly on their own, and they can’t rest them on anything else. Begin the lesson and get them to take down notes, etc. while holding the rocks. After a 20 mins or so while holding the rocks, ask them if their rocks are bothering them yet. What about if they carried them everyday? What if they had to hold on to them while they were using the restroom? Playing sports? Sleeping? After a short time ask the students (or take them into the scripture block to have them find the answer) what they think the rock symbolizes and what it is supposed to teach them.

Application: The rock is symbolic of holding grudges, or withholding our forgiveness from other people. When we hold a grudge, or harbor bitter feelings toward someone else, who does it affect? When we withhold our forgiveness we are only hurting ourselves.

I know its not a game but it as a great object lesson. ok maybe it doesnt have to be a rock haha but something that annoys the kids. Maybe ill get aaron to go around each classroom and annoy them for 15 mins each. haha. Ill think of something.





Point 1: A Forgiving spirit comes from the trust in his finished work on the cross

Start of by reading the parable of the unforgiving servant. In this story we are the servants who owe the king a huge debt. In reality these debts are the sins that we have done against God.  As you can see in the parable the state which the relationship we have with God. That we have sinned so much against God that it is impossible to pay back our debts.

This is a point that we as Christians must first internalise. That we have wronged God, we must acknowledge that we have not followed him and have sinned against him. But this act that we have done against him is not one which can be easily cancelled. This act against him is huge and has dire consequences. We as christians must understand how far the pit we have fallen then can we understand how great God's grace is for us.



In verse 27, it says that the master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. This is grace. In our lives, God cancelled our debts, our sins for a price, by giving up his one and only Son.

In Ephesians 4:32  'Forgive each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you." In other words God's forgiveness is underneath ours and creates it and supports it. So that if we don't give it to others—if we go on in an unforgiving spirit—what we show is that God is not there in our lives. We are not trusting him.  We are not trusting him that our debts are cleared. And not trusting him will keep us out of heaven. And cause us to be handed over to the tormentors.


The reason is not because we can earn heaven or merit heaven by forgiving others, but because holding fast to an unforgiving spirit proves that we do not trust Christ. If we trust him, we will not spurn his way of life. If we trust him, we will not be able to take forgiveness from his hand for our million dollar debt and withhold it from our ten dollar debtor (those that have done wrong to us)

This is the perpective in life we should have.




The blew two points are taken from Desiring God which i thought was pretty good, cause most of the time we talk about what is forgiveness but we also forget to emphasis to our kids what forgiveness is not. That leads to us having doubts.

Point 2: To forgive is not the Absence of Anger at Sin

Forgiveness is not the absence of anger at sin. It is not feeling good about what was bad.

I was on the phone yesterday with a pastor from out of state who told me about a woman in his church who, he noticed after he came to the church, never came to communion. He probed and found that 15 years earlier she had been separated from her husband because he repeatedly beat her and sexually abused their children. She said that every time she came to communion she would remember what he had done and feel so angry at what it cost her children that she felt unworthy to take communion. This was over a decade later.

My friend said to her, You are not expected to feel good about what happened. Anger against sin and its horrible consequences is fitting up to a point. But you don't need to hold on to that in a vindictive way that desires harm for your husband. You can hand it over to him who judges justly (1 Peter 2:23) again and again, and pray for the transformation of your husband. Forgiveness is not feeling good about horrible things. And he encouraged her to forgive him in this way, if she hadn't, and to take communion as she handed her anger over to God and prayed for her husband.





Forgiveness is not the absence of serious consequences for sin.

In other words, sending a person to jail does not mean you are unforgiving to him. My pastor friend has been part of putting two of his members in prison for sexual misconduct. Can you imagine the stresses on that congregation as they come to terms with what forgiveness is!

More Help from Watson

Thomas Watson was helpful to me again on this point. He asks,

Question: Is God angry with his pardoned ones?

Answer: Though a child of God, after pardon, may incur his fatherly displeasure, yet his judicial wrath is removed. Though he may lay on the rod, yet he has taken away the curse. Correction may befall the saints, but not destruction. (Thomas Watson, Body of Divinity, p. 556)

This gives us a pointer to how we may at times have to discipline a child in the home, or a leader in the church, or a criminal in society. We may prescribe painful consequences in each case, and not have an unforgiving spirit.






TBC HAHA