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Written by Jesus University
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Preparation:
- Scripture readings from: Esther 2:1-18, Esther 4:1-17, Esther 7:1-10
- Spend some time in prayer for the lesson and each student—that God will open their hearts and minds and teach them from His Word.
Introduction:
This is a story of a wonderful woman of character and the man who helped raise her who was also a person of strong character. God used these two people to save His people (the Jews) from being slaughtered by an evil man named Haman. This is a story that exemplifies the importance of one person and how God uses each of us in the lives of others. When we choose to follow God, others can see that and God sometimes uses us to affect their lives. (Please note, we cannot change a person…that is ultimately their decision as God works in their life, but often times it is through other people (i.e. US!!) that God is working in their life.)
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Written by Jesus University
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Preparation:
- Scripture readings from: Genesis 37:1-36, Genesis 39:6-23, Genesis 41:41-57
- Spend some time in prayer for the lesson and each student—that God will open their hearts and minds and teach them from His Word.
Introduction:
There are some incredible people in the Bible who exemplify what it means to be a person of character. We are going to look at several over the next couple of weeks. Today we will look in the Old Testament and examine Joseph’s life. There are several times throughout his life that he shows that he is a man of character and because he was a man of character, God rewarded him and allowed him to have power and money in the country of Egypt. His life wasn’t perfect, however, he had to go through A LOT to get to that point …including being a slave and going to prison.
Discuss:
- How many of you know the story of Joseph from the Old Testament?
Please note that this is not the Joseph in the New Testament who was the husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus. This is Joseph who was the son of Jacob (or Israel) and Jacob was the son of Isaac and Isaac was the son of Abraham.
Jacob had a total of 12 sons from his two wives and two concubines. Joseph was the first son born to Jacob’s favorite wife Rachel, so Joseph was Jacob’s favorite.
- Take a minute and imagine what it would be like to be the favorite child of your father. Now take a moment and imagine what it would be like to be the other children who are not your father’s favorite.
- How would it make you feel as the favorite? How would you feel toward your siblings?
- How would you feel to know that your father has a favorite and it isn’t you? How would you feel toward the brother/sister who was the favorite?
Activity/Digging deeper: We are going to act out a couple of parts of the story of Joseph as we read it. Have the students not only read it, but stand up—get into it!! Choose a student to be the narrator, Israel/Jacob, Joseph, someone to be the voice of “the brothers”, Reuben and Judah.
Read/act out Genesis 37:1-36
Say: After Joseph was sold into slavery, they took him to Egypt where he became a slave to Potiphar, the captain of Pharaoh’s guard. Potiphar loved him and put him in charge of his entire household and God blessed Potiphar’s household because Joseph was in charge. But then….. (assign someone to be Potiphar’s wife and Potiphar)
Read/act out Genesis 39:6-23
Say: While he was in prison, a couple of guys (the Pharaoh’s cupbearer and the baker) who were also in prison had dreams that they wanted interpreted. God told Joseph what the dreams meant and he told the two guys. It turns out that the baker was executed but the cupbearer was released. Joseph told the cupbearer to remember him and to have Pharaoh release him from prison. Although the cupbearer promises to do that, he forgets all about Joseph once he’s out until two years later Pharaoh had a dream and wants it interpreted. The cupbearer recommended that Joseph come to interpret it (since he’s done such a good job with his own dream!). Pharaoh calls Joseph in and tells him the dream. Joseph tells him that the dream means that there are going to seven good years—years of abundance with plenty of grain grown. Those years will be followed by seven years of severe famine. Joseph’s recommendation to Pharaoh was to find a wise man to put in charge of storing up the grain during the seven years of plenty in order to save it for the seven years of famine. Pharaoh thinks that is a great idea and decides that Joseph is the man to do that! (assign someone to be Pharaoh)
Read/act out Genesis 41:41-57
Many of you probably remember how the story ends, but basically Joseph’s brothers end up coming to him because they needed food (pretty ironic, huh?). Joseph eventually tells them who he is (because they didn’t recognize him!) and they have a family reunion with all the brothers and their father!!
Discuss:
- Based on this story that we have just acted out, where are some places that Joseph had good character?
- What character qualities did you specifically see in him? (purity, honesty, etc.)
- Can you think of a time in your life that you have been in a situation where you had to choose whether you were going to do the right or wrong thing? Share.
- What do you think you would have done if you had been in the same situation as Joseph? Would you trust God if your brothers had sold you into slavery and you had been put in prison?
Side Story:
Now is a great time for you as a professor to share something from your own life or the life of someone you know where you made the difficult decision to maintain your character rather than follow the crowd or do what may have seemed easier at the time.
Application:
Ask the students to consider how they would like to be like Joseph. Have them come up with a situation where they have not been living as a person with good character (either at home or school or church or wherever) and have them come up with a different way to handle the situation when it comes up again during the week. Professors….hold them accountable on this situation—ask them about it next week.
Close it out:
What are the benefits to being a person of good character? (God rewards you when you choose to do what is right…it will probably not be in the same way that he rewarded Joseph, and we may not really see our rewards until we get to heaven, but often there are earthly benefits to doing what God commands.)
Pray together and for each other! Pray that God will help you choose to stand firm and obey His commands (that He gave us because He knows it is best for us!)
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Written by Jesus University
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Preparation:
- Scripture readings from: Proverbs 13:5, Proverbs 10:9, Proverbs 11:25, Proverbs 29:23, Proverbs 14:29, Proverbs 17:17, Proverbs 21:13
- Spend some time in prayer for the lesson and each student—that God will open their hearts and minds and teach them from His Word.
Introduction:
What we do today shapes who we will be tomorrow. A wise decision will move us towards becoming the person God wants us to be while a poor decision will move us further away. What is character? How does it affect our life? What can we do today to move us toward becoming a person of good character? In this session, we will take a look at and hopefully answer all of these questions. Realizing the importance of having good character and striving to have good character will impact the rest of your life!!
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Written by Jesus University
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Preparation:
- Scripture readings from: John 4:4-26, John 4:39-42
- Spend some time in prayer for the lesson and each student—that God will open their hearts and minds and teach them from His Word.
Introduction:
In this lesson we are going to look at the story of the woman at the well. This woman had a lot of things that would make it seem that Jesus would not stop to talk to her, but He did and the amazing thing is that she believed in Him and through her, others came to know Him! This lesson is to show that Jesus is reaching out to every single one of us, no matter what we have done or what our circumstances are. He is still desirous of a relationship with us and will make a difference in our lives. This woman was not only a woman (women of that time were treated as second class citizens) but she was also a Samaritan (that was a hated race) and she was living in sin. So this story shows that whether it’s something we are born with (like our gender or our race) or something that we have chosen to do (various sins), God loves us no matter what!!
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Written by Jesus University
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Preparation:
- Scripture readings from: Hebrews 11, Romans 10:17
- Spend some time in prayer for the lesson and each student—that God will open their hearts and minds and teach them from His Word.
Introduction:
This session is another essential and foundational lesson. Like the previous two sessions, it is a sometimes difficult concept to grasp because it isn’t concrete. It is also difficult because everyone has varying amounts of faith and each person struggles with different ideas as he or she tries to understand faith. It is important to encourage each student that no matter where they are on their faith journey, God loves them and He is faithful even when we lack faith. He meets us right where we are and will bring us along in our faith journeys as long as we are willing to go.
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Written by Jesus University
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Preparation:
- Scripture readings from: John 1
- Spend some time in prayer for the lesson and each student—that God will open their hearts and minds and teach them from His Word.
Introduction:
The topic of the trinity is a difficult concept to understand. In fact, it is something that we will not be able to grasp completely while we are on this earth. However, this is a vital truth that we need to discuss as it is part of the foundation for our beliefs. Encourage the students to not be too frustrated if they cannot comprehend this. Sometimes there are times that we need to simply accept ideas as truth on faith and trust that we will understand them later (maybe not until heaven, but later nonetheless).
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Written by Jesus University
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Preparation:
- Scripture readings from: Genesis 1, John 1
- Spend some time in prayer for the lesson and each student—that God will open their hearts and minds and teach them from His Word.
Introduction:
There are certain biblical truths that are so essential that it is necessary to study each one individually in order to lay the foundation for all other beliefs. That is what we will be doing with this first element. During this first session we will be looking briefly at creation. This is not meant to incite an argument on the merits of evolution verses creation or anything like that. This is simply a chance for the students to look at what the Bible says about this topic. God is a big God and could have used any method He wanted to use, but the point is: When God speaks, things happen! Use this session as a chance to get to know a different perspective of God—the powerful creator God!
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