Fighting Against Sin - Follow Jesus

Fighting Against Sin

YOU WILL NEED: Two pool noodles.

Fighting Against Sin

Game: Tournament-Style Samarai

Have the students make a large circle and then choose two volunteers. Give each a pool noodle. When you say “Go” the first one to touch the other person with their samarai (pool noodle) wins. The winner remains in the circle to face the next challenger. The overall winner is the person who won the most matches.

Discussion

SAY: Just a little touch would win. You didn’t have to hit hard or swing hard. It didn’t have to be anything big. Just a little can make a big difference in life too. A lot of people think that they’ll be okay as long as they don’t do anything really big that’s wrong, but even what someone might consider to be the “smallest” sin, will always have a huge impact. Sin will always separate you from God. Even as a Christian, if you allow sin, however small, a place in your life, you will have a broken relationship with God. As a Christian, you will still have a relationship, but it won’t be a right one.

Ask the students—What do you have to do to have a right relationship with God? (Get rid of all sin.)

Ask the students—How does a person get rid of their sin? (They confess it to God, turn from it, and ask for His forgiveness.)

Ask the students—Is there any sin in your life from which you haven’t turned away or confessed to God?

Ask the students—What is stopping you from getting rid of it today? How do you think this sin will affect your life if you don’t turn away from it. (Sin will always lead to more sin. Sin will always hurt the person doing it and usually those around them too.)

Game: Free-Style Samarai

Have the students make a large circle and then choose two volunteers. Give each a pool noodle. When you say “Go” give them 20 seconds to “beat the living daylights” out of the other person. This is an “extreme” game and although it may sound and look like hits with a pool noodle might hurt, the impact is usually minimal.

Read these Rules to the Students: Head shots are illegal. Be careful not to get so close to each other that you actually hit them with your hand. Take off glasses and large earrings. You don’t have to participate if you don’t want to. Stop when I say stop. (Also, if you have time at the end of class, feel free to take the “Champion” of your class and challenge another class.)

Discussion

SAY: There will be times in your life when you struggle against sin. There might be something that you know is wrong, but you want to do it. Just like the game, where you used the Samarai (pool noodle) to defend yourself, you need to be ready to have God’s Word defend you.

Ask the students—What if you had never picked up the samarai? Could it have defended you? (No.)

SAY: In the same way, if you haven’t hidden God’s Word in your heart, you won’t be fully ready to fight against sin. And notice, that when Jesus was tempted, He didn’t stop to read and look up verses, He already knew them. That’s how important it is to read and know and memorize the Bible.

Continue with a discussion of Psalm 119:11 or Jesus being tempted in Matthew 4.