This lesson continues the study of Philippians for older students. As students make daily quiet time a priority they will learn to have attitudes that reflect the Lord Jesus. This is a lesson guide on a possible way to teach older students.
Learning Goal: Students will learn that the more time they spend studying God’s word each day and apply what they learn, the more their attitudes will reflect Jesus.
Memory Verse: Philippians 2:3-4 (NIV) Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
Bible Passage: Philippians 2
Bible Story Title: Attitude Check (Philippians 2)
Target Age Group: Ages 9-11 (3rd-5th Grade U.S.A.)
Target Time Frame: 60 Minutes
Original Teaching Context: Sunday School
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Supply List: Bibles, Copies of Philippians 2 for students to mark key words, colored pencils, pens, sample of markings for key words,
Learning Activity #1: As students arrive they can begin marking their observation sheets. (Key words to mark: encouragement, same mind/united, humble/humility, obeyed, grumbling/disputing, blameless/innocent/above reproach, rejoice/joy)
Bible Lesson: Attitude check (Philippians 2)
The Believer’s privilege to enter God’s presence
Every believer has the privilege to freely come before God at any time. The privilege for our freedom was paid with a high price.
In order to fully understand our great privilege and freedom to come before God at any time let’s take a journey back into the Old Testament.
God promised His people that He was going to send a Savior. To prepare them for the Savior, God gave His people laws and a required way to worship Him (Hebrews 8:1-6). When God rescued the Israelites from slavery in Egypt they worshiped Him at the tabernacle. The tabernacle was a tent that could be set up and taken down and moved as the people traveled through the desert on their journey to the Promised Land. After many years of living in the Promised Land King David’s son Solomon built a Temple for God’s people to worship.
In the tabernacle and later the temple there was a room called the Holy of holies (NIV-Most Holy Place) (Exodus 26:33-34). This is the place where the Ark of the Testimony (Exodus 25:10-22) was kept. It was separated from the room called the holy place by a very thick curtain or veil. The only person that could go behind that curtain into the holy of holies was the high priest. Before the High priest could go into the Holy of holies, he had to offer blood sacrifices and perform all of the requirements God had given. God required obedience to the requirements to worship in the temple. Not following His requirements could bring death to the one who disobeyed. (Numbers 16:1-35)
This is only a brief description of temple worship to help us to understand how we should approach God. Believers in the Lord Jesus do not need to fear for our lives as the priests in the Old Testament did.
Let’s read the following verses:
- Matthew 27:51 “At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split.”
- Hebrews 10:19-22 “Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. “
- Hebrews 4:16 “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
- Ephesians 3:12 NIV-“In Him and through faith in Him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.”
From these verses why can you and I come boldly into God’s presence without fear? (When Jesus died on the cross for all sins He made it possible for those who believe in Him to stand before God righteous.) This is a free gift to all who believe but it cost Jesus His life.
Believers prepare to enter God’s presence
Our focus for the next several weeks is how to have a personal quiet time. Today we are focusing on the first of three steps, Ready.
Any time we come into God’s presence to pray and study His Word we need to prepare our hearts. Each week when we have our prayer time you are given a few moments of silence before we begin to pray so that we can examine our heart before God and if He brings any sin to mind we should stop and confess that sin and ask for His forgiveness.
Philippians 2 is a chapter about attitudes. Many times our sins against God are in our heart attitudes. Our activity while waiting for everyone to arrive was to read Philippians 2 and mark key attitudes. What kinds of attitudes did you observe in Philippians 2? (Humility, unity, thinking of others more important than ourselves; grumbling, arguing, blameless, and innocent, etc.)
If you are a believer you have two natures. What are those two natures? (Sinful/Spirit-filled)
(On the board write 2 columns Sinful and Spirit-filled) As we look at Philippians 2 and the attitudes you marked what are some sinful attitudes? What are the Spirit-filled attitudes?
When we sit down to have quiet time with God we need to examine our attitudes. Have I been selfish? Have I been complaining? Did I argue with anyone today? If so we need to stop, confess the sin and ask for forgiveness. When we examine our hearts and confess sin we are READY to enter God’s presence.
Believers should always practice humility
When believers spend time in God’s presence He changes us to look and act more like Jesus. By reading God’s Word and allowing His Holy Spirit to help us we will put into practice what we learn.
Let’s read Philippians 2:5-11.
Who does Paul tell us our attitude should be like? (Jesus)
What do we learn about Jesus from verses 6 and 8? (Allow responses)
From these verses we have the Good News about Jesus. Jesus is God. He has always existed. He lived in heaven. He left the perfection and awesomeness of heaven and came to this earth and chose to be born as a baby taking on human form. When Jesus took on human form He emptied Himself of His privileges and chose to be a poor man. Jesus lived on this earth with flesh and blood being fully God and fully man. He lived a life that pleased God the Father. He relied on God His Father’s power to live a sinless life in a human body. Jesus taught people about God and showed them God’s power by performing miracles. Jesus was insulted by people who thought they were righteous before God. The people that Jesus came to rescue put Him to death on a cross and punished Him as a criminal even though He was innocent.
Jesus did not have to do that. He chose to humble Himself and come and live among wicked people and die in our place so that we could be saved from the punishment of sin.
Let’s read verses 9-11. Jesus humbled Himself by leaving heaven, becoming a man and obeying His Father even unto death. God was pleased with His Son and exalted Him. Jesus is now seated at the right hand of God.
Who is going to bow before Jesus? (Everyone) Who is going to confess with their tongues Jesus is Lord? (Everyone) Do you think that means everyone is going to believe in Jesus? (Allow responses) The Bible tells us that there will be people who still reject God and will be punished for their sins. (Revelation 20:15 And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.)
When a person believes in Jesus they are bowing their knee, accepting that they can do nothing that will save them from their sin. With their mouths they confess that Jesus is the Lord, the master of their life.
When a person rejects Jesus one day they will stand before King Jesus. It will be too late for them to have their sins forgiven but they will bow their knee and speak with their lips that indeed Jesus is Lord. Sadly, they will then be cast into the lake of fire where they will be separated from God forever.
As we close we have 2 challenges. The first challenge is for believers. If you compare your attitudes to Jesus’ attitude how much do you look like Him? What changes do you need to make in your attitude to look like Jesus?
The second challenge is for those who have never been saved. Each week you come here and we open God’s word and learn that Jesus is the Savior. He died on the cross for your sins, was buried and rose again the third day. What keeps you from willingly bowing your knee and confessing with your mouth that He is Lord now? Today is the day of salvation. If you have any questions about how to be saved please speak to me after we pray.
Close in prayer.