Use this children’s Sunday School lesson on the seventh Beatitude to teach kids how to be peacemakers.
Needed: Bibles
Intro Game: The Peacemaker
Assign each student a partner. One student won’t have a partner. They’re the Peacemaker. If that leaves another student without a partner, have them pair up with another leader or another pair so that one group has three partners.
Partners separate, and students spread out for a game of tag. When Jesus tags someone, they join Jesus’ team, and that person is then able to tag their partner. Once both partners are tagged, they’re out.
The last student to be tagged either by Jesus or their partner is the Jesus for the next round.
Explain that Jesus helps bring people back together after they get into a fight, just as Jesus helped the partners get back together in the game.
Lesson
Ask students, Have you ever gotten into a fight with one of your friends?
How do you make up and get to be friends with that person again? Do you go tell them you’re sorry?
What if the fight was the other person’s fault? Could you still be the one to go talk to them first, before they told you they were sorry, and try and be friends with them again?
(Read Matthew 5:9.)
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.”
What do you think a “peacemaker” is?
It’s someone who makes peace between two people. When two people get into a fight, a peacemaker can help them stop fighting and help them to be friends again.
Did you know that Jesus was our peacemaker? He made peace between God and us. We were in a fight with God. We were always doing wrong things and not listening to God, and God could have punished us for those things. But instead, God wanted to have peace with us. And even though we were the ones who were doing the wrong things, even though we started the fight with God, God was the one who sent Jesus to talk to us and to make peace between God and us. Jesus died on the cross for all those wrong things that we do, and now, if we believe in Jesus, we have peace with God. Jesus came to us first, to make peace between God and us.
Jesus wants you to go to your friends first, too, even when you weren’t the one who started the fight, to make peace with them. If you do that, if you will be a person that tries to make peace with other people, you will be like Jesus, and God will be happy with you.
And when you go to make peace with someone, Jesus will go with you. He lives in your heart, and He will help you know what to say to someone when you try to make peace with them.
Activity: Acting It Out
Divide students into groups of two or three. Have each group decide on and act out a scene in which someone does something wrong to another person, but the person they wronged approaches them to make peace again.
Game: The Peacemaker
Play the intro game again and remind students that Jesus helps us makes peace.
Closing Prayer
Jesus, we thank You for coming to make peace between God and us. We pray that You’ll help us to forgive other people and try to make peace with them.
You can also find this lesson for Kindle or in print in my book, Jesus Teaches on the Mountain.