Fruit of the Spirit: Joy
Kids at home 13th September
The Bible talks about fruit but it’s a different kind of fruit to apples and bananas! It's called the Fruit of the Spirit.
The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control and the Holy Spirit wants to give each of them to us and grow them in our lives to help us become more like Jesus. When we look at the life of Jesus, we can see that He shows all of these characteristics perfectly! Today we are going to look at joy and how we are filled with joy when we spend time with God! Joy is something that God can give to us and He loves to give to us! Joy is different to happiness as it means that even when things seem a bit difficult, or we feel a bit sad, we can still experience joy from being close to God and nothing can take that joy away!
Let’s start with some worship! Feel free to sing and dance or just watch and listen, Jesus doesn’t mind HOW we worship, he just loves it when we spend time with him and sing his praises!
You are Good – Bethel Kids
Alive – Hillsong Young & Free
This is Amazing Grace – Bethel Kids
Fruit of the Spirit – Starskills
Story time
The Prodigal Son – Saddleback Kids
Note to families:
The Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-24) if you prefer to read this to your little ones! Or page 272 in the Jesus Storybook Bible.
Some important points to remember…
- The father had a big party when his son who had been away came back home, he was full of joy and wanted to celebrate!
- God also experiences joy like this when we go to him and spend time with him and he wants to share that joy with us! He wants us to experience joy even when things are hard or sad too, and we can only get that kind of joy from Him and that can never be taken away!
- God will always have a big party full of joy when we come back to him or when people come to know him as their Father! The same way that the dad in the story had a big party when his son came home!
- He wants us to share our joy by talking about him to others and spreading the good news of Jesus Christ!
Some things to talk to your family about…
- Why did the father throw a party and welcome his son home? Why was he full of joy?
- What do you think joy is? What does it feel / look / sound like?
- What do you think makes you joyful?
- What do you think makes God joyful?
- How can we spread the joy that we get from God with others?
Memory Verse
The joy of the Lord is our strength (Nehemiah 8)
We can still have joy even when we don’t feel happy because joy isn’t the same thing as happiness. You might feel happy when you have a particular thing (this could be a new toy that you’ve been wanting for ages!) or when everything is going really well and you’re having lots of fun but if something changes or you lose that particular thing (the new toy) you might not feel happy anymore! Joy is different because it doesn’t depend on anything else apart from God! We will always have God by our side so even when something sad happens, we can still experience His joy and know he is with us through everything! That gives us strength to deal with lots of different situations, just like this memory verse says!
Missing word
Write the Bible verse on a sheet of paper. Cut the words apart. Place them in order on a table/surface. Ask your child to say (or read) the verse out loud and then remove one word. Ask them to say the verse again, seeing if they can remember the missing word. Then, take away another word. Repeat, until all of the words are gone and your child is saying the verse from memory.
Prayer time
Why don’t you thank God for all the times you have been joyful in the last few weeks and for all the things that bring you joy? You could also ask Him to help you experience joy when things feel a bit tricky or hard? If there is anything that feels a bit difficult at the moment, why don’t you talk to your family and God about it together now?
Dear God,
Thank you so much for being a loving and joyful Father. Thank you that spending time with you brings me a joy that nothing else ever could. Please would you help me to experience your joy in all situations, even when things feel hard and would you help me share that with others so that they can know this wonderful joy too.
Amen.