Needed: (Optional:
The Visual Bible)
Show the passage from The Visual Bible if
you have it. If not, skip down to the reading.
Have your students take turns reading John 12:37-50.
Read verses 42-43 again. Ask students, why wouldn’t some of
the leaders say they believed in Jesus even though they did?
They didn’t want to be looked down on by the other religious
leaders. In other words, believing in Jesus wasn’t what most people were doing,
so the leaders who did believe in Jesus gave in to peer pressure and pretended
like they didn’t believe in Jesus so they could fit in with everyone else.
Let’s talk about this idea of peer pressure for a minute.
When have you seen or experienced peer pressure? (Peer pressure can be experienced
with drugs, alcohol, smoking, making fun of someone else, cheating, etc.)
What about your belief in God? Have you ever felt pressured
not to show your Christian beliefs?
A big one where we might feel peer pressure not to show or
talk about our beliefs is in school. It’s not popular to talk about God in
school and, in fact, Christians are sometimes made to feel dumb in school
because of their beliefs. If we believe in the Bible that God created the
world, but the school teaches that the world was created with the Big Bang and
Evolution, Christians might feel like they shouldn’t talk about their beliefs. If
we believe in God, but science says we shouldn’t believe in God, we might feel
pressure not to talk about our beliefs.
That’s kind of how these leaders felt when they believed in
Jesus, but felt pressured to pretend that they didn’t believe in Him. It says
that they liked to have praise from people rather than praise from God. What
does that mean?
It means that they would rather have people think well of
them rather than God thinking well of them. But is that a wise choice, to have
people happy with you instead of God being happy with you?
I would much rather have God being happy with me. It’s nice
to have people thinking well of you, but their opinions of you will only last
for as long as they know you or until one of you dies. God’s opinion of us
lasts forever and He’s the one who can reward or punish us for all eternity.
Making God happy with us matters way more than making people happy with us.
Remember that the next time you feel pressured to hide or change your beliefs.
Speaking up for what you believe, like the leaders in the story should have
done, will be a courageous act that will most certainly make God happy with
you, and He will be with you if you stand up for what you believe.
(Read verses 44-45 again.) What does Jesus mean when He says
that when people see Him, they’re seeing God?
Jesus is God’s Son, but Jesus is also God. He’s a member of
the Trinity, part of God Himself, so when people saw Jesus, they were also
seeing God.
(Read the rest of the passage to close.)
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