Participants:
Series Code: SWJ
Program Code: SWJ000058S
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00:25 (Miss Ruthie) Hello boys and girls. Welcome to Starting with
00:28 Jesus where we want to encourage you to start every day with 00:33 Jesus. And don't forget, we have our story time tomorrow at 00:37 startingwithjesus.com/stories We've been learning about Satu. 00:41 But before we get to any of that our Bible story, our nature 00:44 story, anything what is our first thing that we like to do 00:47 together. We like to sing. That's right. So come join me 00:51 with some singing. 00:52 ♪ ♪ 02:00 ♪ ♪ 03:03 ♪ ♪ 04:23 ♪ ♪ 04:29 Hi, I'm Evie and I'm working with my brother Danny. 04:32 I'm Brianna and I'm working with my brother Bryce. 04:35 We have heard so many missionary stories and we wanted to be 04:38 missionaries too. But how? We're just kids. We can't drive 04:44 anywhere. We don't have any money. We can't fly around the 04:47 world on mission trips, especially now with COVID. 04:50 So we prayed about it and we got an idea. We don't need to drive 04:53 anywhere. We don't need any money and we can be missionaries 04:56 right in our own backyard. Here's what we did. Every time we 05:00 go outside we try to find a jewel box. A jewel box is a 05:03 place where we can see God's nature. There's so much beauty 05:07 and wonder in all of creation and all of it points to God's 05:12 love for us. Psalms 19:1 says: 05:19 Once we've found that jewel box we tell others about it. Sharing 05:23 it gives us a chance to talk about Jesus to other kids, 05:26 friends and family. Usually kids love this idea so much they go 05:31 out to find their own jewel boxes. 05:32 If you're a kid or an adult, you can do this too. Your jewel box 05:37 could be anywhere where you can see a part of God's wonderful 05:42 creation. Places to enjoy God's jewels can be your 05:47 favorite, climbing a tree where you can remember that spending 05:51 time with Jesus is fun. A pond where you can observe God's 05:57 amazing wildlife. A hiking trail where you can fellowship with 06:03 others and share what God has done for you that week or a 06:07 garden where you can think of how God makes the little seeds 06:11 sprout. If you don't have a back yard or you can't make it out to 06:14 the park, don't worry. You can still have a jewel box. It could 06:18 be where you can notice the colors Jesus has painted on each 06:23 petal, a fish tank where you can see God's little fish happily 06:28 swim. Fish are always good to watch. A bird house that let's 06:34 you see all the pretty birds that God's created. Or your 06:39 bedroom window where the puffy white clouds remind you that 06:44 Jesus is coming very soon. These are just a few ideas, but there 06:50 are so many more. Get creative. God is everywhere. We made 06:53 T- shirts too. When people see these T-shirts they ask about 06:56 the jewel box. That give us a chance to be missionaries and 07:00 share Jesus with them. We also got permission from our parents 07:03 to start a free website. We named it the Jewel Box 07:05 Website Sanctuary 07:07 to encourage all kids all over the world to appreciate all of 07:11 God's jewels in nature. We like to post jewel box pictures on 07:15 our website that different kids send in. You can send your jewel 07:18 box pictures to the Starting with Jesus e-mail, 07:21 Instagram or Facebook. We hope this encourages you to be a 07:26 missionary in your own back yard by finding a jewel box in nature 07:30 that will remind you of Jesus' love. And then share your jewel 07:32 box with your friends and family so they can learn to find Jesus 07:35 in nature too. You can start this missionary work today. 07:39 Have fun. 07:41 ♪ ♪ 07:47 (Miss Michelle) Hey everybody and welcome back for another 07:49 Bible story. Do you ever just like to sit and think about all 07:52 the fun memories that have happened in your life and 07:54 remember things. I was just sitting and actually I thought 07:58 well I'm going to go look and see if I can find something and 08:00 I found this and it reminded me of something that happened about 08:04 10 years ago, almost 10 years ago. Do you see what it says? 08:08 It says, Before You Say I Do. It was a workbook that my 08:12 husband and I did before we got married. And it was so much fun 08:16 to look back through and see what answers we put down for 08:19 things. It's fun to think back of all the cool memories that we 08:22 have. Some memories are happy and some are sad. Right now I'm 08:25 going to ask you a question that will be in your short term 08:28 memory. Do you remember where we left off on our story last week? 08:31 Hmm. Let's have prayer and then see if you get the answer right. 08:37 Dear heavenly Father, we thank you so very much for being here 08:40 with us today. Send your Holy Spirit to fill this room and 08:44 whichever room the kids are listening in right now, Lord. 08:47 Thank you for being here with us as we listen to this very 08:49 important story with very applicable lessons for our lives 08:52 In your name, we pray, Amen. 08:54 Well, if you said that Jesus and His disciples were sitting on 08:58 the Mount of Olives and Jesus was telling them stories and 09:01 telling them about things that were going to happen in the 09:04 future, then A-plus, you got it correct. And don't worry. That 09:07 random thing about my wedding, it will come into play later 09:10 with our story. I'm not that random. Jesus was sitting there 09:14 and as He was there with His disciples the sun started to go 09:17 down and they looked out over the valley and they saw a home. 09:20 The home was all lit up and I'll tell you this, be careful 09:23 because if it's dark and your house has lights in it, people 09:26 can see in the windows. That's why we have blinds. Right? 09:29 These blinds were open though because something exciting was 09:33 going to happen there that night Do you know what it was? 09:36 You may have guessed it. They were waiting and getting ready 09:40 for a wedding. All different countries, cultures and time 09:44 periods have had different traditions for weddings. And 09:47 maybe even your family has different traditions for 09:49 weddings than say your neighbors or your friends. Right? Back in 09:53 Jesus's time what would happen is the bridegroom would get 09:57 ready and he would then walk all the way to the bride's house and 10:01 go and pick her up and take her back to his house for the big 10:05 wedding feast. It was so cool because then along the way 10:10 people would join the wedding procession and it would be so 10:13 exciting and joyous and this is what Jesus and His disciples 10:15 were seeing. They could see the bride's house where the bride 10:18 was getting ready and the people were there waiting for the 10:21 bridegroom. This made Jesus think about the supper of the 10:25 Lamb in heaven where he's the bridegroom and we're the bride 10:28 and he was wanting to portray that message to the disciples 10:31 about that important event that would come in the future in 10:35 heaven. Right? So he told them, you're right, a parable or a 10:39 story. You see, He told the story of The Wedding Feast and 10:45 let's pick up that story in Matthew chapter 25. This is what 10:49 Jesus said, because the letters are in red, so that's how I know 10:52 Jesus said it. 10:53 Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to 10 virgins who 10:56 took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. 10:59 Why, Miss Michelle, would they need the lamps? Well as in the 11:02 story they had their wedding feast at night so they would 11:06 need a special lamp so that they could see. Right? And Virgins, 11:10 we'll translate that as not being married. So they had their 11:14 lamps and they may have been something like this one. Now I 11:16 didn't put oil in it because I didn't have the right kind of 11:18 oil for this lamp. They were probably made out of clay back 11:21 then but now this is the one that we had a grandma's house. 11:24 We brought it. Inside if you can see that there's a special wick 11:27 and you would fill this part up with oil and that piece of cloth 11:31 in there or the fabric would pull the oil up and then you 11:35 would light it up here. This one should have a glass thing up 11:39 here, a dome, but I took that off so that we could see it 11:41 really clearly. Okay? So the 10 virgins all had their lamp 11:45 because they wanted to see when the bridegroom would get there. 11:48 Right. Let's keep reading. 11:49 Now five of them were wise and five were foolish. [Hmm, that's 11:55 an interesting fact] Those who were foolish took their lamps 12:00 but they didn't bring any extra oil with them. They only had the 12:04 oil that was in their lamp. The wise virgins brought extra oil 12:09 with them so that if it took longer for the bridegroom to get 12:12 there, they could refill their lamp and still be able to see. 12:15 But in the story... The bridegroom was delayed 12:20 and everybody fell asleep. The Bible says they slumbered and 12:25 slept. They were tired from getting all ready for this 12:28 wedding feast. And they slept. And their lamps started burning 12:31 lower, the flame gets lower as the oil gets lower and very soon 12:36 at midnight there was a cry that was heard and it said 12:39 Behold the bridegroom is coming. Oh how exciting! Go out to meet 12:45 him is what they said. Then all those virgins arose and trimmed 12:49 their lamps. They cut their lamp down. They got it all ready. 12:51 But they realized something very important didn't they? Now we're 12:56 in verse 7. We just read verse 7 verse 8. And then the foolish 13:01 said to the wise, Give us some of your extra oil for our lamps 13:05 are going out. 13:06 Can you give us some of yours. A reasonable ask but we'll see 13:11 what happens here. The wise virgins were very wise and let's 13:15 see why. 13:16 But wise answered saying no lest there should not be enough for 13:20 us. And you should go rather to those who sell and buy some for 13:25 yourselves. 13:26 Hurry, run to the store. See if they still have some and if you 13:28 hurry you might make it back in time. Do you think they will? 13:32 I think they might be called foolish virgins for a reason. 13:35 Let's find out. 13:37 And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came. 13:40 There he was. 13:42 And those who were ready [the wise virgins and those with 13:45 them] went in with him to the wedding and the door was shut. 13:49 Kind of reminds me of other doors that were shut. Namely the 13:52 ark door comes to mind. And afterwards the foolish virgins, 13:57 now they had oil if they could find a store that was open. 14:00 Right? At midnight. Afterward the other virgins came and they 14:03 said, Lord, Lord, open to us. [Open the door] But he answered 14:07 and said, Assuredly I say to you I do not know you. Watch 14:11 therefore for you know neither the day nor hour in which the 14:17 Son of man is coming. 14:20 What a sad end of the story for those five foolish virgins. 14:23 But what a happy end of the story for those who were 14:27 prepared ahead of time. Right? Well as we know in Jesus' 14:31 parables, they aren't just a nice story helps you to fall 14:34 asleep at night or that excites your imagination. Right? His 14:39 stories always had special meanings to them didn't they? 14:42 Do you know what the oil in the story represents? Oil in the 14:46 Bible often represents this. So you may be able to guess it. 14:50 The oil represents the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit helps 14:57 us to change our hearts and understand and obey God. We need 15:02 the Holy Spirit to understand God's word and I need to digress 15:05 for a second and tell you a quick teacher story. I once had 15:08 a student come to me and ask me, Miss Michelle, why don't we pray 15:12 before Bible class? I always pray at the end of Bible class. 15:15 But for some reason I didn't have the tradition of praying at 15:17 the beginning. And I looked at her kind of funny. She said, If 15:21 we don't ask the Holy Spirit to be here, Miss Michelle, then how 15:25 do you expect us to be able to understand what we're learning 15:27 about in Bible class. Whoa! That hit me. She was a fourth grader 15:32 and she totally changed my outlook on how I taught Bible 15:36 and if you've noticed almost 100 percent of the time, I always 15:41 pray and almost 100 percent of the time I pray for the Holy 15:43 Spirit to be with us during story time here at Starting with 15:46 Jesus, too. That one student changed my life and God used 15:49 Holy Spirit to help teach me about the Holy Spirit. Isn't 15:52 that cool? And so because of that we need to ask the Holy 15:57 Spirit to be with us before we open God's word and read the 16:00 stories that He has in there for us. All right. The five foolish 16:04 virgins, they acted like the rest of us. The looked like 16:07 everybody else getting ready for heaven. Right? But they weren't 16:11 filled with God's Holy Spirit. They didn't have enough of His 16:13 Holy Spirit inside of them. He wanted to pour it out on them. 16:16 Right? But they didn't ask, they didn't prepare ahead of time. 16:19 And the wise virgins were the ones that were prepared ahead 16:23 of time. They had the true change of heart. They had the 16:25 Holy Spirit inside of them. And they may have looked similar 16:28 because you can fake it folks, but they were different on the 16:32 inside. The inside of their lamp was full and they had extra 16:35 beside. Now you may think that was really rude that they didn't 16:38 want to share with the foolish virgins. Right? But when it 16:42 comes down to it like they only had so much and if they had 16:46 shared they wouldn't have had enough for themselves either. 16:48 We can't force other people to want the Holy Spirit in their 16:51 lives. Can we prompt them and can we encourage them? Yes. 16:54 But that's a personal decision. Can we pray for them? Yes. But 16:59 it's a personal decision that they have to make and we can't 17:01 force that upon them. Now Jesus knew that Satan has many ways to 17:06 tempt us and that's why he wanted to send the Holy Spirit 17:08 to be with us. And that's why He told another story. I love 17:13 Jesus's stories, don't you? In Matthew 24 He told the story 17:16 of two different servants. And let's pick it up in verse 45. 17:20 Matthew 24, verse 45: Who then is a faithful and wise servant 17:25 whom his master made ruler over His household and gave him food 17:28 in due season? Blessed is that servant when his master comes 17:33 and will find so doing. 17:35 So, the master goes away, the wise servant is there, he 17:38 follows everything that the master said. When he comes back 17:41 everything is A okay. He knew He could trust that servant. Now we 17:46 have servant number two, a different example you may guess. 17:50 Well what happens to the first servant first: 17:53 Assuredly I say to you that He will make him ruler over all His 17:56 goods. 17:58 If you come back from a trip and you've taken care of things then 18:00 that was the reward. Right? But dun, dun, dun: 18:04 If that evil servant says in his heart, My master is delaying his 18:08 coming. [His trip is taking longer] and he begins to [Huh, 18:12 it's horrible] beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink 18:15 with the drunkards, [he's like well he's not coming back, I'm 18:17 just do whatever I want to do, yikes] The master of that 18:21 servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him, [of 18:25 course, surprise, surprise, there's your boss come back.] 18:28 and at an hour he is not aware of [just like Jesus' second 18:31 coming, right?] and he [oooh gets worse the consequences, 18:36 very graphic here] And he will cut him in two and he will 18:41 appoint him a portion with the hypocrites where there shall be 18:45 weeping and gnashing of teeth. 18:47 Now, this is a story. Right? But it exemplifies the same two 18:50 types of people as in the first parable. The wise and the 18:54 foolish. And it may have appeared to the boss at first 18:58 that his second servant was going to do great, but he had 19:01 hidden that side of himself and in the end he had a really big 19:04 consequence, didn't he? Wow! Solomon has a little take on 19:09 this wisdom versus foolishness and we're going to flip over to 19:14 the Old Testament. I believe that both the Old and New 19:18 Testaments are inspired by God and that the Holy Spirit can 19:21 help us understand really cool lessons from both of them. 19:23 I hope that you get to explore both the Testaments of your 19:27 Bible too. All right. Proverbs 13 verse 15 is where we're going 19:32 to close off today's story with what Solomon said. He said: 19:36 Good understanding gains favor but the way of the unfaithful 19:40 is hard. 19:42 And that's what it boils down to folks, isn't it? In the second 19:46 story the second servant was a hypocrite. What do we call 19:49 hypocrites? It's somebody who acts one way but inside they're 19:52 actually another way. Right? Maybe they say one thing and 19:56 then they do another. I'll give you a hint. At times in our 19:59 lives we probably have all been hypocrites. I know I have. But 20:03 Jesus wants to fill us with that Holy Spirit oil and help us to 20:07 understand and help us to change so that we're not being a 20:10 hypocrite but we're being like those wise virgins, that first 20:14 servant, who are faithful to God no matter what and are ready 20:17 when He comes. We can't be ready without Him though. I promise 20:20 you that because He says to us, Watch therefore for we know 20:25 neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of man is coming. 20:27 He wants us to be ready and He will help us to get ready. 20:32 I'm so excited for that day and I can't wait to see you there. 20:36 Be there, Okay? See you next week. 20:39 ♪ ♪ 20:45 Thank you so much Miss Michelle for that Bible story. Now I 20:48 think that we have some questions from last week 20:51 that I know some of you have answered. So let's see what the 20:56 answers were to those questions and if you go to 20:59 startingwithjesus.com you'll be able to see those shout outs for 21:04 those of you who answered the questions. 21:07 ♪ ♪ 21:33 It's time for our new questions I hope you were listening. 21:37 Questions #1: 21:50 Question #2: In our story today Miss Michelle read from an Old 21:57 Testament book. What book did she read from? What book did 22:02 Miss Michelle read from in the Old Testament? 22:06 And Question #3: In our parable today there was some oil. Right? 22:12 What did that oil represent? 22:19 You can send your answers to us at answers@startingwithjesus.com 22:26 and we love to see how you're answering those questions and 22:29 listening carefully because that is one way that you can learn 22:37 how to start with Jesus. Right? When you're listening and you're 22:40 learning about Him. So, send your answers to us at 22:44 answers@startingwithjesus.com 22:47 ♪ ♪ 22:51 Matthew 25 verse 13 says: Watch therefore, for your know 22:57 neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of man is coming. 22:59 ♪ ♪ 23:11 Hello boys and girls. I'm out here and it's really dark 23:14 outside and I'm going to go on a little walk and see what we can 23:18 find with our little light. Now I have it all charged up and 23:21 ready to go and we're going to see what kind of things we can 23:26 find out here in the dark. Are you ready? Want to make sure we 23:29 have our light so we can see them. Let's go see. Ah looky 23:36 here. You know what I found here I found a little hummingbird. 23:40 Now this one isn't a real one. It's kind of a fake one. It's a 23:44 little broken. Maybe I can fix it some time, huh. That'd be 23:47 nice wouldn't it. Maybe I should take this in. You know, if I 23:51 hadn't had my light I wouldn't have been able to see this 23:53 little guy. You know right now I can actually hear some birds 23:56 and some different animals making noises. Let's listen 23:59 closely and see what kind of animals we can hear. Yeah, 24:06 there's some different birds and all sorts of different sounds. 24:09 And you know what, in the morning these days since it's 24:12 spring I can really hear the birds singing and I love 24:14 listening to the birds. Don't you? Let's go see what other 24:18 things we have. Let's take our little humming bird with us, 24:20 shall we? ♪ ♪ Do you guys see these beautiful flowers? If I 24:32 hadn't had my light I wouldn't have been able to see all these 24:36 beautiful different kind of flowers. I think they're purple. 24:41 Just beautiful. I love looking at the different flowers. You 24:48 know what I think I found something else while I was 24:51 looking. I found a little pine cone. There's lots of lessons 24:55 that we can find from pine cones Did you know that there are some 24:59 pine cones that only open up when there's a fire? And that's 25:03 the only way that they'll spread their seeds. Now we can learn a 25:08 lesson from that sometimes in our lives we might have some 25:12 really tough times almost like a fire. You know what, when we 25:16 have those times happen we can know that God is helping us to 25:21 be able to grow and to be able to just like that pine cone is 25:26 able to open up, it helps us to open up to Jesus and also to be 25:32 able to share His love with others just like those pine 25:35 cones are able to share their seeds. Let's go find something 25:38 else shall we? I'm headed in right now and I am so thankful 25:44 we got to have this time together that we got to spend 25:47 together. And you know what, it's been fun looking for 25:49 different things in the dark and there's a lot more that you can 25:52 so I would challenge you to go out sometime, with your parents 25:55 permission and take a flashlight and see what you can find in 25:59 the dark. Now you know what. There's something else that I 26:03 found in the dark, which was these steps. If I hadn't had a 26:05 light I would have tripped and fallen and hurt myself pretty 26:08 badly. So I'm really thankful for my light to be able to help 26:11 me know where to go. And that's what God's word is to us. It's a 26:17 light to our path and the Holy Spirit helps us to know where to 26:22 go. Have a great rest of your week and I'll see you next time. 26:28 ♪ ♪ 26:32 Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm so glad you were here 26:36 Now we are starting our VBS program really, really soon. 26:41 We're going to have a storytime that you can listen to on our 26:45 website. We're going to have some games and we're going to 26:49 have some cooking and we're going to have a sword sharpening 26:54 session which I think you're going to very much enjoy and 26:57 we're going to be learning about some gates in our castle. So 27:00 don't miss out and go to startingwithjesus.com/onguard 27:04 that's startingwithjesus.com/ongard 27:08 And we also have our Storytime that you don't want to miss. 27:13 Go to startingwithjesus.com/stories 27:15 to continue that story. We also have some more fun programs 27:19 coming up so you won't want to miss out on those. You can sign 27:22 up to our newsletter at startingwithjesus.com 27:25 and find out more from that. 27:27 Let's pray and ask Jesus to be with us. 27:28 Our Father in heaven, thank you so much that you love us, that 27:32 your with us, that you are guiding us each day. I pray that 27:37 you will send your Holy Spirit on us, that you will help us to 27:40 be ready when you come. I pray that every day we will spend 27:44 that time with you so that we can be ready. We love you Jesus. 27:48 Help us to bring our friends. Help us to share your love 27:52 with our friends 27:53 so that they know that you're coming soon. Thank you for 27:57 everything you do, in Jesus' name, Amen. 28:00 Thank you for watching, have a blessed week and keep in touch 28:03 ♪ ♪ |
Revised 2021-12-15