Famous person charades
15 minutes
Get everyone to write two or three names of famous people on individual pieces of paper, fold them and put them in a hat. Split the group in to two and, one at a time, get someone to draw a name out of the hat and act out who that person is without speaking. Their team has to try and guess the person in a 30 second time limit. If they guess correctly they get two points, if they don’t the other team get a point.
Say: Imitating other people is one thing but the Bible calls us to be imitators of God. Read Ephesians 5:1 - is that even possible? The Bible tells us that before we seek to obey God or imitate his goodness we needed to be brought into his family through Jesus’ death (remind them of Ephesians 1-2). We need to remember that we’re dearly beloved children of God before we can live like him.
Bible study
15 minutes
Read Ephesians 5:1-20. Give the young people pens and a sheet of paper. Get them to draw a line down the middle. Ask them to pick out contrasting pairs where the Bible is telling us to stop doing one thing and do another instead. Put the ‘stop doing’ thing on the left side of the paper and the ‘do this’ on the right. You can give them verses where this happens if they need help (v4, v17). Your young people may want to ask what the particular sins actually are (e.g. what is ‘coarse joking’ and what is just having a laugh).
Say: The danger here is that we try and see how much we can get away with enjoying on the left hand side. The Bible’s view is that the more we imitate God and remember who he’s called us to be by living out the right hand side, the more joyful and fulfilled we will be.
Remind your young people that if they’ve trusted in Jesus they have been called out of darkness and will only find lasting happiness while living as children of the light.
Key Point 1
As people saved by God and brought into the light, Christians now live as people of the light. We should imitate God because that’s who we are and where we find joy.
Submission
10 minutes
Get your group to read Ephesians 5:21-6:9. Ask your group if they can identify the three different relationships in this passage. Point out that each relationship group is a picture of how God relates to his people. Look at each relationship in turn and ask if they can see how husbands and wives, parents and children, and slaves and masters are a picture of how God relates to his people. (The word the Bible uses for ‘slave’ has a range of meanings, from slaves to employed servants. Just because the Bible gives advice for slaves under bad masters doesn’t mean that it approves of slavery.)
Say: Because we imitate God, we should imitate his good parenting, sacrificial leading in marriage and good rule and care of anyone we’re in charge of.
Obeying your parents
5 minutes
Ask the group to discuss these questions:
- Is it hard to obey your parents?
- What are the things we struggle with?
- If your parent asks you to do something that causes you to disobey God what should you do?
- What if your parent asks you to do something that causes you to break the law?
- Can they think of an example of parents exasperating their children?
Say: If God is a good father to his children, he’s never going to exasperate his children. He might ask them to do hard things, but they’ll always be for his children’s best and he’ll always give them the strength to do it. When we do fail to obey him, we’re still his beloved children and he’s faithful to forgive us.
It should go without saying that if a young person reveals or hints at a parent or carer abusing them you should treat it seriously. Follow your child protection policy and report it to the right people. Make it clear to your group that one of the things God wants his Church to do is protect its members, so if they are worried about anyone being abusive towards them, young people should be assured that the church will believe them and care for them.
Key Point 2
In different ways Christians are called to submit to others. Ultimately we submit to God who sacrificed himself for us, cares for us, and rules over us in generosity and love.
Application and prayer
5 minutes
Get your young people to look at their two-sided piece of paper again. Ask them to think about each line and decide if they’re closer to the left side of disobedience or the right side of imitating God.
Ask: Is there one area that stands out that they need to pray about? Is there one truth from the passage that they need to remember next week? Get your young people to pray over that particular issue before praying over them all, reminding them that they are dearly beloved children of God.
