What’s your typical response when someone sins against you? Revenge? Holding a grudge? Anger? This forgiveness object lesson illustrates the sin of anger that can take hold in our own hearts, and the power of the Holy Spirit and the cross in helping us forgive, even when we don’t want to…
Scriptures:
Ephesians 4:32 – Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
Colossians 3:13 – Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
Acts 2:38 – Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
Matthew 6:12 – and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us
Mark 11:25 – And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.
Luke 6:45 – A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.
Forgiveness Object Lesson
What you need:
- 1 empty water bottle
- A permanent marker
- A bendy straw
- Hot glue gun, Krazy glue or sticky tack
- Balloon
- Water
- Food colouring x4 colours
- 5 clear plastic cups
How to do the Object Lesson:
Click to watch this video below, where I demonstrate this forgiveness object lesson.
1. First, setup your table.
To the side, have 4 small cups of coloured water (each cup a different colour).
Also, have a cross drawn on the 5th cup, and set it to the side.
2. Second, introduce the water bottle and the straw as “me” and “my mouth”.
Let’s pretend. Me and you? We’re like this bottle here. Draw a face on the top of the pop bottle. Now right here, where the mouth is? Let’s put a hole there, and insert this straw, long end inside the bottle and short end sticking outside the bottle. Seal the hole around the straw with either glue or sticky tack.
There’s a verse in the Bible that says “the mouth speaks what the heart is full of” (Luke 6:45). And that’s what we’re going to talk a little bit about today, by doing a simple forgiveness object lesson. You see, this straw, it represents the connection between what’s deep inside of us, and what comes out of our mouths.
3. Third, discuss the sins done against us that fill our hearts with anger or resentment.
Right now, the bottle is empty.
But I want to ask you a question: What are some things that your friends, or even your family members, do to you that make you really upset or angry sometimes?
Your group can give you some examples, such as:
- Not inviting you out to play sports with them on the weekend?
- Making fun of you – maybe your grades, or your clothes, your hairstyle, or something else?
- Your parents have some strict rules that seem to be unreasonable?
- Maybe your brother or sister said something pretty nasty to you?
As the group gives each example, pretend that one of the cups of coloured water represents that example. As that scenario happens, it can put anger, resentment, a grudge, or even hatred inside of us. Pour the water into the bottle. Repeat this for four different examples. By the end, the water inside the bottle will be an ugly brown colour.
4. Fourth, show the gross colour now left inside of us – and discuss God’s command for us to forgive others.
There are all kinds of things that can tick us off at one point or another. And you can see that it leaves us with a pretty disgusting mess of brown icky anger inside of us (show the contents of the bottle).
In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught us to pray: “forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us”. The thing is, when Jesus died on the cross, he paid the ultimate price for our sins – he died for us. When he did that, it says that he took on all the sins of the world, for all time, onto himself, and through his death and resurrection, God forgave those sins so that we could enjoy the ultimate forgiveness and be welcomed into His Kingdom.
And so Jesus commands us also – if God was able to forgive our sins, we’ve got to forgive the sins of others against us!
5. Fifth, introduce the “Holy Spirit” balloon and the “cross” cup.
So I want to introduce this here balloon. We’re going to let this balloon represent the Holy Spirit. I think it’s too hard to forgive people all on our own. Especially when the things they’ve done against us are really big or terrible. So the only way we can forgive others is to invite the Holy Spirit to fill us up with Himself, until we’re so full of Him, that we can’t hold any other anger.
Place the balloon over the top of the bottle (keep your fingers tight on the balloon so it doesn’t deflate yet).
And now take the cup with the cross drawn on it, which represents what Jesus did for us on the cross, and put it under the straw coming out of the bottle, our “mouth”.
6. Last, talk about prayer, forgiveness, and being filled with the Holy Spirit instead of anger.
When you pray, ask the Holy Spirit to fill you up. Let go of the balloon so it starts to deflate. As it deflates, it pushes the anger of our hearts out through our mouths as we pray. And Jesus just takes that prayer, and he’s already forgiven that sin of anger or resentment on the cross. So the anger just fills up that cup, and Jesus deals with it.
And look at the bottle, we’ve become clean again.
Forgiveness doesn’t come easily. Nor does it come naturally. But through prayer, what Jesus already did for us on the cross, and the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts – these things make it possible for us to forgive completely the things that others have done to hurt us. This forgiveness object lesson illustrates this very concept – that the Holy Spirit removes anger from our hearts and allows us to forgive.
The Science behind the Object Lesson
The only thing that’s happening here in the forgiveness object lesson is that air is replacing water in the bottle. The tension caused by the elasticity of the balloon creates pressure that pushes air into the bottle. This energy is greater than the energy it takes to move the water up the straw and out into the external cup. So the air fully replaces the water, if you’ve filled up your balloon with enough air.
