Hi! And welcome to another Sunday school lesson that Steve and I put together for our amazing youth group. We live in the Middle East, so a very familiar phrase to hear around here is “Inshallah”! (or, “God willing” in Arabic). But what is God’s will all about? Is it only for good? Or does he will evil?
As a group of teachers, we’re taking our class through a series on the book of Acts right now. It’s been amazing to dig deep into the many different stories of the early church, seeing how God used so many amazing individuals and groups of believers to ensure His good news reached beyond the Jewish community and spread to the Gentile world.
Today, we dug into Acts 21, where the prophet Agabus prophesied that Paul would be bound hand and foot in Jerusalem by Jewish leaders, and handed over to the Gentiles for…who knows what!? The believers around Paul begged him not to go. But Paul was like…”Come on guys! This is what my life is lived for! I’m willing to be bound, jailed, even killed, for the sake of Jesus Christ!” And finally, the response of the believers is simply “The Lord’s will be done.”
As we prepared today’s lesson, we asked ourselves – perhaps God can prevent Paul from being persecuted – or perhaps God’s will is that Paul is persecuted. But how can that be? Isn’t God good? Then how could His will involve the persecution of one of His beloved?
So let’s dig in…here’s the lesson plan that we used with our class:
1. The “Icebreaker” Game
We love starting off with a pretty active game or activity that loosens the youth up, gets them working together (or competitively), and breaks the ice a little bit before we dig into deeper conversations. But this week, we took it to the literal extreme of breaking ice!!
Game Summary: Break the group up into two teams (we had two teams of 5 people in our class). Present them with a bowl of ice and a towel, and tell them that their goal is to make the ice disappear. There are no rules to the game, except that they can’t eat the ice. But that they should make all the ice disappear by melting it.
What you need: Two bowls, two bags of ice (we used a 1 kg bag of ice for each group), and two towels. We were doing this game indoors, so wished we’d brought a couple extra towels, as there was water everywhere after the game, so you might want to consider that for your class!
Time: To melt the 1kg of ice on one team, it took about 15 minutes. If you don’t have that much time, maybe just use 0.5kg of ice.
How it plays out: It was so amusing to watch this game get played. It was about 35 degrees Celsius in the room, so they were thrilled to play with ice, but their hands started freezing as soon as they started playing. They got super creative – they blew on the ice, tried to suck on it and spit the water back into the bowl (gross, I know), tried sticking cubes of ice behind their knees, just tried rubbing the ice with their hands and the towel. Eventually, they put the ice on the floor and just started smashing it with their feet. One team definitely beat the other by a long shot – with a HUGE puddle of water left on the floor as a result. But…it’s just water and cleaned up quickly!
The point: We told them that we’d come back to them at the end of the lesson for the “point” of the game, as we hadn’t introduced the lesson yet…so keep reading!
2. The Bible Reading
We got the kids to help do the reading – they read 2-4 verses each, from Acts 21:1-14:
Acts 21 After we had torn ourselves away from them, we put out to sea and sailed straight to Kos. The next day we went to Rhodes and from there to Patara. 2 We found a ship crossing over to Phoenicia, went on board and set sail. 3 After sighting Cyprus and passing to the south of it, we sailed on to Syria. We landed at Tyre, where our ship was to unload its cargo. 4 We sought out the disciples there and stayed with them seven days. Through the Spirit they urged Paul not to go on to Jerusalem.5 When it was time to leave, we left and continued on our way. All of them, including wives and children, accompanied us out of the city, and there on the beach we knelt to pray. 6 After saying goodbye to each other, we went aboard the ship, and they returned home.
7 We continued our voyage from Tyre and landed at Ptolemais, where we greeted the brothers and sisters and stayed with them for a day.8 Leaving the next day, we reached Caesarea and stayed at the house of Philip the evangelist, one of the Seven. 9 He had four unmarried daughters who prophesied.
10 After we had been there a number of days, a prophet named Agabuscame down from Judea. 11 Coming over to us, he took Paul’s belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said, “The Holy Spirit says, ‘In this way the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles.’”
12 When we heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. 13 Then Paul answered, “Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” 14 When he would not be dissuaded, we gave up and said, “The Lord’s will be done.”
3. The Reflection/Lesson
We decided to focus on that last little phrase in the reading “The Lord’s will be done.” What is God’s will? Is it that Paul will be saved and not persecuted? Or is that God would let Paul be persecuted? If so, is that God’s will? Isn’t God good? If He’s good, why would he let someone he loved be tortured?
Trying to understand “God’s will” isn’t simple. As we prepared the lesson, we realized even we couldn’t grasp perfectly how a good, sovereign, omniscient, omnipotent, all-powerful God could allow evil, sin, or persecution to occur to His people. So we definitely wanted to provide lots of time and opportunity to reflect on this paradox with our youth.
To do this, we prepared 8 statements (some of them a little controversial). We warned them that today’s discussion might hurt their heads, but they seemed up for the challenge. We got different youth to pick a number between 1 and 8. Whatever number they called, we read that statement out loud and had them debate or discuss it. They certainly had lots to say! We made our way through all 8 statements in about half an hour.
Below, we’ve provided the statements as well as a few thoughts about each one to help you prepare for how you may want to guide your class through the discussions about them (but these are just our thoughts, feel free to add your own!)
Statement 1. There is no point in me trying to impact the world, when God’s will shall be done anyway.
- Our thoughts: We can influence God – through prayer and relationship. God will know what he will do. But it doesn’t stop us from asking us to do something different.
Statement 2. In the last week, I feel like I carried out God’s will for my life
- Our thoughts: I don’t think about it that much. 95% of our time, we’re just spontaneously living. That really just comes out of where our heart is at. Read Romans 12:2. It’s important that we are constantly renewing our mind so that our 95% spontaneous action, when we aren’t actively seeking God’s input into our decisions, is aligned with the will of the Holy Spirit.
Statement 3. Everything that happened so far on earth is the will of God
- Our thoughts: God has allowed everything. But there is an opposition. There is a devil and evil, that creates sin. God does not will sin to happen. But has allowed it.
Statement 4. Nothing bad will happen to me if I carry it out God’s will
- Our thoughts: No. Think of Paul and Jesus – they carried out God’s will. But bad things happened.
Statement 5. God governs and controls everything. He is sovereign. So therefore he must cause everything on earth. The good and the evil.
- Our thoughts: God’s commands of will vs. God’s sovereignty. He knows everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen. He has allowed everything. But evil is not His design, not His plan. But because of sin, he allows it.
Statement 6. As a group of people, if we are all seeking God’s will then surely we must agree on everything?
- Our thoughts: No. Obviously not from this text in Acts – different believers were prophesying from the Holy Spirit for Paul not to go to Jerusalem. But Paul felt called to go. So we don’t all agree, even when we’re all seeking God’s will.
Statement 7. There is a single path for your life which God has already planned – so do not fall of it, otherwise you are outside of God’s will.
- Our thoughts: No. And I don’t think there is a single path for your life.
Statement 8. It’s easy to know the will of God
- Our thoughts: General will vs. specific will. Some things are easy to know; his will for our general lives is clear from scripture. Some things are more difficult, especially when it comes to making big decisions in our own lives, things that aren’t laid out in the Scriptures.
4. The Wrap-up Activity
At the end of the reflection lesson, we had one more object lesson to share with them to illustrate God’s will.
Object Lesson Summary: I put two bowls on the table, one with water and one without. I chose one youth, and showed him three utensils: a cup, a spoon, and a fork. I told him I wanted him to move the water from one bowl to the other. He could choose which utensil to use. He first chose the spoon, but I said, “Oh, actually, I need to use the spoon for something else, I forgot.” And I put it to the side. Then he chose the cup, but I said, “Sorry, I just remembered I actually need the cup for another thing.” So he took the fork. It was a little amusing to see him basically try to move water with a fork – a few drops of water make it from one bowl to another each try. After a few tries, I stopped him and moved on to the “point”.
What you need: Two bowls, one with water in it. One fork, one cup, one spoon.
The point: God made us all so different. Some of us are spoons, some of us are cups, and some of us are forks. Forks might be great for eating meat, or spaghetti. But we’re not all designed with the same purpose in mind. And forks just aren’t made for moving water! So, yes, we looked at tough questions today about God’s will. But there are also really easy, simple ways to understand God’s will too – just look at who you are! How did God design you? What passions and interests and skills did He give you? He made you just the way you are to be able to perform His purpose in your life. So don’t be scared to follow Him!
5. Wrap-up and Prayer
Coming back to the point of the “Icebreaker” game, we explained that God has His will, but we also have our own will. Ice is like our own will. It seems solid, like we have rock-solid plans for our life. But very easily, with a bit of friction and heat, what seemed like solid plans melt into water and then evaporate. Meanwhile, God’s will spans generations, centuries, and millennia. His plans, we can’t even see them sometimes, but His will is perfect, because it is part of the story of the whole world and all time. So we need to trust that He is working all things together for His good.
We got one of the youth then to close in prayer.