LEADER PREPARATION
Lesson Summary:

Note: These lessons are designed to be 30 minutes long. If your club time is shorter than this, we encourage you to be prayerful about parts of this lesson to put more or less emphasis on. If limited on time, we urge you to prioritize Tool Time and summarize Dig In, as Tool Time is what prepares you for sharing the Gospel. As always, let the Holy Spirit guide your leadership.

As Christians, our “testimonies” are the stories of how Jesus has redeemed and transformed your life. These stories are powerful, and they are meant to be shared!

Take a look at this video from BibleProject as you prepare: 
Covenants – https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/covenants/

This week, choose from one of the following options for DIG IN:

1. Have a Student Leader share the Gospel message using a presentation they’ve created or found, or by using the provided Gospel script below.
2. Have a Student Leader share their testimony. They can use these questions to help guide their thoughts.

• • “When was the last time I was waiting on the Lord, and He answered my prayer/ need in an unexpected but good way?”
  • “How have I seen God come through on His promises in my life?”

Main Point
God’s Promises have been fulfilled in and through Jesus.

Team Roles

Host: This Student Leader will lead the Start Up section of the lesson, helping create a fun environment, making everyone feel welcome and included.
Speaker: This student leader will guide the group in growing deeper in their faith by reading and reflecting on passages of scripture. They will then connect the content to the group’s daily lives by asking practical questions and leading the conversation.
Other Roles: Promo, Welcome, and Follow Up. 

Scripture References

• Hebrews 1:1-2
• Matthew 5:17-20

Materials Needed

• Two Lifesavers
• One Pencil for Every Member of the Group
• Prepared Gospel Presentation or Student Testimony 
• FP Bibles
• Student Response Cards

(7 minutes)
Say: Welcome to First Priority. We know that you could be anywhere else right now, so we are so pumped that you chose to be here with us!

Icebreaker Game: Ring Relay

Begin by asking the group to divide into two even groups. Give every student a pencil and student to place the pencil between their elbows (pointy end pointed out) for the duration of the game. Place a lifesaver on the tip of the first student in each line’s pencil. The group’s goal will be to transfer the life saver from one end of the line to the other using only their pencils – NO HANDS ALLOWED! If the life saver falls to the ground, the game starts over. The first team to complete the relay is the winner.

(5 minutes)
Option 1: Student Leader shares Gospel message (sample provided below).
Option 2: Student Leader shares testimony.

Option 1: Gospel Presentation Sample

Say: Today I want to tell you the good news that God keeps His promises. Even when we mess up. Even when we fall short. God is faithful – and we can rely on Him to come through for us. God is faithful to pick us up, forgive us, and give us strength to move forward, just like He was to the Israelites over and over again.

Through His Son, Jesus, God displayed his love for them and for us. Jesus lived, died, and rose again for the forgiveness of our sins and the sins of the world. This Savior, our Messiah, was predicted long before Jesus was even born. Many of the prophets in the Old Testament spoke about what was to come: A Messiah who would come to repair all that was broken and harmed through sin. Look at what Hebrews 1 shares about this.

Read Scripture: In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom also He made the universe. (Hebrews 1:1-2)

Say: For centuries, God provided prophets, people who reflected His character through their words and actions. Sometimes the prophets were listened to and believed, but often their message was ignored or shut down. As the One who created us, God knew our struggle to understand and to believe what His prophets told us about His great love for us. For centuries, God told our ancestors how to restore their relationship with Him, but their broken promises kept them apart.

But then God sent his Son, Jesus, who was a perfect reflection of the Father. Jesus was no ordinary messenger but was fully God and fully man. Jesus saw the brokenness our sin caused. Since Jesus is fully God, he was able to communicate exactly what the Father wanted Him to without getting in the way of the message.

Jesus’ message about God’s love and pursuit of a restored relationship with us was good news, not just to the people at that time, but to each of us today. No matter how far we have gone from God or what we have done, Jesus reminds us that God has provided a way back to find hope and wholeness.

You may feel like you are unworthy, inadequate, or someone who makes all the wrong choices in life and are not worthy of redemption and saving. But let me remind you that God loves you, regardless of the sins you have committed. You are never too far away from God’s love.

Through Jesus, God demonstrated this love for all of humanity and a desire to restore the relationship between God and man that was broken at the Fall. The Gospel of what Jesus has done is God’s ultimate promise of redemption for all the sin that has harmed each one of us. Just as God’s promises were true in the Old Testament, they are still true today. There is hope for the future because of this promise of redemption through the Gospel of Jesus.

Since Jesus is fully man, He was able to live a life without sin so that His death on a cross could pay the penalty for our sin. When He was raised from the dead, it gave us a promise of new life. This promise of new life in Jesus is one promise that will never be broken! It is a promise that destroys evil, and one day will make all things right in eternity.