Show Them Jesus: Teaching the Gospel to Kids

by Jack Klumpenhower

This book’s main point is that we are called to teach the good news—all Jesus is and all he’s done by his life, death, and resurrection to save those who’re joined to him—and to treasure it as we work with kids.

Today, a frightening number of kids are growing up in churches and Christian homes without ever being captured by the gospel of Jesus.

They look back and realize that they learned much about Christian behavior and churchy experiences, but whatever they learned about Jesus didn’t really change them.

I finally came to see that I was the one who lacked faith in the power of the good news.

When the account of Achan is taught at all, it’s usually with the moral point that stealing is wrong. Okay, but that girl needed to hear the larger biblical point: that sin destroys life with God. Then she needed the biggest point of all—the theme of the whole Bible: that wherever sin destroys, Jesus heals.

Kids are watching and learning from you, and you have the job of showing them Jesus.

It worked because the cross of Jesus—not principles for good living—is the engine of the Christian life.

First, the content of the message matters; it must be about Jesus.

those kids had school teachers or Sesame Street to tell them how to be good listeners.

Second, the cross of Christ applies to the entire Christian life.

It isn’t just something you believe to become a Christian.

It’s also the framework for living as...

the most powerful way to handle every sin in the life of the church is to apply a deeper understanding of the cross of Christ.

He treated the cross as ongoing fuel, even for kids who were already Christians.

Third, faith in this message comes from God.

Rather than coax the kids into temporarily acting better, Joe told about Jesus and trusted God to use that message to make the kids become better.

Let’s face it: Christianity is often packaged this way. Live a good life and things will go well for you. Find the right spiritual resources and you’ll be blessed.

Jesus didn’t bring typical religion. He brought good news.

News is not what you do—it’s what someone else has done that affects you.

The good news means you relate to God based on what Jesus has done for you, not what you’ve done to prove yourself worthy.

you’ll do it because you rest in him.

The typical lesson for kids isn’t like this. Instead, it tends to be what mine were for years—little more than a lecture about some way you ought to live for God.

We’ve been dispensing good advice instead of the good news.

free grace,

self-effort—and

Fellow teachers, our challenge is to proclaim the good news of Jesus so clearly and consistently that no kid of ours will ever place him in a category with typical religious leaders.

What a tyrant Jesus would be if he lived a perfect life and then, as his main message,

told us to be like him. What a setup for failure!

The greater error is to teach from the Bible and fail to point out Jesus at all.

Although we look to the entire Bible for a full picture of God, the most complete picture we find is Jesus himself.

The Bible does give us useful examples. However, all too often that’s all kids get from a lesson, instead of what they need most.

Just make sure they’re responding out of faith in the love of Jesus, not out of mere moralism.

The main point is not that we too should obey, but that Jesus did obey.

Let me start with a warning: The good news offends everyone.

It’s usually helpful to think of our ongoing good works, in particular, as separate from the good news itself. Even as we give our lives for God’s kingdom, this is only an echo of the life Jesus gave.

Even though the good news is what Jesus has done—not anything we do—as we believe it, it compels us to action.

They aren’t worth a cent for earning God’s love; but because we’re in Christ, God finds us pleasing. He accepts our bumbling acts done in thankfulness as offerings to him.

every one of us earns exactly the same grades from God.”

“If you’re joined to Jesus, God is pleased with you. Like he is with Jesus. Like you obey that perfectly. Of course you still have a duty to actually obey God, but it’s not the kind of duty that comes because you need to keep him from getting grumpy. It’s the kind of higher duty that comes from being loved, and in love. Only the righteousness you get from Jesus will ever make you completely, perfectly accepted, like getting all A+’s. No more shame. “Believe it. Believe that you’re safe in Jesus. Believe that his love for you doesn’t change.

It sounds like you’re saying it doesn’t matter how we act as Christians. Don’t we still have to work hard to obey God?

freeness.

Not a word!

The God Report Card is about how kids who are already believers can gain confidence and joy by understanding the good news that they’re justified before God.

What Jesus taught is extremely important. I just don’t want us to miss what he did. We must not separate his teaching from his saving work, which is foundational.

Go with whatever is making an impact on your students.

The gospel-day trap happens when we think of the good news as very important—critical to salvation!—but as something that only some kids need to hear some of the time. There are two problems that result from this kind of thinking.

First, those few times each year that we “present the gospel” become artificial and forced.

Second, this means church kids—those we assume are doing fine because they’re from Christian homes and go to church—seldom hear the good news.

Church kids come in one of two types—unsaved and saved. Both types desperately need to see Jesus. Let’s consider first why unsaved kids need this.

We must not trust the “say-a-prayer” formula. Generations of church kids have been taught to become Christians by saying the “sinner’s prayer.”

This passage says God chose the believers and God is the one making them holy. That’s the Spirit’s work.