During the lesson, the information for you to know is written in regular type, and what we suggest speaking or reading aloud to children is in bold. All resources for this lesson, including the Teacher Guide, Student Page, Family Connection Card, and other resources can be downloaded in a ZIP file by clicking on the following link:
In some lessons you will find "resource articles." These are articles written by experts from around the world to help equip you for your work with children and adolescents. Share them with parents or guardians if you consider it appropriate.
Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.
Matthew 25:21
God has given each of us wonderful skills and talents. Sometimes we may wonder how our small efforts can make a difference. But God uses all He has entrusted to us to bring glory to His name.
Ask God to show you a talent or skill you have that you are not using. Then ask Him to show you how He can help you to use that skill to make a difference in the lives of those around you. Even if the task is small or you do not feel your talent or skill is enough, trust that God will multiply your gifts. When you are faithful in the little things, you may be surprised at how He blesses your efforts. One way you use your skills and talents is by teaching this class. Well done, good and faithful servant! You are wisely using what you have been given!
Encourage your students to ask their family members how they make decisions about money. This will allow the students to think of ways they can help their families to use resources wisely.
Teacher Tip: If possible, email or text the Family Connection Card to the families of your students.
As the students arrive, ask them to recite the prayer you learned in the previous 4 weeks.
When you are ready to begin teaching, place the clean, recyclable items in a pile at the front of your teaching space. Ask each student to pick an item from the pile. Do not tell the students how they will use these items.
Each of you has an item that can be reused. Think of a new and different way to use your item. It must be different from the way the item is normally used. For example, if I picked up a broken pencil, I could not use it to write with. But I could use it to tap a beat.
Give the students 2 minutes to think of ways to reuse their items. Then allow 4–5 students to share their ideas. Then have the students find partners. Give the pairs the following instructions.
You will work with your partner to think of ways you can use your items together for a new purpose. Or you can create a new item using your 2 items.
Give the students 3 minutes to work together to create new items or decide on new purposes for their items. Then allow 4–5 different pairs to share their ideas.
You all had very creative ideas! Learning to use our resources creatively is a helpful skill to have. When we use our resources wisely, we can often meet our needs and sometimes even our wants.
We use the resources around us to meet our needs. When we think of resources, we often think first of physical things, such as clothing, food, tools, or money. Those are important. But we also have other resources, such as our intelligence, skills, talents, bodies, influence, and time. All these things have been given to us by God.
We can use these things to meet our needs and the needs of others. For example, if you have influence with your friends, you can use it to encourage the group to serve an elderly person in your community. Or if your neighbour has injured himself, you can use your strong body to help your neighbour with his garden.
All the resources we have are valuable, and we need to manage these resources wisely. This is called “stewardship.” It means carefully and responsibly managing something that has been entrusted to you.
Listen to this parable from the Bible about 3 servants. Remember that a parable is a story Jesus told that teaches us a spiritual truth using a practical example. See if you can discover which servant was a good steward or manager of what he was given.
Have a student read Matthew 25:14–18 aloud from the Bible. If that is not possible, the verse is printed here for you.
Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.
Matthew 25:14–18
Which servants were good stewards of the money?
The servants who were given 5 and 2 bags of gold.
Listen to the next part of the parable.
If you are using the Memory Verse Poster, show it to the students.
After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. “Master,” he said, “you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.” His master replied, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!”
Matthew 25:19–21
This servant was honest and used the money wisely so that he could give the master more than he had been given. The servant who had been given 2 bags of gold was also a good steward. He earned 2 more bags of gold for the master. The master told him the same thing he told the first servant.
Let’s find out what happened to the servant who was given 1 bag of gold.
Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. “Master,” he said, “I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.”
Matthew 25:24–25
When the servant said that he knew the master was a harsh man, he was sharing his own personal view of the master. Neither of the other servants said this about the master. This servant may have been afraid, or he may have been hurt by a person of authority in the past.
Listen to the master’s response:
His master replied, “You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest. So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags.”
Matthew 25:26–28
Guide the students to understand that the servant who had worked hardest with the money was the servant who was entrusted with more.
Guide the students to understand that God is the master.
In his response, the master repeated the servant’s accusation against him. He said that this was the reason the servant should have been even more careful to use the gold wisely. In other words, he was saying, “If you thought I was going to be harsh and demanding, then why did you not do something with what was given to you?” This does not mean that the master was actually harsh and demanding. That was only the view of that servant.
This parable teaches us about being good stewards. Jesus told this parable when He was preparing to leave the earth. He wanted His disciples to know they should continue to share His love with others. But this parable also teaches something else.
This parable teaches us about how to be good stewards of the resources God has given us. First, it teaches us that the resources we have are not our own. In the parable, the money that the servants managed belonged to the master. Whatever benefits they got from those resources would also belong to the master. The Bible tells us that everything belongs to God. We are to simply be good managers of those resources. Listen to this verse.
The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters.
Psalm 24:1–2
God gave us the responsibility of caring for what He has given us—everything from our personal possessions to the planet we live on. We are called to be good stewards of all of it.
The second point we see in the parable is that we are not all given the same resources to manage. In the parable, the servants were given different amounts of money to manage.
The parable says that the servants were all given different responsibilities because they had different abilities. We are all different, too. You may be a good leader, but you may not feel comfortable teaching children. Or maybe you are good at mathematics but do not read very well. We all have different time and financial resources, personalities, influences, and talents. But whatever our resources are, we can choose to use them wisely.
Here are some practical tips to use your resources wisely. These ideas can be used to help you to manage any resource well.
Set a budget. No matter how much money you have, having a budget is helpful. Think about what your basic needs are and plan for those first. For example, you would plan for your food before you would plan to spend money on clothes. Or you may decide that you will only spend a certain amount of time with friends so you can focus on preparing for an upcoming exam. We will practice creating a budget later in the lesson.
Keep track of what you spend. Knowing how you spend your time and money will help you to know where you are spending the most. This shows what you think is most important. If that thing is really not as important as other things, you can make a different choice about how to use your resources.
Review your expenses. Look at your budget and your spending to think of ways you can save money. For example, if you spend a lot of money on vegetables, you may want to buy seeds and plant a garden to save money.
Save some for later. Even if it is only a small amount, saving money can help you in hard times and help with unexpected expenses. Being wise in times of plenty helps us to survive in times of need.
Let’s practice making a budget.
Optional: If you have a whiteboard or a large piece of paper and markers, write the budget activity on it so the students can see it. You can also write the activity on a piece of paper and let the students copy it onto their own papers.
If you are using the Student Page, give the students time to complete it.
End of Option
Let’s imagine that you are adults. Think about a job you might have and how much you would earn each week for doing that job. This is your income—the amount of money you have to spend and save each week.
Make a list of the necessities you need each week—things like food, housing, fuel, etc. These are your expenses. They should be included in your budget. A sample budget might look like this:
Write your income at the top of the page. List your expenses and then add them up to get your total expenses. Then subtract your total expenses from your income. If the number is positive, you have money left for spending or saving more. If it is negative, you are spending more than you make, so you need to find a way to lower your expenses or increase your income.
Making a budget, tracking your spending, reviewing your expenses, and saving can help you to be a good steward of your money. These ideas can also help you manage your other resources, such as your time, talents, skills, body, and influence.
How can you be a good steward of these other resources?
Guide the students to understand that practicing their skills to improve them and looking for ways to use their resources to help others are examples of being good stewards.
Every resource you have is a gift from God. Being a good steward of your resources helps you to meet your needs. When we use our resources wisely, the Bible tells us that we can be trusted with more.
Pause briefly to allow the students to think.
Think of 1 resource you could choose to use wisely this week. It may be your money, your time, some other physical thing, or your skills and talents. Share with a partner how you will be a wise steward of that thing.
Allow the students to share with partners for about 2 minutes.
Close with this blessing based on Matthew 25:21.
Blessing: May God help you see all of your resources. And may you learn to use them wisely so He will say to you, “Well done, good and faithful servant!”
Lead the students in singing this quarter’s song, if possible.
Life on Life ©2020 David C Cook. Reproducible for home or classroom use only. All other uses require written permission from David C Cook [email protected]. All rights reserved.
