YOUR BIBLE TOOLBOX

GETTING SKILLED AT USING GOD'S WORD

AWANA – Workers Not Ashamed

Tools and tool box

Big Book of Computers

StartZone

EXAMPLES OF ACROSTICS –

DNA

LOL

ESPN

It seems just right as we are nearing the end of the AWANA year to talk about an acrostic that is so familiar that you may not have even thought about it.  And that word is AWANA.  Let’s see if we know why we call AWANA AWANA!

Where does that come from?

I Timothy 2:15

I see 3 important things in this verse:

Do your best to be approved by God

No need to be ashamed

Rightly handling the word of God

What if I wanted to be an expert and build a huge playground when Westerly builds its new church.  Isn’t that a super idea? 

I think I can do that - it's easy.  All I need is a little wood and a hammer, right?  No?

(Ask kids what else I need?  Tool box, book)

What’s wrong with this plan of mine?

What if I had a big, big book with everything about building playgrounds in it?

How do you think I’d do building my first playground?

Why do people hire experts?

1 Timothy 2:15 tells us these things:  You and I are like workers – not making playgrounds but something even more important

We doing this for God’s approval

Do your best

No need to be ashamed

Rightly handling the word of truth

When you learn your verses at AWANA, that’s just the beginning to becoming an expert.  We’ve got the truth – the Bible.  But we’re not experts yet.  When Kevin Boss was here, his chaplain, George McGovern asked you what Bible verses you knew.  What happened?

Maybe it felt like your brain went empty. 

How good would tools be to a worker if he left them all at home?

A skilled worker needs to have his tools with him at all times!

A skilled worker knows which tool to use for a purpose.  If I needed to put a nail in a board, would I use a screwdriver?  Why not?  What should I have in my toolbox to put the nail in?

Learning how the verses you learn connect to life is called “rightly handling the word of God.” 

Let’s try to see if we can figure out a few of the tools we already know - go way back to the Start Zone and see if we can sharpen our skills –

Say you’re at school and you hear someone say – there are good people and there are bad people.

Checkpoint 3 of the Start Zone – The bible tells me that everyone has sinned.

You learned 2 verses – those are the right tools to use to explain that God says sin is a problem for everybody – what were they?

Jeremiah 17:9

Romans 3:23

(put a tool out on the ground)

Someone says – I stole some Pokemon cards from the store.  So what – they’ll never know they’re gone.

Let’s look for another tool – why is sin so bad?  You learned a verse in the start zone that talks about how serious sin is -

Romans 6:23

The verse gives you 2 important tools – to understand that sin brings death – sin is very, very serious! – put out 1 tool

But this verse also gives you the tool that God has a wonderful gift – eternal life in  Christ Jesus. – put out another tool

Let’s imagine someone says – I think God hates me.  My life is so bad.

Let’s do one more wonderful tool – John 3:16. – 4^th tool

That wasn’t very easy, was it?  Becoming an approved worker using God’s word is something that takes work.  But we’ve made an important start to become approved workers who know how to handle God’s Word. 

What good is it to memorize the whole Bible and not understand it!? It’s like having all the tools from Home Depot and never using one of them!

So as the year closes, and so many of you are finishing your books, all this work week by week, year by year, has been giving you tools God wants you to use!