Level 1 Lesson Plan: Faith-Filled Characters of Christmas

Here is a lesson plan that can be covered in 30 to 45 minutes. It relates to the lesson objective, “Learn of some of the lives of the great men and women of the Bible” (Christian Life and Faith: Witnessing and Missionary Training: Great Men and Women of God-1a).

Read “Faith-Filled Models from the New Testament: Mary and Joseph.”

Discuss the following steps of faith it took for Mary and Joseph to be willing to be the earthly parents for Jesus.

Mary had to believe that what the angel told her was true, and be willing to bear God’s Son, Jesus.
Mary had to trust God that He would help her endure people looking down on her for being pregnant before getting married.
It took great faith for Joseph to accept what Mary and the angel told him about the baby Jesus. He had to believe that Jesus was God’s Son, and that he had been chosen to be Jesus’ earthly father.
It was a great responsibility to raise God’s Son, and they probably wondered if they could do a good job of it, but they accepted that God would do the work through them.

Read “When Jesus Was Born.” This covers the stories of faith concerning Mary and Joseph, Zacharias and Elizabeth, the shepherds, and the wise men.

Read “A Man Named Jesus: Simeon and Anna.”

Ask the children: Besides Mary and Joseph, who are others from the Christmas story that needed faith to believe the “impossible”?

Zacharias and Elizabeth: They believed God could give them a baby, even in their old age. And then they believed that God had a purpose in wanting them to name the baby John, instead of naming the baby after Zacharias as was the custom.
The shepherds that the angels sang to and who then visited baby Jesus: They believed what the angels told them. Even though baby Jesus was in a manger, with ordinary people as His parents, and animals around Him, they worshipped Him as God’s Son.
The wise men: It took faith to travel to where they believed they’d find the new king that they had understood from the stars had recently been born. It also took faith to obey the warning in God’s dream to not return to tell King Herod where they had found Jesus.
Simeon and Anna: When they saw baby Jesus at the temple, God revealed to them that He was the Messiah.

Review the verses in “Crazily Cool Card Set: Faith—Stand on It.” Read each verse, one at a time, and talk about ways each one applies to the faithfulness of the people involved in the Christmas story. The following are examples of how these verses apply, but you and your children can probably think of other ways they apply to the faith found in these important characters of the Christmas story.

Romans 10:17. These men and women were familiar with the prophecies in the Old Testament about the coming Messiah.
Proverbs 3:5–6. Mary and Joseph, and also Zacharias and Elizabeth, showed great trust that God would guide them in the raising of the important boys given to them.
Hebrews 11:1. Simeon had believed he would see the Messiah before he died.
Hebrews 11:6. The wise men diligently sought after the king that the stars foretold had been born.

Color “Coloring Page: Come See Jesus” and rejoice that you too have faith in Jesus as God’s Son!

Additional resources:

S&S Link: Christian Life and Faith: Witnessing and Missionary Training: Great Men and Women of God-1a

Compiled by My Wonder Studio staff.
Copyright © 2017 by The Family International