Primary 4 Lesson 38: Peace Among the Nephites

LESSON 38 PEACE AMONG THE NEPHITES

CLASSROOM PREP

Write on board → Love of god in your hearts = no contention (4 Nephi 1:15)

OPENING:

Use water from water bottle

Draw heart at bottom --> empty heart

Color it in - full of love of god in your hearts

Draw empty hearts directly above the full heart --> sharing the gospel

Dip bottom in water and watch the love spread

WORDSTRIPS IN A BAG TO DISCUSS PRIDE (BELOW)

MEMORIZE 4 NEPHI 1:15

QUESTION:

How would your life be different if you lived in a society similar to the one described in the first half of 4 Nephi? How can you help create this same kind of harmony and peace in your family and home?

LESSON

3 Nephi 28:1-16

V1 - he’s about to leave

V2 - we want to return to thee

V3 - you’re blessed to desire that

V7 - three nephites who are so righteous they shall never die and continue to minister

WE ARE BLESSED FOR OUR RIGHTEOUS DESIRES

V12-13 jesus leaves

V 24 mormon is writing this

4th Nephi
V1 After Jesus departed from the Nephites, the disciples continued to teach the people, and within a few years all the people in the land were converted to the Lord. The people listened to the disciple’s teachings.  They repented and were baptized, and they received the Holy Ghost.
V2 no contentions or disputations!

What do contention and disputation mean? (4 Nephi 1:2. Quarreling or arguing.)
How have you and your family been blessed when you have had no contention?
How can you be a peacemaker and help your family avoid contention?

V3 What would be good about living this way? What would be hard?
V5 miracles
V7 prosperous
V10 strong, fast, fair, delightsome
V11 marriage, blessed
V12 what does it mean to be physically healthy? How did the people remain spiritually healthy? (kept commandments, fasted, prayed, attended church)

The people were blessed in all their doings because of their righteousness. They prospered and built cities. They were strong and multiplied. The people lived in peace for many years. After nearly 200 years, two generations had passed on, and the people had multiplied and had spread out over all the land.

V15 what does it mean to have the love of god in your hearts? How can this be shared with others?
V16 do you think the people having love of god in their hearts prevented those bad things?
V22 200 years had passed away

V23-24 what changed?
V25 what wasn’t common anymore?
V26-29 new churches persecuting the true church, denying the gospel

GLASS OF WATER

• put one drop of blue food coloring into the water
• watch it spread throughout the glass and observe how quickly one little drop spreads
• explain that if people allow themselves to be exposed to a little sin, it can quickly grow and spread if left unchecked. We need to be careful about what we allow into our thoughts and lives.

So what happened?
The people had become very rich because of their prosperity in Christ, and they began allowing pride to take a hold in their lives

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf said this about pride: “At its core, pride is a sin of comparison, for though it usually begins with ‘Look how wonderful I am and what great things I have done,’ it always seems to end with ‘Therefore, I am better than you.’

The people began to focus on themselves instead of helping others.

Have the children read 4 Nephi 1:26-27 & 29 to find the ways pride and sin began to spread.
→ list below
→ put a drop in the glass for each item mentioned below

• They once again began to be divided into social classes.
• They built many different churches to themselves (not to God). The churches were built up to help people get gain. They denied the true church of Christ.
• These churches professed to know Christ but denied most parts of his gospel. (These people were no longer nourishing their spirits with the teachings of Christ and they were becoming spiritually weaker and weaker.)
• The churches became open to all manner of wickedness. They allowed the wicked to participate in sacred ordinances.
• One of the churches denied Christ and persecuted the members of the true church of Christ because of the members’ humility and belief in Christ. They despised them because of the many miracles which were wrought among them.

As the people let wickedness into their lives, it spread.
What color is the water now?
Instead of nourishing their spirits, they filled their lives with thoughts only about themselves and how rich they were, denying God, and their choices became increasingly worse
They were filling their lives with darkness.
Have the children observe the color of the water, and explain that instead of nourishing their spirits, they filled their lives with worthless, self-indulgent thoughts, and their choice became increasingly wicked. They were filling their lives with darkness. The choices they made resulted in misery and unhappiness for many people.

Remember those three disciples that Jesus gave power to stay on earth until his Second Coming?
How did the people treat them?
V 30-34 this is all about pride / cast into prison / fiery furnaces / wild beasts → saved each time

Each year they got more and more wicked.

PRIDE CYCLE ON THE BOARD

The people had been given the wonderful blessing of the gospel.
Show the Skittles → gospel blessings
Put two in - they will disappear
The Nephites’ faith and blessings dwindled and wasted away as the people became more wicked.

Over time, the Lamanites and Nephites were both equally bad.

We need to remember our blessings if we want to live a happy and peaceful life
We must strive to follow the Savior and his teachings.
The gospel of Jesus Christ teaches us how to make good choices that lead to happiness.

CUT THESE UP AND PUT IN A BAG FOR THEM TO PULL OUT AND DISCUSS

President Benson taught us that we can overcome pride in our lives and be humble, meek, and submissive by—

• Loving Heavenly Father and putting him first in our lives.
• Not worrying about what others think of us but only what Heavenly Father thinks of us.
• Not gossiping or criticizing.
• Not envying or living beyond our means.
• Not arguing or fighting in our families.
• Helping others feel good about themselves.
• Accepting counsel from our leaders.
• Forgiving those who have offended us.
• Being unselfish.
• Serving others.