I Know It Sounds Crazy... - LESSON 3 Proud Cow Disease

Transcription

1 I Know It Sounds Crazy... - Main Focus: I must defeat PRIDE in my life and stay humble Power Verse: Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall. Proverbs 16:18 Watt s Up: I Will Choose To Stay Humble And Say NO To Pride! LEADER S INFO Pride is a disease. It infects our attitude and causes us to become so full of ourselves that others can hardly stand to be around us. Pride is shameful to God. King Nebuchadnezzar was a proud king. God warned him to destroy the pride in his life or else face the consequences. King Nebuchadnezzar ignored God s warnings and continued in his prideful ways. To teach him a lesson, God actually turned him into a cow-like creature. He was forced to live in the wilderness until he learned his lesson. In this lesson, the children will learn from the story of Nebuchadnezzar that we must work hard to make sure we don t end up with Proud Cow Disease. The Spark Intro Video Noah Lottz Watt s Up? Teaching Video Skittles teaches Watt s Up? Character Skit Chuck Foo Offering Time Game On! Cow-A-Bunga Bible Story Nebuchadnezzar s Pride Power Verse Video Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall. Proverbs 16:18 Call To Action Brain Drain PowerPoint Review Game Small Group Experience Lesson Three - page 25

2 Main Focus: I must defeat PRIDE in my life and stay humble Power Verse: Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall. Proverbs 16:18 Watt s Up: I Will Choose To Stay Humble And Say NO To Pride! The Spark Intro Video Noah Lottz Watt s Up? Teaching Video Skittles teaches Watt s Up? Character Skit Chuck Foo Offering Time Game On! Cow-A-Bunga Bible Story Nebuchadnezzar s Pride Power Verse Video Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall. Proverbs 16:18 Call To Action Brain Drain PowerPoint Review Game Small Group Experience ORDER OF SERVICE Lesson Three - page 26

3 CHARACTER SKIT Character: Chuck Foo (a wanna-be Karate instructor with a slight Minnesota accent; he is more accident-prone than fearsome) CHUCK: (walks slowly out onstage. He is delicately balancing a water balloon in his hand) Leader: Hey there Chuck! Um what are you doing, exactly? CHUCK: Protecting this DELICATE piece of ARTWORK! Leader: Artwork? That looks a lot like an ordinary water balloon to me. CHUCK: Ordinary? I laugh at you! (laughs mockingly) This is a BEAUTIFUL sculpture! I made it with my own three hands! Leader: THREE hands? CHUCK: The third one is invisible. This masterpiece took me over 90 hours to make! Leader: 90 hours? For THAT? CHUCK: YES! My kung-fu school is having its annual fundraiser and art contest! And I M going to win first prize! Not only am I the greatest kung-fu master that has ever lived, I am now THE GREATEST SCULPTOR! I AM AMAZING!! Leader: (leans forward to poke the water balloon) I still don t get what the big deal is. CHUCK: (GASPS) Don t you DARE touch it! I had to go all the way to Ecuador and get the finest rubber from the world s best rubber tree plant to make the balloon! THEN I melted down a glacier from Alaska so I could have the purest water on the planet! This is TRULY a work of art, and I am TRULY the most AMAZING person who has ever LIVED!! Leader: Chuck, you re taking this WAY too far! CHUCK: No I m not! First, I ll win first place at the art contest, THEN I ll go on tour! Pretty soon I ll be PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! Leader: That that last part doesn t make any sense. Your pride is getting way too out of hand! You re forgetting God in ALL of this! CHUCK: Oh I m fine. My pride isn t an issue at all! I mean, all I m doing is talking about how awesome I (Continued On Next Page) Lesson Three - page 27

4 CHARACTER SKIT (continued) am! God gets enough credit, it s time for me! ME ME ME! Leader: Chuck, we can t do ANYTHING without God! CHUCK: Oh yeah? What about the AWESOME DANCE?! (starts singing to himself and dancing all around) I M AWESOME I M AWESOME I M AWESOME I M AWESOME I M AWESOME (claps his hand together, busting the water balloon, stops in total shock) Leader: Oh dear. Chuck, listen - CHUCK: (falls onto his knees) WHYYYYYY? My sweet little baby baloney-wooney is GONE! Why did this have to happen to ME?! Leader: I tried to warn you, Chuck! Pride causes us to lose the things we re prideful of! God knows the damage pride can do in our lives! If something is causing us to be prideful, you can guarantee that God s going to do whatever it takes to get our attention! CHUCK: Are you saying this was all MY fault?! Leader: Yeah, pretty much. CHUCK: Well, what am I supposed to do now? Leader: There s really only one thing you CAN do! Stop bragging on yourself. START bragging on GOD! He s the reason you are who you are! He s the reason we have EVERYTHING! Just look to God and give him the glory! CHUCK: Okay, I think I can do that (looks up towards the ceiling) God, you are AMAZING! You ve given us so many great things like um rainbows! And, flowers! And rhinoceroses and ICE CREAM SANDWICHES! You are soooooo big, and I am so very very small. Like, teeny tiny. Like a bug. A bug on top of a bug. You get what I mean. Anyway, you are amazing and I couldn t do anything without you! (looks to the leader) How was that? Leader: The ice cream sandwich thing was a little weird, but you did great! CHUCK: No no no, GOD is great! I ll see you later boys and girls, I ve got another water balloon sculpture to make, but this time with GOD S HELP! I M CHUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK FOO! KICK IT! (Chuck runs out, kicking and karate chopping, as his music plays) Lesson Three - page 28

5 GAME ON! Cow-A-Bunga Items Needed For Game: ten cutouts of the Cow picture provided below; a box to represent the corral Preparation: Print ten copies of the Cow picture below. Cut them out and place them on a table at the opposite end of the room from where you place the corral box How To Play: Choose five boys and five girls to compete in this crazy game. Say, The cows have become too prideful. They think they are too good to stay in their corral. We need to round up the cows and get them back in their corral. When you say, GO, the kids have to run (one at a time) to the end of the room, grab ONE cow, run back, and put the cow in the corral box. Then, the next person in line does the same thing. This continues until all players have competed. The first team to get all their cows in the corral is declared the winners! Lesson Three - page 29

6 Bible Story Nebuchadnezzar s Pride Materials Needed: The Data Disc; the PowerPoint presentation for Lesson 3; begin with the slide that says Bible Story ; follow the instructions below, changing the slides to follow along with the story (as shown) Preparation: Familiarize yourself with the story in Daniel 4; have your open Bible in your hands as you tell the story The Story: Today s Bible Story is a really wild one. It s a story that doesn t get told very often; you may have never heard it before. This story is from the book of Daniel. It s a story about King Nebuchadnezzar, the ruler of the entire country of Babylon. He was the most powerful man in the world at that time. The problem is, he believed that HE had done all of this on his own. He was a VERY prideful man. God gave him a dream one night, but the King couldn t understand it. (show pic) It totally freaked him out. So, he called Daniel to interpret the dream. Daniel was a man of God. (show pic) He told the king what the dream meant. He said that if Nebuchadnezzar didn t repent of his pride, then God was going to drive him away into the wilderness where he would live with the wild animals. The King didn t listen very well. (show pic) A few months later, he walked out onto his porch and looked out over the city of Babylon. He said to himself, Just look at this amazing city that I built with my own power so all will know my splendor. Wow! That sounds pretty prideful, huh? The moment he started bragging on himself, God spoke from Heaven. (show pic) Nebuchadnezzar, I am making good on my promise. Your royal authority is now going to be stripped from you, you will be driven away from your people, and you will eat grass with the cows. Eat grass with the cows? WHOA! Talk about pride goes before destruction. That s bad! (show pic) The Bible says that King Nebuchadnezzar ate, slept, and lived with the cows for seven years. He ended up looking like an incredibly WILD creature! Well, seven years passed, and the king continued living as a cow. Suddenly, one day he came to his senses. (show pic) He looked up to Heaven and began to praise God. He honored God for all He had done for him. He admitted that God was the reason he had anything at all. He was finally letting go of that pride and giving God the honor and praise. At that moment, God restored his sanity, gave him back his life, his throne, and his kingdom. (show pic) King Nebuchadnezzar continued to praise God and give Him glory. AND, he told everyone that GOD was the reason for his great Kingdom. In your lesson today, you are going to learn how to avoid Proud Cow Disease. Lesson Three - page 30

7 Call To Action Materials Needed: The Data Disc Preparation: Open the PowerPoint presentation on the Data Disc titled Lesson Two, begin with the slide titled Dumb & Dumber The Message: (title slide) Today we learned about what happened to King Nebuchadnezzar when he became full of pride. He ended living a horrible life among the cows. He didn t have to go through this if only he would have kept himself from giving in to pride. He stood on the walls of his city and claimed This is Babylon which I have built with MY hands Do you think the king really built the WHOLE area of Babylon BY HIMSELF? NO! Not only did he have help, but who gave him the breath he was breathing in order to build Babylon? God! Who gave him the strength he was using to rule the nation of Babylon? GOD! He forgot that without God, he wouldn t have even been born. Kids, we can t become so full of ourselves and of pride that we forget that all of our talents, abilities, and brains come from God. When you say, I am the best football player out of anybody, you are bragging on yourself, not God. When you say, I am the best singer out of all of you, you are bragging on yourself, not God. That s pride, and pride causes some big-time damage in our lives. Remember, You Can t Do Anything Without God (slide) God deserves the credit for EVERYTHING! If we allow pride to come in, we can suffer through a lot of pain. One of the biggest things that can happen is exactly what happened to Nebuchadnezzar. NOT the fact that he lived with the cows, but the fact that he completely lost the very thing he was prideful about. Be Careful: You May Lose The Very Thing You Are Prideful About (slide) Nebuchadnezzar was prideful about his kingdom, so his kingdom was taken from him. Kids, God knows the kind of damage that pride can do in our lives. He will do whatever it takes to keep us from pride. He will take away whatever it is that is causing us to be prideful. That is how much he wants to keep us from letting pride (CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE) Lesson Three - page 31

8 Call To Action (Continued) take control of our lives. Maybe you are here today and you realize that you have allowed PRIDE to creep into your life. Maybe you have forgotten that you can t do anything without God. What do you need to do? You need to do exactly what King Nebuchadnezzar finally did. He looked up to Heaven and began to praise God. He honored God for all He had done for him. He admitted that God was the reason he had anything at all. At that moment, God restored his sanity, gave him back his life, his throne, and his kingdom. King Nebuchadnezzar continued to praise God and give Him glory. He had conquered pride in his life. Kids, if you want to destroy pride in your life... Look To God And Give Him The Glory! (slide) Don t brag on yourself. Brag on God. If you have been dealing with pride, stop bragging on yourself. Start bragging on God. After all, He is the reason you are who you are. He created you. He deserves the credit. ALTAR RESPONSE: (play soft music) Pray with those who have been struggling with pride. Allow them to begin to praise God and give Him the glory instead of putting the focus on themselves. Lesson Three - page 32

9 BRAIN DRAIN Materials Needed: The Data Disc; The DVD Preparation: Play the Brain Drain Video Intro off the DVD; Open the PowerPoint presentation on the Data Disc titled Lesson Three, begin with the slide titled Brain Drain ; there is a slide for each question 1. Watt s Up today? Answer: I Will Choose To Stay Humble And Say No To Pride! 2. What was the name of the king who became prideful? Answer: Nebuchadnezzar 3. Where was the King walking when God spoke to him? Answer: on his porch 4. What happened to the King because of his pride? Answer: he ate with the cows 5. How long did the King live as a wild animal? Answer: seven years 6. How did King Nebuchadnezzar get his Kingdom back? Answer: he gave honor to God 7. According to our lesson today, Remember, You Can t Do Anything Without. Answer: God 8. According to our lesson today, Be Careful: You May The Very Thing You Are Prideful About. Answer: Lose 9. According to our lesson today, Look To God And Give Him The. Answer: Glory 10. Where was our Power Verse found? Answer: Proverbs 16:18 Lesson Three - page 33