God is in Control. BIBLE PASSAGE Gen 12:1-9, 15-16, 21:1-7 (The Promise)

Transcription

1 God is in Control BIBLE PASSAGE Gen 12:1-9, 15-16, 21:1-7 (The Promise) REMEMBER VERSE Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed. Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless, and see that they get justice. Proverbs 31:8 9 (NLT) SCHEDULE Anticipate 5 10 minutes Celebrate & Respond Large Group minutes Respond & Bless Small Group minutes Environment: RESPONSIBILITY This lesson highlights the environment of RESPONSIBILITY by showing us how God entrusted Abraham with the covenant blessing, asking him to pass on his faith in the one, true God to every nation through his descendants. Equipping Volunteers God is in control. We see this clearly through the account of Abraham the man who came to be the father of the Jewish nation. Genesis 11 introduces us to Abram (Abraham). We know little about his family 1

2 or his life, except that his father brought his family to Haran a hot spot for commerce in the ancient Middle East instead of Canaan, the land that would eventually become the Promised Land. God told Abraham in Ur, Leave your country, your people and your father s household and go to the land I will show you (Genesis 12:1). Spiritually, this was a big deal. Those in Abraham s culture worshipped gods associated with geographical locations and family genealogy. The one true God wasn t calling Abraham to merely move across town, but to break ties with family and his home and, in doing so, abandon his idols and start a new life with Him. Amazingly, Abraham packed up his possessions and, with his family, followed God into the wilderness. There he worshipped Yahweh alone and became Abraham, the father of many nations and the one from whose line the Messiah would eventually be born. We see through Abraham s life how God completely controls all situations weaving everything together for a greater plan. God called Abraham away from his home and opened a gateway to salvation for the world. Through Christ, we are part of the many nations God promised Abraham. Word Study: Believe ( aman) Genesis 15:6 declares, Abram believed the Lord, and [the Lord] credited it to him as righteousness. The verb believe ( aman) means to lean wholly on. In the context of this verse, this word brings to mind the image of a caregiver or parent. When God promised Abraham that he and his wife would have a child in their old age, Abraham didn t just believe with his head. He entrusted his entire life to God, as if God were a parent and he were a child. This sort of faith was counted to him as righteousness. Environment of RESPONSIBILITY This environment captures the ability to take ownership for one s life, gifts, and resources before God. A child must be challenged to take responsibility for his or her brothers and sisters in Christ as well as those who are spiritually lost. Our hope is that the Holy Spirit will use this environment to allow each child to understand that God has entrusted His world to us. Encourage your families to discover more about creating the environment of RESPONSIBILITY in their homes by checking out HomeFront: A Spiritual Parenting Resource and Spiritual Parenting by Michelle Anthony. 2

3 Anticipate// (Small Group) 5 10 min 1. Minute to Win It Game SUPPLIES- one quarter for every two students, timer SET UP- Have children pair up and give each pair a quarter. Have them each find an edge of a table to stand next to. ENGAGE- Today, we will be learning about God s promises- and how a man who thought God s promises might be impossible, learned that with God, His promises are always possible. Let s play a game where we try make something that seems impossible, possible. Have one child spin the quarter on the edge of the table, and then their partner tries to stop the quarter on its edge using only one finger. This challenge may seem impossible, but is it?! If kids in your group are starting to get the hang of it, then make it more challenging by using the timer and telling the groups to count how many times they are able to do it in one minute. Pair with the most times wins a gumball just to keep and chew :) 2. Earning Gumballs! This year, we have a new community goal... Gumball Goal! Children earn 1 gumball for each of the following Know the Word- Memorizing this month s memory verse (NO mistakes for older kids!) Share the Word- Bringing a Friend Cling to the Word- Bringing their Bible Live the Word- Sharing a story of how they lived out what they are learning Kids earn their gumballs in small group time, then add them to the Machine during Celebrate. Last week s memory verse for any new kids who memorized it: Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed. Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless, and see that they get justice. Proverbs 31:8 9 (NLT) 3

4 Celebrate// (Large Group) min 1. Welcome & Traditions WELCOME VISITORS- Open up your large group time by celebrating visitors! If they are a friend then have the regular attender who brought them introduce them to the group. Give all visitors a big round of applause for coming! And have a nearby leader give each visitor a high five AND a gumball (just for coming)!!! And how do we welcome new visitors to our group?! With a dance party! Play the dance party music for a minute and everyone just dance around and have fun :) (BUT- if no visitors, no celebration... motivation to bring your friends!) GUMBALL CELEBRATION- Open up Celebrate time by celebrating all of the gumballs that the kids have earned this week! Let them add them to the Gumball Machine and encourage everyone to keep Knowing the Word, Sharing the Word, Clinging to the Word, and Living out the Word! CONNECT- To finish up welcome time, let kids engage in today s connect question- our mini ice breaker to get everyone knowing each other a little better! Show Connect Slide for kids to view. Encourage them to ask someone they might not know yet. After a minute or two, ask several kids to tell their friends answers to the group- If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go and why? 2. Remember Verse Introduce kids to this month s Remember Verse. Open your Bibles and read it together. When finished pass out Memory Verse cards to take home. Tell kids about the new incentive for memorizing their verses... Colored tags they can collect all year and make a necklace, bracelet or key chain of all verse they learned. Earn all 12 this year! (NOTE- WE WILL HAVE THESE LATER THIS MONTH FOR YOU TO BEGIN HANDING OUT) Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed. Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless, and see that they get justice. Proverbs 31:8 9 (NLT) 3. Offering As a response of thankfulness and trust in God, we give a part of our money to the church to be utilized in big ways for the Kingdom! It is because we thank God for all that He has given to us, and because we trust Him to provide for us no matter how much or how little we may have. Pass around the Offering Bucket. Let the kids know that this year, all of their offerings will go towards sponsoring a child overseas who needs the money for food, medicine and school! We need to always have enough to give to our sponsor children every month, so don t forget your weekly tithing. NOTE- KIDS WILL GET TO SEE PICTURES AND STORIES OF THEIR KIDS SPONSOR CHILDREN SOON! 4. Prayer of Release Next, pray a Prayer of Release. This is a time for kids and leaders to pause, be still, and ask God to quiet their hearts and minds. Encourage kids to quiet their voices and take a seat. Then ask them to pray with you as you begin the lesson. 5. The Big God Story- God is in Control SUPPLIES- Bible, Timeline Animation, All Images, Audio Files, Video Clip, clothesline and 10 clothespins, 10 Printed images 4

5 SET UP- Cue the slide images, audio file, and video file. Have the 10 printed images nearby. Hang up the clothesline by tying it between two objects or taping it to the wall. Have clothespins nearby. ENGAGE- Start off today s large groups by playing a quick game! Have the kids form various groups as quickly as possible. For instance, they will form groups of people wearing sandals vs. people wearing closed-toed shoes, people with red or blonde hair vs. people with dark hair, etc. After you ve played a few rounds, invite the kids to take their seats. Wow! You guys were pretty good at that game! Did you have fun creating separate groups? (Allow answers.) Today we re going to hear about someone whom God set apart for Himself. God did this to create a separate group of people who belonged to Him! But before we hear about that, let s recap what we heard last week. Last week in The Big God Story, we saw how God saved Noah and his family (show image of Noah and the ark) from a worldwide flood. We heard how God promised to take care of Noah, and He did! (Hold up printed image 1 and clip to clothesline.) After the flood waters went down, Noah, his family, and all the animals left the ark and began to fill the earth. Hundreds of years later, a man named Abraham lived with his wife, Sarah, in a city named Ur (clip printed image 2 to clothesline). In the city of Ur, people worshipped idols, and they didn t know the one true God. But God spoke to Abraham, saying, Leave your country, your people and your father s household and go to the land I will show you (Genesis 12:1). God wanted Abraham to leave his country, the only home he had ever known, and move to a new place (clip printed image 3 to clothesline). During this time, leaving your home would mean giving up your property, your place in the community, and maybe even your inheritance (money and things passed down by your family)! And because there weren t any cars or airplanes, you wouldn t be able to visit your friends or family once you left. When you said goodbye, you knew you would probably never see them again! How do you think Abraham might have felt about that? (Encourage kids to answer. Interview a few of them about how they would have felt if they d been Abraham.) Abraham didn t have a clue about where God would take him, but Abraham chose to obey God and trusted that God was in control. So Abraham and Sarah packed up their things maybe they even made a survival kit like you made earlier today and left their home. When God told Abraham to leave his home, God made him an amazing promise! God said (clip image 4 to clothesline and play audio of Genesis 12:2 3), I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. Wow! What an amazing promise! God wanted to create Abraham s children into a nation of people set apart for Himself! The only problem was Abraham and his wife were very old (clip printed image 5 to clothesline). Even so, Abraham believed God would keep His promise, so he and Sarah waited. (Sit down like you re going to wait for a while.) And waited. (Pause and pretend to look at your watch, pace around the room.) And waited. (Look at your watch again and sigh.) And waited. (Play time passing video and grab your hair like you re going crazy from waiting.) After many years of waiting, Abraham became discouraged because they still didn t have a child! But God came to Abraham and reminded him that He would keep His promise. God told Abraham to look at all the stars in the sky (clip printed image 6 to clothesline) and count them, if he could. (Show images of stars. For fun, see how many stars the kids can count in each image within 10 seconds.) God told Abraham he would have more children than the number of stars in the sky! Wow that s one big family! (Quickly interview a few kids about the sizes of their families and how they would feel about having so many people in their families.) Though it probably seemed impossible to Abraham, 5

6 he believed that God controlled everything and would keep His promises (Genesis 15:5 6). Ten whole years went by, and Abraham and Sarah still didn t have a child. Ten years: That s as long as (or longer than) most of you have been alive! (For fun, have the kids count to 10 as fast as possible.) God wanted Abraham and Sarah to take responsibility for their faith and believe He would provide a child for them. But, as they kept waiting on God, their faith began to get weak. (Invite a child to try to hold a difficult pose for a while to demonstrate the idea of something getting weak.) They might have thought, Maybe God meant something else? or Maybe He needs our help. So God repeated His promise and told them to be patient and trust that He was in control. To help them remember this, God told them the name Abraham means father of many nations and the name Sarah means mother of many nations (Genesis 17:4 6, 15 16) (clip printed image 7 to clothesline). Even after God repeated the promise, Abraham and Sarah still waited. After a total of 25 years of waiting, Sarah finally gave birth to a son, whom she and Abraham named Isaac (clip printed image 8 to the clothesline). When Isaac was born, Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah wasn t much younger! Sarah said, God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me (Genesis 21:6 7). (Invite the kids to laugh with you.) God had promised Abraham and Sarah a child, and He kept that promise, as He always keeps His promises. The promise reminded Abraham and Sarah that God is always in control. (Clip printed image 9 to the clothesline.) But this promise doesn t end with Isaac s birth. No, it s all part of God s plan to redeem His people, because many, many years later, the Redeemer whom God promised in the garden of Eden would come from this family tree and the great nation this family became! (Clip printed image 10 to the clothesline.) Sometimes, like Abraham and Sarah, we have a hard time waiting for God to move in our lives. But our responsibility is to trust God and follow His plan for our lives, because His plan is always good. Our responsibility is to live as His people and to show the world what it s like to be in a relationship with Him. (Tell a personal story of a time you found it hard to wait on God.) Our responsibility is to walk before God and be blameless (Genesis 17:1). And to know that even if we fail at this task, God is still in control and can use us in His story just like He used Abraham and Sarah. 6

7 Respond// (Large Group) min. 1. Trusting God is in Control SUPPLIES- butcher paper sign, tape, clothespins, prayer sheets, pens, background music SET UP- Above your clothesline hang the butcher paper sign. Write in thick marker on this sign- God, I want to trust that you re in control. Play Hymns of Majesty as background music. ENGAGE- Show kids the butcher paper sign taped over your clothesline- God, I want to trust that you re in control. Point to the pictures that you hung as you remind the kids about all that Abraham went through, and how He continued to trust God through it all. We just heard about God giving Abraham an amazing promise that he would have a family so big it would outnumber the stars in the sky. Even so, Abraham and his wife, Sarah, had a hard time following God and believing His promise. So they took matters into their own hands, which God did not want them to do! Just like Abraham, we sometimes have a difficult time believing God is in control. Because of our fear or doubt that God will take care of us, we often try to make things happen on our own. Yet even though we might feel more comfortable having control, we don t have control. God does. Our responsibility is to trust Him and to live as His people. It s easy to talk about this, but sometimes it s really hard to do it! If you d been Abraham, how would you have felt if you d had to wait 25 years for God to fulfill His promise? (Encourage the kids to think about this for a minute.) In your life, how do you feel when you have to wait for God to answer a prayer to heal someone you love? To help you when you struggle with friends at school? (Encourage the kids to think about these questions too.) Even though things may seem hard, God is in control, and we can trust Him. We can know that He loves us, keeps an eye on everything that s happening in our lives, and invites us to walk to Him with open arms. Encourage kids to write or draw prayers for things for which they want to trust God. Invite them to quietly reflect and then visit the Prayer Wall as they feel led by the Holy Spirit. They can clip their prayer to the string alongside Abraham who was a great example in trusting God. 2. Worship Through Music Finish large group Celebrate with a time of singing music. 1. You are my King 2. My God 3. Everyday Then exit Large Group to spend time applying the things from today in a small group setting. 7

8 Respond// (Small Group) min. 1. Reflect: God had a special plan for Abraham s life that he would have a family so big that they would outnumber the stars in the sky, and through them God would bless the entire world. God s plan for Abraham and Sarah showed that He was in control. (Leaders: Encourage the kids to open their Bibles and read the suggested passages.) Questions for Younger Kids Have you ever had to move? What was that like? What do you think it was like for Abraham to move away from his family? What did God promise Abraham? (Genesis 12:2 3) Have you ever had to wait a really long time for something? What was that like? How do you think Abraham and Sarah felt while they waited for their son? How do you think Abraham and Sarah felt when God finally gave them Isaac? How was God in control of Abraham and Sarah s life? How have you seen God in control of your life? Questions for Older Kids Have you ever had to move and leave behind everything you knew? What was that like? How do you think Abraham felt when God told him to leave everything? What s the longest you ve ever had to wait for something? What did God promise Abraham? (Genesis 12:2 3) How do you think Abraham and Sarah felt while they waited for their son? Describe a time when you waited on God for something to happen. Describe a time when you thought God wasn t going to come through for you. How do you think Abraham and Sarah felt when God finally gave them Isaac? How have you seen God in control of your life? 2. Survival Packs Service Project SUPPLIES- sheet of paper, pen SETUP- none ENGAGE- Like Abraham, we re sometimes in situations that might seem scary, confusing, or uncomfortable. But God asks us to trust that He s always in control. Some people may have lost their homes because of natural disasters. Some people may not have enough money to pay for food. Some children may have lost their parents and live in orphanages or foster care homes. Though these situations can be very sad and difficult, God is still in control of everything. And God entrusts a broken world to us so He can show His love (through us) to those who are suffering. Have your kids think through how they might be able to help people who are suffering, whether in our city or more globally. If your group was going to all help put a survival pack together to give to someone who needed it- who maybe was on a difficult journey right now in their lives- what would your group want to put in it? who would they want to give it to? Write down this list. What is everything you would need? Challenge the kids to think about whether your group could actually do this! Can each child agree to bring one item next week to make your group s survival pack? How will they remember what to bring? Encourage the children that if they come back next week with their items that a pack will be made. If your kids/campus/group does bring back items for a pack then take pictures of putting it together, and share the story about delivering it- we can celebrate this together during our Remember and Celebrate weekend. 8

9 3. Bless: SETUP AND ENGAGE- Encourage the kids to hold their hands in front of them, palms up. This posture is meant to symbolize a willingness of heart to respond to God s Holy Spirit and receive what God has for them. Open a Bible and read Proverbs 3:5 6: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. May you know without a doubt that God is in control. May you trust everything in your life to God s perfect will because He is good. May you understand that He ll always take care you! HomeFront Weekly: Be sure to send home the HomeFront Weekly for next week s lesson! This preteaching tool for parents encourages families to spend time in God s Word together before children arrive at church. 9