Righteousness : : : lesson 2 BEATITUDE Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Matthew 5:6 (NIV) COMPASSION Doing what is morally right and free from guild or sin. Episode 2 Noah Builds the Ark Genesis 6:9 22 MEMORY VERSE For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. Romans 2:13 KEY POINT If you are righteous you want to obey. Lesson 2 page 17
Let's Talk : : : lesson 2 EARLY ARRIVAL (before service) Have some upbeat music playing and welcome children warmly. Teachers should take this time to engage the children in conversation. Ask them about their week, school, and home. Begin to establish relationships. BEGIN CLASS (service time) Introduce yourself and your assistants. Before the discussion questions, PRAY that the Lord will bless your time together. RELATE it : : : ask and discuss the following questions 1 Your mom allows you to go to a friend s house for a birthdayparty sleepover. At the sleepover, everyone decides to watch a rated-r movie. You know your mom would not approve. What do you do? 2 After school one day, some of your friends are bullying a kid you don t know. They are laughing at his expense and want you to come and join them in the teasing. What do you do? 3 You just started a new school and don t know anyone. You want to make new friends, but no one is reaching out to you. Then, finally, one day at the park some of the cool kids from the school are hanging out smoking cigarettes. They call you over and invite you to smoke too. What do you do? 4 Girls: Your best friend decides that she isn t skinny or pretty enough and is going on a starvation diet. She will save the lunch money she isn t spending and buy make-up and wear it when she gets to school so that her parents don t see her. She tries to convince you to do this with her. What do you tell her? 5 Share Boys: What if your sister is being pressured like this by her friend? Do you think you should go to your parents and tell them what is happening, even if your sister begs you not to tell? another situation you might have been in (or a friend of yours was in) when you had to decide between doing what you knew was right or doing what your friends wanted. lesson 2 2 nd 5 th grade page 18
CONNECTIT CONNECT it : : : say Each of these situations would force you to make tough choices. It s easy to do the right thing when you are alone, but when a group of friends are all doing something else and mock you, that is when it is tough. Today, we are going to learn about Noah. He faced the same problems. Everyone in the entire world was horrible, sinful, and wicked; they did not follow God, keep His laws, or obey Him. Noah had to decide if he was going to follow everyone else or follow God. Let s watch Virtuality now and learn what Noah decided and how that affected not only his life but yours too. WATCH it : : : Go to large group to see the Virtuality DVD, Beatitude Series DVD (volume 4, episode 2) lesson 2 2 nd 5 th grade page 19
Bible Story BIBLE STORY : : : Noah Builds the Ark Genesis 6:9 22 GAME RULES Divide your class into two teams (boys vs. girls or one half of the room against the other). Have everyone take out their Bibles (NIV preferred) to follow along as you read the Scriptures and so that you can help them find the answers. Assign a captain for each team whose job is to give the team s final answer. Award 10 points to the first team whose captain raises his/her hand and has the correct answer. Award 50 points for each of the bonus questions. BEFORE YOU BEGIN Read and study the background information at home. Before you begin reading today s Bible story give children the background information your own words. BACKGROUND INFORMATION : : : say it in your own words When God created the world and everything in it, He saw that it was very good (Genesis 1:31). At that time, sin had not entered God s very good creation. God placed Adam and Eve in a perfect world without sin. They lived in a wonderful garden called Eden, and God told Adam to take care of it. God also commanded the man, You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil... (Genesis 2:16 17). This was the only law God gave him to obey. Pretty simple, right? It was easy until Adam and Eve gave in to peer-pressure not from their friends, but from their enemy. They listened to Satan, disguised as a serpent. The serpent questioned God. It said, Did God really say, You must not eat from any tree in the garden? (Genesis 3:1) Up until that time, Adam and Eve enjoyed their time with God; they obeyed and were happy. Everything changed forever the day they listened to the serpent. When [Eve] saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it (Genesis 3:6). Eve disobeyed God and encouraged her husband, Adam, to do the same, and he did. What they should have done was run away as fast and far as they could from the words that questioned God s command. Sin entered the world the moment they disobeyed God. From that time forward, sin multiplied. Soon, one of Adam and Eve s sons murdered his brother, and it was all downhill from there. lesson 2 2 nd 5 th grade page 20
Bible Story continue Many hundreds of years later (Genesis 5), sin was rampant in the world. No one followed God no one except one. One of Adam and Eve s descendants, who must have listened closely to the stories of his ancestors, did his best to obey God and not everyone else. His name was Noah. Let s go to the Bible now and hear his story. ROUND 1 READ IT : : : Round 1 Open your Bibles and follow along as I read Genesis 6:9 11 out loud. ASK IT : : : say Remember to award 10 points to the first team whose captain raises his/her hand and has the correct answer. 1 2 How 3 What 4 What What kind of man does the Bible say Noah was? Answer: A righteous man v. 9 many sons did Noah have? Answer: Three v. 10 were the names of Noah s three sons? Answer: Shem, Ham, and Japheth v. 10 was wrong on the earth in Noah s time? Answer: All the people were corrupt and violent. v. 11 ROUND 2 READ IT : : : Round 2 Apart from for Noah, all the people were so sinful that God decided to destroy everything. But God had a plan. He saved Noah and his family, and through them, He started over. Let s continue to read and find out how God saved them and from what. Follow along as I read Genesis 6:12 16 out loud. ASK IT : : : say Remember to award 10 points to the first team whose captain raises his/her hand and has the correct answer. lesson 2 2 nd 5 th grade page 21
Bible Story continue 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 God gave Noah very specific instructions for building the ark. What kind of wood did God tell Noah to use to make the ark? Answer: Cypress v. 14 (FYI: Many translations say the wood was gopher wood. No one knows for sure what type of wood it was. This word is only used in the building of the ark, and it s possible that it was a type of wood that only existed before the flood.) What did God tell Noah to cover everything with, inside and out? Answer: Pitch v. 14 (FYI: Pitch was a mixture made to waterproof the ark.) The ark was to be how many feet long? Answer: 450 feet v. 15 The ark was to be how many feet wide? Answer: 75 feet v. 15 The ark was to be how high? Answer: 45 feet v. 15 The ark was to have how many doors? Answer: One v. 16 The ark was to have how many floors? Answer: Three v. 16 (FYI: If you were to lay out the space of the three decks, it would hold about 20 basketball courts. It s as much space as 569 cargo-train cars. The ratio and dimensions that God gave Noah are a perfect formula for a very stable ship; in fact, the ratio is still used in building today s ships.) BONUSQUESTION 50 POINTS BONUS QUESTION 12 The ark was a huge project in a time with no cranes to lift the heavy wood or electric saws to cut it. There were no hardware stores to buy the nails and pitch. All the materials used for construction was handmade. How long did it take Noah to build the ark? (For clues, read Genesis 5:32 to see how old he was before he started building, and read Genesis 7:6 to see how old he was when the flood began.) Answer: Could be as many as 100 years! lesson 2 2 nd 5 th grade page 22
Bible Story continue ROUND 3 READ IT : : : Round 3 After God gave Noah instructions for building this enormous ship, He told him why it was needed. Let read Genesis 6:17 22 and find out why. ASK IT : : : say Remember to award 10 points to the first team whose captain raises his/her hand and has the correct answer. 13 14 15 16 17 What did God say would happen to the earth? Answer: Become flooded v. 17 How many people would be saved from the flood in the ark? Answer: Eight people (Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their wives) v. 18 How many of each kind of animal, bird, and insect would be in the ark, and what would they need to be? Answer: Two: one male and one female of each kind v. 19 (FYI: In addition to the two, God gave further instructions in Genesis 7:2 to bring seven of every kind of clean animal and bird.) What else would be in the ark besides the people and animals? Answer: Food v. 21 Did Noah obey God and do this gigantic task? Answer: Yes v. 22 CONNECTIT CONNECT it : : : say It may seem like a drastic measure to flood the entire earth, but we must remember that God is holy and just. The people in Noah s day must have been horribly evil and sinful for God to see this as the solution. Noah was spared because he was righteous. That means he obeyed God. Noah didn t do the evil everyone else did. He didn t follow the crowd; he followed the Lord. It isn t easy to be the only person around who does the right thing. When God asked Noah to build the ark, the mockery against Noah must have been huge. In the time of Noah, there lesson 2 2 nd 5 th grade page 23
Bible Story continue had never been rain before and no one knew what a flood was, so it sounded totally ridiculous to build a huge boat for something they didn t even understand. And I m sure the people wondered why anyone would build a boat so far from the sea. Imagine how much the people teased him for following God, but Noah didn t care. Noah just did what God asked him to do, without question. KEYPOINT Noah was able to stay righteous among so much evil because he chose to stay close to God. The Bible says that Noah walked with God (Genesis 6:9). It was more than walking with and talking to God that saved Noah he also obeyed. If you are righteous, you want to obey. It isn t enough to simply go to church, to read the Bible, and to pray. You should do all those things, but to be declared righteous, you must also do what God asks you to do by obeying His Word. Criminals all know they shouldn t break the law, but they choose to disobey and do whatever they want anyway. MEMORYVERSE The Bible is an instruction manual that teaches how to live a life that is good and pleasing to God. A righteous life is not one without any problems; it is a life that loves and obeys God, no matter what. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. Romans 2:13 We should be grateful that Noah made the decision to follow God and not the evil men of his time. Because of Noah s obedience, God was able to save a small group of people and repopulate the world. There are many wicked people today, but there are also many more righteous people, not just one. God will never flood the earth again; He promised not to. After the flood was over and dry land appeared, Noah and his family and the animals came out of the ark and saw a very different world. One thing that lesson 2 2 nd 5 th grade page 24
Bible Story continue was never seen before was a rainbow. God said, I have placed my rainbow in the clouds. It is the sign of my permanent promise to you and to all the earth. When I send clouds over the earth, the rainbow will be seen in the clouds, and I will remember my covenant with you and with everything that lives. Never again will there be a flood that will destroy all life (Genesis 9:13 15 ICB). God promised never to flood the earth again, but that doesn t mean it s ok to sin now. We should still do our best to be righteous by obeying God s Word because we love God and we want to please Him. PRAYER LET S PRAY : : : say Dear God, Thank You for Your righteousness and justice. Thank You for the beautiful rainbow You gave us as a reminder of Your promise never to flood the entire world again. Thank You for telling us about Noah and how he was able to stay righteous among so many bad people. May we follow his example and stay obedient to You, even when others aren t. In Jesus name, we pray. Amen. lesson 2 2 nd 5 th grade page 25
Review for Lesson 2 BEATITUDE Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Matthew 5:6 (NIV) Today s lesson Bible Story Noah Builds the Ark Location Genesis 6:9 22 Memory Verse For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. Romans 2:13 Key Point If you are righteous you want to obey. Time fillers Ask if anyone would like to play the teacher and review today s lesson with the class. Play games to help children memorize today s Bible memory verse. Take HOME VIRTUE Quest is the take-home sheet designed for children to do with their parents. The sheet contains information about today s lesson. The goal is to partner with parents to continue and to reiterate the lesson. Be sure to hand all parents a sheet as they pick up their children. lesson 2 page 26