3-5s
Theme: Learn from what God has done in the past and
come to Him with all your heart
Aim: That they understand that God doesn’t change and will still deal with
those who reject Him, but the children will hear God inviting them back to Him.
Intro:
During news one leader
sits with their back to the class. Eventually they are sent out!
Story:
Read with powerpoint
pictures:
When King Josiah was
ruling Judah, the Lord said
to me,[Slide 1] “Did you see what sneaky Israel did? [click] She wandered
away with her idols on every hill and under every green tree. I said to myself,
‘Israel
will come back to me after she does this evil,’ but she didn’t come back.
[slide 2] And Israel’s
wicked sister Judah
saw what she did. Judah saw
that I left sneaky Israel
because of what she did, but that didn’t make Israel’s wicked sister Judah
afraid. [click] She also went out and did the same! And she didn’t care that
she was hurting me. So she made her country unclean because she worshiped idols
made of stone and wood. [slide 3] Israel’s wicked sister didn’t even
come back to me with her whole heart, but only pretended,” says the Lord.
The Lord said to me,
“Unfaithful Israel had a better excuse than wicked Judah. [Slide 4] Go and speak this
message toward the north:
‘Come back, unfaithful
people of Israel,’
says the Lord.
[click] ‘I will stop being angry at you,
because I am full of mercy,’ says the Lord.
‘I will not be angry with you forever.
All you have to do is admit your sin—
that you turned against the Lord your God
and worshiped gods under every green tree
and didn’t obey me,’” says the Lord.
[slide 5] “Come back to
me, you unfaithful children,” says the Lord, “because I am your master. I will
give you new rulers who will be true to me, who will lead you with knowledge
and understanding. In those days they will not follow their hard, evil hearts
anymore.
“I, the Lord, said,
[slide 6] ‘How happy I
would be to treat you as my own children
and give you a pleasant land,
a land more beautiful than that of any other nation.’
I thought you would call me ‘My Father’
and not turn away from me.
[slide 7] But family of Israel,
you have left me,” says the Lord.
This is what the Lord says
to the people of Judah and
to Jerusalem:
Give yourselves to serving
the Lord,
and decide to obey him,
[slide 8] If you don’t, my anger will spread among you like a fire,
and no one will be able to put it out,
because of the evil you have done.
Talk:
Do you remember that God
had split His country into 2 [bring out map]. Israel
in the north and Judah
in the south? Do you remember what had happened to Israel? They had been thrown out
for praying to statues instead of to God.
Judah had seen that God hates it when we turn our back
on Him and worship idols, silly statues. Judah
had seen what God had done to Israel,
but they didn’t learn! They carried on doing exactly the same when they should
have known better.
So God calls them to turn
back to Him, to love Him with all their hearts and throw away their silly
statues which He hates so much! If they don’t, they’re in big trouble!
We don’t bow down to silly
statues, but sometimes we make people and stuff more important than God. When
we do that it’s like turning our backs on God.
Sometimes we think about
other things more than God. We love watching TV. TV is a good thing. But if we
think about that more than God, if we love watching that more than talking to
God, then that’s like turning our back on God. Or maybe we love … more than
God.
God is calling us to turn
around. To love Him more than anything and to come back to Him with all our
hearts. If we don’t He will still be angry with us and that’s horrible!
Activities:
Funsheet
Boomerang craft
Games:
What’s the time Mr Wolf
Songs:
God Speaks (from Dr
Rocktrine)
God sits in the Highest Place
God never says Oops! (both
from Colin Buchanan’s God Rock album)
5-11s
Theme: Learn from what God has done in the past and
come to Him with all your heart
Aim: That they understand that God doesn’t change and will still deal with
those who reject Him, but the children will hear God inviting them back to Him.
Intro
– during news time have one leader sat with their back to the group. Keep
warning that leader to turn around, then send them out!
Could play What’s the Time
Mr Wolf
Or Turn Around Skittles
(children are skittles – another child bowls the ‘eye’ ball. If it hits they
have to turn around
Story:
When King Josiah was
ruling Judah, the Lord said
to me,[Slide 1] “Did you see what sneaky Israel did? [click] She wandered
away with her idols on every hill and under every green tree. I said to myself,
‘Israel
will come back to me after she does this evil,’ but she didn’t come back.
[slide 2] And Israel’s
wicked sister Judah
saw what she did. Judah saw
that I left sneaky Israel
because of what she did, but that didn’t make Israel’s wicked sister Judah
afraid. [click] She also went out and did the same! And she didn’t care that
she was hurting me. So she made her country unclean because she worshiped idols
made of stone and wood. [slide 3] Israel’s wicked sister didn’t even
come back to me with her whole heart, but only pretended,” says the Lord.
The Lord said to me,
“Unfaithful Israel had a better excuse than wicked Judah. [Slide 4] Go and speak this
message toward the north:
‘Come back, unfaithful
people of Israel,’
says the Lord.
[click] ‘I will stop being angry at you,
because I am full of mercy,’ says the Lord.
‘I will not be angry with you forever.
All you have to do is admit your sin—
that you turned against the Lord your God
and worshiped gods under every green tree
and didn’t obey me,’” says the Lord.
[slide 5] “Come back to
me, you unfaithful children,” says the Lord, “because I am your master. I will
give you new rulers who will be true to me, who will lead you with knowledge
and understanding. In those days they will not follow their hard, evil hearts
anymore.
“I, the Lord, said,
[slide 6] ‘How happy I
would be to treat you as my own children
and give you a pleasant land,
a land more beautiful than that of any other nation.’
I thought you would call me ‘My Father’
and not turn away from me.
[slide 7] But family of Israel,
you have left me,” says the Lord.
This is what the Lord says
to the people of Judah and
to Jerusalem:
Give yourselves to serving
the Lord,
and decide to obey him,
[slide 8] If you don’t, my anger will spread among you like a fire,
and no one will be able to put it out,
because of the evil you have done.
Talk:
Instead
of reading my Bible for the last few mornings I’ve been watching TV
instead. I’m a big fan of cartoons and I
just can’t get enough! But it’s got so
that I’m spending more time watching cartoons than anything else – so much so I
think I only spoke to God for a quick minute and watched cartoons for nearly 1
hour!
Well
last Sunday we heard that we all do this – we all put things in front of God,
sometimes we think friends, TV, games, our homes and even our schools are
better than God.
God’s
people Judah had said the thing they should spend most of their time with, the
thing they should love most was... not
God, but other gods.
So
instead of being God’s friends, they made friends with gods that were
nothing! It’s as if God had become
boring, and nothing to them.
Not
only that, but they hadn’t done the things God had asked them to do and they
had forgotten God. Instead of loving God
and wanting to give their lives and all they had to Him, they had given their
lives and all they had to other gods who were nothing!
Have two watches, one working and one
not. Explain following other gods would
be like wearing a watch that doesn’t work...it may look good but it’s
useless.
Well Jeremiah tells Judah this is
really silly! That’s because saying no
to the only amazing true God, and yes to other gods is falling for a lie.
Other gods and the people
that followed them had managed to trick Judah into thinking they were
better than the real God.
But we know God is King of
everyone and everything – to say He’s nothing is to make a big mistake. We know that God made everything in the
world, He made us, we can only have our life because of God!
Also, because God gives us
everything, only God can give us life.
So it really is silly to turn away from Him.
But I wonder, have we ever
fallen for that lie too? Have we thought
games, TV, even friends and family are more important than God? Have we spent
more time with them and sometimes no time with God?
And following things other
than God means that we can’t be friends with God. So not only is it silly, but it’s unsafe!
Imagine your best friend,
you know, it’s the one who you are with everyday, the one who you tell
everything and share all you have with.
Imagine one day you started to treat a stranger like that and ignore
your real best friend!
Your best friend would
soon realise you weren’t really friends.
And so God knew that Judah
had broken their friendship with Him.
Well, even though Judah had done
this terrible thing, God, in His greatness and kindness sends Jeremiah to warn
them! He says to Jeremiah “tell my
people Judah to return, look back at who I am!”
God wants them to realise where they are going wrong and return to Him.
Illustrate going in the wrong
direction and getting into trouble, then being given a map and compass and a
friend to show you the way back home
But why? If Judah are
having fun and enjoying life why should they return to God?!
Well it’s because God and
God only can give us life. I know we
have life now, right here, but God is the only one who gives
real-forever-amazing life. In fact, God
is the only One who can save us from death.
Also God promises Judah happiness
if they return to Him. And I don’t mean
the happiness we feel when we watch cartoons or play a good game, I mean real
true happiness, the kind of happiness that means whatever happens God can be
trusted, it will turn out well in the end, forever.
Well Jesus has come to
tell us the same message. Jesus tells
all people everywhere to return to His Father, to be friends with God and put Him
first.
We all need to listen to Judah’s message
because we all need to realise where we’ve gone wrong and return to God’s
ways. And it’s because of Jesus and His
work on the cross that God can forgive those times when we’ve let things be
more important than Him.
But why should we
bother? If we’re having fun now surely
that’s what really matters, the here and now?
But... if we look back to
who God is, it means we can have God as our friend, someone we can trust,
someone we can say thank you too, someone who we can ask for help and know that
He will give us everything we ever need and never leave us.
Well, in the light of
that. I think I need to listen to Jeremiah!
I think I need to return to God, and start spending time with Him again
and less time with cartoons. And the
amazing thing is, that if I ask, God will help me to do this!
Pray
Table Time:
Funsheets
Questions:
Put pictures of story in
order in the group. As you do ask some of the following questions.
Knowledge
- What did God do to Israel? Why?
- What was God’s warning to Judah?
- What was God’s good promise?
Understanding
- Was ‘just doing the right things’ good enough
for God? [This may be too hard]
- Has God changed in how He deals with sin?
- What would Judah have to do to take up
God’s kind invitation?
Application
- What should you do when you realise you’ve
made something or someone more important than God?
Spare games:
Learn memory verse –
Jeremiah 31:34
all
people will know me,
from the least to the most important,” says the Lord.
“I will forgive them for the wicked things they did,
and I will not remember their sins anymore.” (NCV)
