Teaching Job 1&2

3-5s

Theme: God is good, whether we have loads or nothing

Aim: That they love God in good times and bad

Intro:

Colour in and count animals

Teaching:

A long, long time ago there was a man named Job. He really loved God and did everything he could to please God. [Have a puppet or cut out of Job]

God was very good to Job and he gave him lots of children [give him some children cut outs]

And he had lots of sheep – what noise do sheep make? [give him some of the coloured in sheep]

And he had lots of camels – what noise do camels make?! [give him some of the coloured in camels]

And he had lots of cows – what noise do cows make? [give him some cows]

And he had lots of donkeys – what noise does a donkey make? [give him some donkeys]

God had been very good to Job and Job loved God very much.

But one day God’s enemy, Satan, came and talked to God. ‘See that Job’, Satan said, ‘he only loves you because you’ve given him so many nice things.’

‘No’ said God, ‘he doesn’t.’

‘Let me take away all his stuff and we’ll see if he still loves you.’

‘Ok’ said God.

So Satan went away and a great big army came and took away all of his cows and donkeys [take away the donkeys].

Then Satan sent a fire which took away all of the sheep [take away the sheep].

Then Satan sent another army to take away all of the camels [take away the camels].

Then Satan sent a great wind to take away all of Job’s family! [take away family]

Job had nothing left. Did Job stop loving God? No. Here’s what he said: ‘When I was a baby I had nothing and I’ll have nothing when I die. God gave me these things and he’s taken them away again. Praise the name of the Lord.’

Wow. Well Satan tried again. This time he gave Job horrible sore spots all over his body [put on red sticky dots]. It was horrible for Job. But still he loved God. Job realised how amazing God was whether he had loads of stuff or nothing. Job knew how wonderful God was when life was terrible or good.

If God took away all your favourite things would you still love him? If you no longer had your favourite teddy would you still say God is good? If you didn’t have your favourite toy would you still say God is brilliant?

Pray

Craft:

• ·         Happy/Sad flipsticks
• ·         Colour in Job and stick on red sticky dots

Songs:

• ·         10,9,8 God is great; God never says Oops; The Lord is King (all Colin Buchanan)

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5-11s

[This term our theme is going to be ‘Indiana Job and the Mystery of the Unexplained’]

Theme: God is worthy of worshipping, whatever we have

Intro:

• ·         Ball collecting – they have to collect as many as they can, then get rid of as many as they can
• ·         Hidden pictures jigsaw – pictures of Job but mystery style

Teaching:

[reading with pictures read during service]

Intro:

[Board with ‘God’ at top] Take suggestions for all the good things God has given them then put on post it notes on board.

Did you hear? In our story Job had a whole bunch of stuff [add Job’s stuff to the board].

And Job realised that God was amazingly good and kind and Job worshipped God and loved God with all his heart. I wonder, do you do that? Do you know that God is amazingly good and kind and do you worship Him and love Him with all your heart?

But sometimes life gets really yucky. Maybe some of you know this already. Really sad things happen to people we love, sad things happen to us and life isn’t quite so fun anymore. Do we still worship and love God then? What about if God hadn’t given us all these lovely things, would He still be good? [start removing post it notes]

This is what happened to Job in our story from the Bible this morning. All he had was taken away. But he still worshipped God.

1. 1.       God is Good

Job knows that God is good. And he has cows and sheep and donkeys, oh and family, to prove it! And Job was desperate to be God’s friend and would do whatever he could to make sure God was happy with him.

But did you notice that Satan had spotted Job. Now, I don’t want you to get too worried about Satan. Simply, he is God’s enemy who wants God’s friends not to like God. He tries to get people like you and me to stop loving and trusting God. But did you see in the story that God is much bigger and stronger. Satan has to come and ask God if he’s allowed to do this to Job. ‘Please sir, can I be nasty to Job.’

What God’s enemy wants to do is show that Job only trusts God because life is nice and happy. If life was horrible, well then, Job would soon give up on God and start saying how horrible God is.

Now, we don’t know why God says, ‘yes’, but He does. I think God knows that Job really does love and trust Him and that Job would love and trust God even when life is really yucky!

And so – Job loses his cows and his donkeys! Gone, just like that! And as soon as Job hears about that he’s lost all his sheep! As soon as he hears about that he loses all his camels. As soon as he hears all that, the saddest thing happens: Job’s family die, his sons and his daughters are taken away from him.

Job was really, really sad. But Job could still say that God was good. All of these things belonged to God and so, of course, He could take them away again if He wanted to. If a friend lets you play with their toy, but then asks for the toy back; that’s ok, it’s their toy. They’re still your friend. God is still good when He takes back all this stuff.

1. 2.       God is Good, all the time

But then worse happens. God’s enemy realises that he’s failed, unsurprisingly God was right! So God allows him to give Job some horrible, painful spots all over his body. Job was miserable!

But Job still didn’t say anything bad against God. He didn’t understand why this was happening to him, he had no idea what had gone on in heaven. It was a great mystery to him. But he knew that God was still good. God was always good.

And we know better than Job that God is good, because He sent Jesus so that we can be God’s friends.

You see, God isn’t good because he gives us good stuff. God is just good. God decides what is good and what is bad. God is the great powerful and loving maker and ruler of the universe. So we worship and trust Him whether our life is lovely or not so lovely.

God never stops having all the power in the world. God never stops being everywhere all the time. God never stops knowing everything. God never stops being holy, pure, perfect and therefore good.

God is good all the time.

God is good when something really sad happens at home. God is good in the middle of our birthday party. [on screen]

God is good when people say horrible things to us at school. God is good when we get to do lots of fun things at school. [on screen]

God is good when we score the winning goal in football. God is good when we slip over and hurt our knee and cry. [on screen]

This is really hard to understand, but I want you to try and remember – tomorrow, when life is fun, God is good. The next day, when life is maybe a bit sad, God is good. It doesn’t matter whether God has given us nothing or loads of good things – He is still good!

Table time:

Knowledge

• What did Job have that was good?
• What did Job do when God took his good stuff away?

Understanding

• Why did God let Satan take Job’s good stuff away?
• How did it feel for Job?
• Why did Job still love and worship God?

Application

• What good stuff do you have?
• How would you feel if that good stuff was taken away?
• How would you feel about God?
• What do you think is amazingly great about God?

Funsheets

Pray for suffering Christians