Grace of God

2 Kings 5

Something to say and show

*put on thug voice* Right! My names The Jailor, do you know what the Jailor does? If you've done something bad, then he puts you in prison. And as I look around here I can see a few criminals in this room! Can I have 4 volunteers to be my prisoners. (Line children up behind a jail grate made out of card). The rest of you are the jury, do you know what the jury does? they decide whether or not we should let the prisoners go free! So lets look at the first case shall we? (Get the kids to hold up a piece of paper with their 'crime' on it) What have we here? Oh that's pretty serious etc. So what do they jury think? Should we let them go? why do you think that? (Eventually decide to release the child). Crimes are: Farted in class, Lied, forgot to say please and thank you, and made a little girl my slave and killed her family. go through each crime in the same format, let them go. When you reach the last one ask the 'jury' if they would let the prisoner go. Say, now imagine if you were that little girl, I don't think I'd let him go. could you let someone go who had done that to your family? It would be hard wouldn't it? You'd be very sad and angry. but this is the crime from todays story. The man in our story had a disease called leprosy. A terrible disease that would kill him one day. the little servant girl knew there was a God who could heal him and a prophet called Elisha to do it. Even though Naaman was her enemy, even though he had treated her and her family terribly, even though he deserved no sympathy at all, she forgave him. she showed him amazing grace. So hears a tough question for you. Why do you think the servant did it? Why did she show grace to Naaman, why did she forgive him even though he didn't deserve it? Well lets think about it. Have you ever forgotten to say please or thank you? Have you ever lied? Yeah, because we all make mistakes, we all sin. But we have all been forgiven and we have all been shown grace. We have a gracious God. Every time we screw up he forgives us. that's amazing grace....giving us something we don't deserve!

 

Something to pray

Imagine you have a piece of paper in your hands. I want you to think of something you've done wrong and pretend to write it on the paper. Now we are going to pretend to rip up the paper all together! Go! Pray a prayer of thanks to God for forgiving us and showing us amazing grace!

 

God looks after us

2 Samuel 7, Psalm 23, 51

Something to say

David was a shepherd, a pretty good one too. Ask the kids what makes a good shepherd? They need to be caring and protective, the must be brave and they must be wise to know what's best for the sheep. It was a tough job when David was doing it, he had to keep his sheep safe in all kinds of weather. He had to wander around by himself outside and keep watch for wolves! Some scary things happened to David and he also did some pretty bad things. Yet God looked after him and even made him a king. David knew that God kept him safe and protected him. He knew that God loved him - nothing David had done could change that. God gave David songs to sing of how much he loves us. David wrote them all down and they are called Psalms. One of them, Psalm 23, is about how God is just like a shepherd, looking after us and guiding us because he loves us. David sings about how he doesn't need to be afraid of anything because God looks after him forever. It's true for us too!

Something to show

Get the children to write or draw their own Psalms about how God looks after them and loves them.

Something to pray

Thank you God for guiding us and looking after us just like David cared for his sheep.

 

Let them pray

Prayer can be hard work and praying as a family can be even harder, I guess that's why people call it a discipline. The bible teaches that prayer is supposed to be done continuously so what does this look like with our kids? I mean they've got school to attend, homework to do, musical instruments to learn, friends to play with and that's just one day. Where does prayer fit in?

In my family we've had prayer times that look more like a wrestling match than chatting with God. I think my biggest challenge is often that I'm trying to get my kids to pray rather than encourage them to be with God and it becomes an activity where they have to stop being themselves and become grown up and less themselves. The bible says that it is with boldness we approach God who is seated on a throne. We see from the gospels that children don't have a problem with this but that the adults around them sometimes do. Mark says that Jesus 'took them in his arms and blessed them' (Mark 10v16). Leading our kids in prayer therefore should involve us teaching them that Jesus wants to take them into his arms and prayer makes this possible. It's a wonderful image for us as parents to have. So when children pray they should do so as children, knowing that God accepts them as they are and expects them as they are. 

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God helps us

1 Samuel 17

Something to say

Recap the story emphasising that God is always there to help us in all we go through. Sometimes it might seem like it is physically impossible for us to conquer an enemy or a situation, but we need to remember that no matter how big a problem seems, we serve a bigger God who is always there to help us and bring us through stuff. He is bigger than anything out there and the best part is he is always with us and always there to help us.

Something to show

With the aid of props talk through some problems we might have that we can ask God to help us with (homework, bullies, nightmare....)

Something to pray

Lead the children in a prayer to ask God to let them know that no matter what the situation may be, or how things seem, God is always there to help them and we can trust in the strength he gives us.

A verse to remember

Our help is in the name of the Lord, maker of heaven and earth. Psalm 124:8