A long time ago, the Bible says, God had a friend. A good friend. God would do anything for his friend Abraham,, and Abraham trusted God. Abraham had a son, and that son had children, and after many years, there was a family with 12 sons. one- two- three -etc. God loved the whole family. Because Abraham and God were best friends, Abraham's family was God's family, too. When there wasn’t enough food in the land, God sent one of them, Joseph, to Egypt where there was enough food.The king, called Pharaoh, became friends with Joseph, and  invited the whole family to come live in Egypt, including their wives and children, and their father. After a long time there were many, many children who grew up in Egypt. They were not Egyptians, they were called Hebrews because they spoke the Hebrew language.  In Hebrew, the word for Father is said like this  “Abba.”  Can you say that? Try it! Abba - that means father. See you could learn to speak Hebrew, too! 

The old Pharaoh died, and now there was a new Pharaoh who didn’t remember Joseph.The new Pharaoh didn’t know who God was.   He was worried.  He said “There are so many Hebrews now. What if they decide to fight with us? They might win.”  He made the Hebrews into slaves.He said, “You have to do all the work, and you won’t get any money.” Is that fair? No. He put men in charge who would whip them and make them work faster.  He made them work with bricks.But even though life was hard, the Hebrews had more babies.

Pharaoh said, “I don’t want so many Hebrews.  I need to make a new rule.  When they have a girl baby, that’s okay.  But if it’s a boy will throw it into the river.  If we get rid of the boys, they won’t grow up to be men.  Soon they won’t have enough men to fight with us.” 
What an idea!  To destroy the boy babies?!  Is that God’s plan?  No!  How will God save the Hebrews and their babies? God had a plan. In a little house, there is a Daddy and Mommy and a big sister Miriam. And then they had a little boy baby. When they saw him they said, “He is a beautiful child.  We can’t let them throw him in the river.”  So they hid him. But one day when he was crying pretty loud, they knew someone would find out. Moses’s mother didn’t want to throw him in the river.  She wanted to save him. She took a big basket and made it waterproof.  She put a kind of rubber around all the holes so it wouldn’t sink.  Then she took the basket down to the water. 

She put the baby inside. Miriam stayed to watch what would happen to her baby brother. The basket floated down in front of Pharaoh’s palace. Pharaoh’s daughter came out to bathe in the river.  She saw the basket floating there and asked one of her servants to grab it. When she opened it, she saw the little baby. “It is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said.  She loved the little baby, and she didn’t want it to die, either.  So she said, “I’ll keep it.  I’ll name it Moses - that means ‘I took him out of the water.’ “” 
Miriam was watching. She ran out and said, “Do you want a babysitter?  I know a woman who could feed the baby for you.”  Pharaoh’s daughter said, “Yes. I do.  Please get her.”  So Miriam brought her own mother to the princess.  Pharaoh’s daughter paid her to take care of Moses until he was old enough to feed himself. Moses came to live in the palace.  He was a Hebrew, but he also learned to speak Egyptian. Will Moses grow up to be the Pharaoh? Will Moses tell the Hebrews they don’t have to be slaves anymore? ANSWERS No, but God does have a plan to save them. God loves his family.

Youtube video: https://youtu.be/DZN95Hbl0uY

Bible Verse:  The Lord is on my side, I will not fear.  Psalm 118:6

Music:

He is God (the one true God) from Jana Alyra
Jump Jump Jump
My God is so Great
This Little Light

Coloring Page

The Sinful Woman is Forgiven

Introduce the Story

Bring a bowl of warm water and a large towel to class. One helper sits while you wash her feet.  As you do this, talk about how people used to walk outside wearing sandals. Talk about dusty or muddy streets where animals walked. People always washed their hands and their feet before they ate.  People used to lay down on cushions around low tables so sometimes you sat very close to people’s feet. Who would want to eat with someone’s stinky feet nearby? If I invited you to my house to eat, the very first thing I would do is give you a kiss on the cheek. Then I would either give you water to wash your feet, ask a servant to do it, or if you were an important guest, I might even wash your feet for you. Then I would give you some perfumed ointment to put on your head in case you were hot and sweaty. In today’s story Jesus was invited to someone’s house for a meal. Let’s find out what happened...

One day Jesus was invited to eat at the home of a Pharisee.  Who knows what the word Pharisee means?  Pharisees were religious men who liked to obey lots of rules. They obeyed all the rules in the Old Testament Law. Not only that, they obeyed all the rules that other religious people made up. Pharisees talked so much about obeying rules that they forgot to think about God. They thought all the rules were more important than God.  They did not like anyone who did not obey rules just like them.

Jesus met a Pharisee named Simon. Simon invited Jesus to his house to eat. When Jesus arrived at Simon’s house Simon did not give him a kiss. Simon did not give Jesus water to wash his feet with. Simon did not offer Jesus perfumed oil to put on his head. Jesus reclined on the cushion anyway. Other very important guests were eating with Simon also.

Someone else came to Simon’s house. But Simon had not invited her. The person that came in was not someone who liked to obey rules like Simon. This was a woman who had been very bad. Everyone knew that this was a sinful woman. Why do you think she was there?

The sinful woman did not come to see Simon. She knew Simon would not help her. She was sorry for the bad things and she had done. She believed that Jesus could forgive her of her sins.

While everyone was eating, the woman came and knelt on the floor behind Jesus. She was so sorry for her sins that she began to cry. When she saw that Jesus’ feet had not been washed, she used her tears to wash his feet. She did not have a towel but she used her long hair to dry Jesus’ feet. Then she took her jar of perfume and put it on Jesus feet.

Simon could not believe what he was seeing! He thought to himself, “How dare this woman come into my house! How dare Jesus let her touch him, much less wash his feet? Didn’t Jesus know about following rules? Jesus must not be a true teacher.” But Simon did not say one word out loud. He only thought these things to himself.

Jesus could read Simon’s mind. He decided to tell Simon a story. “Simon,” Jesus said, “once two men borrowed money. One borrowed 500 denarii (denarii is a kind of money - pretend it’s 50 dollars) and the other fifty denarii (pretend it’s 5 dollars). After a while, the lender told the men that they did not have to pay him back. They could keep the money. Which of those men do you think loved the money lender the most?

Simon, “The man who owed the most money would be the happiest. He would love the money lender the most.”  Jesus said, “you’re right.  See this woman?  She is like the man who owed 500 denarii - or $50. She has done many bad things.  She loves me so much that she kissed my feet and washed them, and put oil on them.  She loves me so much because I forgave her so much….  Simon, you are like the man who owed only $5.  You asked me to your house but you did not kiss my cheek or wash my feet or give me oil for my head.  You only love me a little, because you were only forgiven a little.”  

Then he told the woman, “I forgive you of all of the sins you have done. Now you can go in peace.”

Group Activity

(get a cross big enough to hold several sticky notes)

We want to show you, by using this cross, how is it that this woman loved Jesus so much?  Wasn’t she bad?  How could someone who is bad love Jesus?

Let’s see.  Let’s pretend we can count her sins.  For each sin, we'll put a sticky note on the cross - then you can all see it. (Ask children to put the notes on the cross as you write them)

 

1. When she played a game, she cheated.

2. Before she ate, she did not wash her hands.

3. She did not obey her mom. 

4. She did not obey her dad.

5. She didn’t work hard.  She let other people do all the work.

6. She made fun of other people.

So what did Jesus do with her sins?  Doesn’t she have to be punished for them?  No, Jesus decided to take her punishment.  He hung on a cross - he took those sins with him on the cross.    Jesus took her punishment. How many sins did Jesus take from this woman?  6

Let’s see how many sins Simon has.  Simon was good.  He doesn’t think he has any sins.  Does anyone know what sin that is??  Pride.

1. Simon didn’t think he had any sins.  How many sins is that? 1

Jesus said, he forgave both people.  Let’s put Simon’s sin on the cross too.

Do you see why the woman loved him more?  It was because she had more sins! 

When she was washing his feet, she was saying thank you.  She said thank you at least 6 times. 

Jesus loves to save people .  He wants to save people that are really bad, because they will love him a lot. 

Art Activity

You could make a cross with two pieces of paper.  Cut them out, and glue them.

Then you can take crepe paper or thin paper and scrunch it up to show your sins. See if you can think of a sin you have done. The more sins you can think of, the more you will love Jesus! Jesus took all your sins on the cross. Those sins do not count anymore. He loves you. You can love him, too.

Abraham Trusts God

When Abraham and Sarah had a baby, it was a miracle. It didn't just happen by itself, God made it happen.  God had to make it happen because Abraham and Sarah's bodies were so old they couldn't make a baby without God.  Abraham was so happy.  He loved his little boy.  His son's name was Isaac, which means laughter.  Isaac got bigger. Soon, he could run fast, he could throw a ball, and he could get his shoes on all by himself.  Abraham loved Isaac very much, but he loved God even more.  God was the one who had made it happen, and God was his best friend.  Abraham always agreed with God.  God was the smartest, and God was powerful, and God was good. When God is our friend we worship him.  At church we sing songs to God to show him our worship. Another way that people used to worship God was to make a sacrifice.  A sacrifice is when you would take an animal, a healthy, strong animal and give its life to God by killing it.  When it was dead, you would burn it so that all of it would go up in the fire into the invisible place where God is.  The animal was yours, but you wanted to give it to God as a present.  We always want to give presents to our best friends to show our friendship. One day God told Abraham to take his son Isaac, and go to a mountain far away.  On the mountain, God said, he wanted Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. God was asking Abraham to give him Isaac's life.  He was asking Abraham for the very best present that he could give.  This was Abraham's only son! Abraham didn't want to keep anything from his best friend God.  He obeyed God.  The next morning, Abraham got up early and chopped some wood for the fire.  He took Isaac and a few helpers and started toward the mountain.  When they got to the mountain, Abraham told his helpers to wait, and he and Isaac started climbing the mountain together.  Isaac didn't know that he was going to be a sacrifice.  He said to his dad, "Father, you have a knife, and I have the wood, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?"  Abraham answered him and said, "God will give us a lamb, son."  At the top of the mountain, Abraham built an altar with stones, and arranged the wood for the fire.  Then he took his son, and tied him to the altar.  He raised the knife to sacrifice Isaac, but just then he heard God say "Stop!"  God told him not to do it.  God didn't really want him to kill Isaac.  Now, God knew that Abraham loved God more than he loved his son.  If he was willing to give God his son, then that meant that God was his number one friend.  And guess what?  Abraham was God's number one friend, too.  They were very special friends.  Whatever Abraham had belonged to God.  And whatever God had belonged to Abraham.  Abraham's heart belonged to God, and God's heart belonged to Abraham, too. 

Abraham and Sarah have a baby

God promised his friend Abraham that he would have his own family, but Abraham was really old. And how could his wife Sarah have a baby? She looked like a grandma. Abraham looked like a grandpa.  Abraham was 100 years old.  When our bodies are 100 years old they stop making babies. But God made a promise, and if God said it, He would do it. God and Abraham were friends.  Abraham knew God was telling the truth.  He believed God even though his body was old and Sarah's body was old.  His heart and God's heart agreed because they were friends.  Here is the story.  Sarah and Abraham lived in a tent.  One day while Sarah was in the tent, Abraham saw three men coming down the road.  It looked like three men, but Abraham knew that it was God.  God was coming to visit him.  He bowed down to the ground and asked the men to stay and wash their feet, and rest under the tree.  Abraham wanted to give them some food.  That's a good way to be friends, isn't it?  We like to share our food. While the men ate, one of them asked Abraham where Sarah was. Abraham said she was here, in the tent.  Then the man, who was really God in disguise, said that Sarah was going to be a mommy.  When Sarah heard that, she laughed inside the tent.  How could she be a mommy when she was old?  Then the Lord said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh?  Is anything too hard for God?"  No, that's not too hard.  God can do anything. He can make a baby grow in an old grandma. Sarah was embarrassed, and she tried to lie - she said "I did not laugh."  But God said, "Yes, you did!"  God was going to make them have a baby whether she laughed about it or not.  Abraham and Sarah believed what God said and God counted them as his best friends forever.  The next year, Sarah had a baby.  She named her baby Isaac, which means laughter.  Now Abraham had a family, and his child would be a father someday and have more children, and those children would grow up and have children, until there would be so many in Abraham's family you couldn't count them all.   

God Makes a Friend

God likes to make things. Remember, how he made the sun and the moon?  He made all the animals.  And he made people, too.  One thing he likes to make, that you like to make too, is friends.  God likes to make friends!  But, how can God make friends if He is invisible?  Invisible means you can't see him, but He is there.  How do you know He is there?  Sometimes you can just feel Him - like you know your mom has come into the room even though you can't see her.  When God is invisible, you can't see Him but sometimes you can feel Him in the room - we call that feeling His presence.  Not like a present that you open, but a presence, a feeling someone is there.  You could try being very quiet and then sneak up on someone and see if they can feel your presence!  God can be with you even if you can't see him, and sometimes he might say something to you.  God talked to Abraham.  God wanted Abraham to be his best friend.  He wanted Abraham to be his best friend forever.  If Abraham would be his friend, then God would do something for Abraham, too.  This is what God said: if Abraham wanted to be God's friend, he would have to do leave his home, his country, and his father's family, and travel to a new place that God would show him.  If he would do that, God would be his friend forever, and God said he would make Abraham into a daddy, too, with a big family.  How big would Abraham's family be?  God told him to go out in the middle of the night and look up into the sky at the stars.  How many stars are there?  Abraham started to count them. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen.  There were so many stars that Abraham couldn't count them all. God said that's how many children, and grandchildren, and all their children there would be.  So many people in Abraham's family that you couldn't even count them.  How big would his family be?  Think about this.  Take a handful of sand like you get at the beach.  Look at all the little grains of sand.  Can you count them?  You can try, but you couldn't even count them all, it would take so long.  This was a very special promise to Abraham, that he would have a big family, because right now, he had no children at all.  He and his wife, Sarah, had tried to have children, but they didn't have even one baby.  So Abraham really wanted to believe God.  He knew God could make people, so God could make it happen for him and Sarah.   So, Abraham trusted God.  That means, he believed that God was telling the truth. So, he decided to be God's friend.  He packed up his wife, and his nephew and they started on their way.  They took tents with them so they could camp out.  They took animals with them, so they would have food to eat on the way.  They took some extra clothes, and their pajamas, and their toothbrushes, and Abraham believed God, and God and Abraham became friends.  Wow! Now, if one of your friends tells you to leave your home, and your mom and dad, don't you do it! Only God could tell you to do something so exciting.  What an adventure that would be - to go somewhere with God and not even know where you were going!

God Knows Best

Can you count to ten?  Let's count together.  One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.  Good!  Now let's see who knows how to count in Spanish. Uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho nueve, diez.  It's fun to learn another language.  The words sound funny to us at first until we learn what they mean.  Uno means one, dos means two, and tres means three.  Uno, dos, tres.  See?  Why don't we all speak the same language?  The Bible explains what happened a long time ago.  People used to speak all the same language. They all had the same words. They all had the same words for counting.  They all said mommy and daddy the same way.  They could understand each other no matter what they said.  They found a big place, a place big and wide with enough room for everybody and decided to make a city there. They made plans together and nobody fought about it.  They all wanted to do the same thing.  They decided to make bricks out of clay and build a big tower. They said, "We can make a tower that reaches up to the sky! Then we will be famous. Everyone will think we are the best. If we all stick together we can do amazing things!" That is what they said.  Does that sound like a good plan?  Well, let's think about it.  If you make a tower with blocks and your dad says - "Good job, Jacob," or "That's good Ella," then you feel good about yourself, don't you?  But what if you and your friends could make a tower as big as your house?  You might think you could do everything yourself. You might think that you were so smart, and so strong and so good at making towers that you don't need anyone else.  You could make big buildings, and be on TV and be the boss of everybody, and everyone would think that you were the best.  But really God is the best. So God saw what the people were doing, and thought, "If they stay together and make big towers, they will forget me.  They are finding a way to get right up into heaven without me. So, God wanted to mess up their plans a little, so they would need him and not just do everything without him. God is really smart.  And he has a lot of power. So he gave the command - he said it and it happened - that different people would speak different languages.  The people started talking to each other and now some of them spoke English, some Spanish, some French, some Italian, and some Chinese. They couldn't understand what the other people were saying!  So they stopped building their city, and started going in different directions.  People that could understand each other stayed together and made their own place, and other people lived somewhere else.  God knows what's best for us.  Sometimes we have ideas that are not good for us. We might think, I'm going to be a great fireman someday.  But God knows you are not very careful and you might get burned. If God wants you to be a teacher, then he will turn your head that way and show you what to do. He might make you really love the alphabet, so that you would want to teach other people the alphabet.  We need to pay attention to God's plans for us and not get carried away with our own ideas.  God knows what's best for us.

Starting Over

It's an amazing thing to be alive.  You can see with your eyes.  You can hear with your ears.  What else?  You can smell with your nose!  And your fingers can touch.  Our bodies are wonderful, and God made us that way because he loves us. We can do wonderful things, to help people and to say nice things.  With our hands we can touch someone gently to show them we love them.  We can smile at people and make new friends.  When our heart is connected to God, we are thankful, and we can love other people. But what would happen if we forgot about God, and just wanted our own way?  What if nobody obeyed their mommies and daddies?  If we were all really bad, we wouldn't let anyone else play with our toys, and we would try to take things away from other people. We wouldn't want to live in a place like that, if people acted that way.  And it would make God sad, too.  Here's what happened. After Adam and Eve left the garden, they had many children.  And their children grew up and had children, and got married and had more children until there were lots of people living on the earth. Did they want to share and be gentle and kind?  No, the people started to be bad all the time. Even after they got a spanking they just wanted to do the same thing again.  When God looked in their hearts all he could see were bad ideas about how to be mean and hurt their friends.  God was sorry that he had made people.  He only found one man who was still listening to him and wanted to obey.  His name was Noah.  God told Noah what he was going to do. He was going start over.  There was going to be a flood of water that would cover the earth and end the life of everyone on the earth.  The water would get so high that it would destroy everything.  He wanted to save Noah and his family and the animals, so he told Noah to build a giant boat, called an ark.  He told Noah to make it out of gopher wood and cover it with tar, which is kind of like plastic, so that it wouldn't leak.  Noah and his family made the boat just like God told them to.  When it was ready God told Noah to get into the boat with his wife and his three sons, and their wives, eight people altogether.  Noah took animals into the ark with him, too.  Birds, sheep, horses, goats, pigs, you name it, he took it on the boat.  He took a male and a female, a mommy and a daddy.  Other animals followed Noah into the ark, too.  Two of every kind of animal went into the ark. Every kind of cow, every kind of creeping animal like lizards, frogs, and turtles, and every kind of bird.  Then it started to rain.  It rained for forty days and forty nights.  That is a long time t rain.  Can you count to forty? Let's rain down with our fingers and count the days. (to 40) The fountains that were under the land came up, too, and water covered the whole earth.  But Noah and his family were safe because the ark floated on top of the water.  The water got higher and higher until finally even the mountains were covered up.  The people and the animals that were in the ark stayed alive, but everything else died because there was so much water.  The ark came to a stop on top of a mountain.  It stopped raining. Noah opened the window and sent out a bird to see if there was a place to land, but the bird came back to him.  There He waited another week and tried it again, but the bird came back again. The water finally went down and down, like it does in the bathtub.  It keeps going down until the bathtub is dry. At last, he sent out a bird again, and when it didn't come back he knew the ground was dry.  God spoke to Noah and told him it was time to get out of the ark. All the animals got out, too, so that they could spread out and have babies again all over the earth.  Noah and his family came out and worshiped God.  God was glad. God loves people, and when the flood was over he said he would never do that again, no matter how bad people got.  God put a rainbow up in the sky to remind us that he loves us.  When you see a rainbow after it rains, you can remember how much God loves you.