Week 16 - God is Holy Copy

After the Special Story, Pastor Josiah is going to a brief explanation of what Holiness is.

Visual 1 The word AWESOME

What does the word Awesome mean? It’s the sort of word that means different things depending on what it’s describing, right?

Visual 2 Pictures of things that could be described as awesome — a Big Mac, Niagra Falls, a skateboard trick, a friend

What does it mean if I call a burger awesome? Or something in nature, like this waterfall? Etc.

Visual 3 The word HOLY

The word Holy also means a lot of different things. The Bible says that God is holy and that we need to be holy too. Something that is holy is:

• Unique and set apart: nothing else is like it

• Perfect: it has no problems or sins

• Unchanging: it will not get worse over time

Tonight, we’re going to learn about how God is holy and how we can be holy too.

Visual 1 Show the word Holy again

God is holy, and because He is holy, He is different than anything or anyone that we could ever imagine.

Visual 2 Picture of Moses with sheep

Moses was a shepherd in the wilderness. On most days, he was with his flock leading them to water or to places where they could eat. Before he was a shepherd, he was a prince in Egypt. All of Moses’ family and friends were slaves in Egypt, but God allowed him to be adopted by the Egyptian king as a baby.

When Moses was an adult, he had to run for his life. Moses thought God wanted him to be the leader that freed the people of Israel. The king realized that Moses wanted to free Israel, so Moses ran away to the wilderness. Moses no longer thought God would use him to free Israel from slavery. He thought he would always be a shepherd. But God had different plans for Moses.

One day, while Moses was leading sheep in the desert up to this mountain, he saw something he did not expect.

Visual 3 Exodus 3:4-5 “God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. . . put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.”

Visual 4 Picture of the burning bush

Holy means God is perfect, amazing, and unique. There is NO ONE like God. He is holy. When Moses realized the holy God was before him, he did as the LORD commanded. Moses hid is face from God and was very afraid. God said, “I know my people Israel are suffering as slaves in Egypt. I am going to save and free them. I will send you to the King of Egypt to tell him to let My people go.” Moses told God he couldn’t do it.

You see, Moses was kind of a scaredy cat. He ran away from the King of Egypt because he was scared of him. He didn’t think he would be able to obey God and tell the King of Egypt something that he wouldn’t like. But that’s why God had appeared to him in the burning bush.

Visual 5 - God can use a burning bush whenever I need a push!

Because God is holy, He knows exactly how to appear in the way that will get our attention! He’s like nothing else at all—and that’s a good thing. What’s dangerous is when God gets our attention and we still don’t want to obey Him. That’s when we’re going against God's holiness, and that's called sin. "To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin."

Visual 6 Back to the picture of the bush

But God promised to be with Moses. “Tell the people that I AM WHO I AM is my name.” (That means God has always been and always will be). “I am the one who will save the people.” Moses trusted in the holy God. The people trusted in the holy God. God did what He promised. He freed His people.

Group Discussion:Isaiah was in the Lord’s temple and saw how holy God was. The Lord was so pure and good. He was sitting on a throne and the trail of his robe gloriously filled the temple. Two seraphim flying above the Lord covered their face and their bodies with their wings, and they shouted out that God was HOLY. When Isaiah saw how holy God was, Isaiah understood he was a sinful man. Read Isaiah 6:1-13 and ask the questions as you go along!

• Who did Isaiah see in the temple? (v.1)

• What did that Person look like? (v.1-3)

• What does holy mean?

• What happened to the temple when the seraphim said the Lord was holy? (v.4)

• Did Isaiah think he was a good person after he saw the Lord? (v.5)

• What did Isaiah think about himself after he saw the Lord? (v.5)

• What did Isaiah think about other people around him after he saw the Lord? (v.5)

• Have someone look up John 12:41 and tell everyone Who the Person was that Isaiah

• saw? (The answer is Jesus.)

Group Activity: Because God is holy, all wickedness, evil, and sin is disgusting to Him. He will never stand it! Bring in something disgusting or stinky, or take off one of your socks. Hold the sock up to each of the kids to let them smell it.

Teach the children that your nose is can smell what is “holy.” It can tell what is good and pure and it is repulsed by bad odor. Have you ever notice though that you can get used to a bad odor? The more you are around the smell, the more your nose gets “used” to the terrible smell.

God is holy which means he is repulsed by sin. However, He never gets “used” to sin. He is perfectly pure and is set apart from evil.

Prayer: God wants us to be holy in everything like He is. Lists some things in which God wants us to be separated unto Him. Ask God to help you and your friends to be holy like God is holy in those things.