Week 18 - God is Just

After a short story about a girl who learns about the consequences of breaking a family rule, I’m going to teach the following “mini lesson”:

Visual 1: Picture of the words “Holy” and “Best” with the icons from the last two weeks

Do you guys remember some of the ways that God is holy? And the ways that His ideas are best? I’m going to teach you another thing that God does because He is holy and His ideas are best. God allows things to have results. Whenever you do something, other things happen.

Visual 2: Show pictures of a kid playing outside, pizza, a sad little kid, and a Bible

What happens if you choose to play outside and don’t do your homework? What happens if you eat nothing but pizza? What happens if you punch your little brother in the nose? What happens if you bring your Bible to Truth Group? You see, God lets us experience some of the results from the things we do. It’s very important the we learn about all the different results that come from things—a lot of times we call the “consequences.” God is always fair, and he makes sure that the right consequences come from the things we do . . .even if they come a lot later than we expect.

Visual 3: Show picture of a baseball game

Why do you want a fair umpire or referee at a ball game? Just like a good referee, God is always just or fair. He makes sure that every sin is punished and every good thing is rewarded. And that’s a really good thing! It means that villains won’t get away with anything. It means heroes won’t be overlooked. And it means that Jesus could die for our sins.

Visual 4: I desire the Just Umpire!

Von will choose one player to be “Mr. Fox” or “Miss Fox.” All the other players are chickens. The chickens will try to run from one side of the gym to the other without being tagged by the fox.

The fox will stand in the middle of the gym facing away from the chickens, who will be touching the gym wall. I will call out, “What time is it Mr. Fox?” And the fox will give a time: “Four o’clock” or “Seven o’clock” or “Midnight.” Whatever time the fox calls, the chickens will move forward that number of steps. For example, if he calls “Four o’clock,” the chickens can take four steps. Once the fox calls out out “Midnight,” he may turn around and start tagging as many chickens as he like. All the chickens can then run as fast as they can to the other wall. If he tags them before they touch the wall, they become a fox and will join him in the middle of the gym.

We then play another round with all the foxes in the middle, and we continue to play rounds until there is only one chicken left. That chicken is the winner, and they get to be the fox to start the next round.

Visual 1: Show picture of the baseball game again

Remember, God is a just umpire. But that doesn’t mean that He’s mean to everybody; it just means that He’s doing the right thing. He’s being fair.

A long time ago, God wanted to bring His people the Israelites into the Promised Land. It was called Canaan, and there were lots of people there that hated God, abused vulnerable people, did things like murder children and women, and worship idols. God hated all the things that they did, so He decided He was going to wipe them out after giving them one last chance.

Visual 2: Show picture of Moses with the children of Israel crossing the Red Sea

God did lots of miracles for the Israelites. Some of them were so big that the Canaanites heard about them. He parted the ocean for Moses and the Israelites walked through. He gave them food from the sky for forty years in the desert. And then God led them right up to the cities of Canaan. He told the new leader Joshua to destroy the first city Jericho, and only one family was saved because they wanted to join God. But God also gave Joshua the instructions to make sure that nobody took any stuff from the city. Everyone was supposed to leave the stuff, just like if it had a disease on it.

Visual 3 Joshua 6:18 “Keep yourselves from the accursed thing, laest ye make yourselves accursed, when ye take of the ccursed thing, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it.”

But as one guy named Achan walked around the ruins of Jericho, he saw some beautiful things. He saw gold, silver, and really nice clothes. He really wanted those things for himself. So, he took them and hid them under his tent. Even though God commanded them not to take those, he stole them anyway. His family knew about it, but no one else. He thought he could get away with it. But God knew about his sin, and God was angry with him. God is the Judge. He says what is right and wrong, and He says stealing is wrong!

Visual 4 Picture of Achan in his tent

God punished Israel for the sin of Achan. The next city that they were to fight actually was winning, and thirty-six soldiers died! Joshua prayed to God. He asked God why He had punished them. The LORD God said, “Someone has sinned. They must be punished.” Since God is the Judge of each person, what He says and does is right.

Visual 5 Picture of Achan and Joshua

The next morning Joshua had everyone in Israel assemble outside. God revealed that it was Achan who sinned.

Visual 6 Joshua 7:20 “And Joshua said unto Achan, My son, give, I pray thee glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession unto Him.”

Achan confessed his sin, “I sinned against the LORD God. I coveted the gold and silver and hid them under my tent.” So, Joshua sent men to his tent to get the stolen items. And sure enough, they were all there. Those men took the stolen items and presented them before God. God, the Judge, told Joshua to punish Achan and all his family. Achan made himself and his whole family a curse like a bad disease!

Visual 7 I desire the fair umpire!

Group Discussion: You might wonder what happened to Moses, the leader of the Israelites before Joshua. Read Numbers 20:1-12 and answer the questions to find out!

• What happened to Miriam, Moses’ sister in the desert of Zin? (v. 1)

• What were all the Israelites complaining about? (v.2)

• How did the Israelites treat Moses? (v.3-5)

• How do you think Moses felt after his sister died and the people were mad at him?

• Who did Moses and Aaron go with their problem? (v. 6)

• What did God exactly tell Moses to do? (v.7-8)

• What did Moses do that God told him to do? (v.9-10)

• How did Moses disobey God? (v.11)

• What did God think about Moses’ disobeying Him? (v.12)

• Moses did most of what God had said. Why did God have to punish Moses? Was it really that bad?

Group Activity: Pretend you are in a court room. Pick some silly “crime” for a child to be guilty of. (Like littering or tilting the chair, laughing.) Let the teacher be the judge. Pick a jury, defendant, and prosecutors. Try the case. Tell the defendant to use bad ideas to try to be found innocent (But I’m usually a good person; My mom is rich; I can be funny).

The point of the game is to show the kids how justice works and that God is righteous and requires a payment for sin. Tell the kids that someone has to take take care of their sin, or they will be punished because God is Just.

Group Prayer: List as many sins as the children can think of. Then have each child pray 1 John 1:9 and

insert one of those sins in there for the word “sins.” “Thank you, LORD that, if we confess _________________ [insert a sin], You are faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”