This Sunday school lesson will teach how God gave David training for killing Goliath by making him a shepherd. Sometimes our lives don’t make sense, but it’s all a part of God’s training and God’s plan.

God gave David the power to do something very brave, something not even the biggest and bravest soldier in the Israeli army could not do. God gave him power to kill Goliath, a man who stood over nine feet tall.

But God gave him some special training as well. He got this training because he was a shepherd, and when he was watching over the sheep, what would happen sometimes?

David killed at least one lion and one bear with his bare hands to protect the sheep. The story goes that David would knock out the huge lion or bear with stones flung from his sling shot. But who would have ever thought that protecting sheep would be training to kill a huge bully like Goliath?

How would you feel, staring down a huge, hungry lion or bear? Scared.

Do you think David really wanted to kill lions and bears when he was just a kid or just a teenager?  If God can do anything, why didn’t He just kill the lion or bear himself ? Why did God set it up so David had to kill the lion or bear? Because he wanted David to be strong and responsible and not lazy.

What did David’s training enable him to do? It helped him to kill a giant bully.

What if the Lord had not asked David to kill wild animals to protect his sheep?  He could not have killed Goliath.

Sometimes our parents ask us to do things that seem bothersome, and we don’t understand. However, all responsibility we take now is great training for becoming a hero to others–this is one of the many lessons we learn from the story of David and Goliath.

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God and Joshua worked together to get the walls of Jericho to come down. Joshua had to lead the men who blew the horns. After the walls came down, Joshua had to lead the army in to take over the land. God made the walls tumble down.

When we work together with God, amazing things can happen. To remind us of that, we’re making our own “Jericho Horns” today.

Jericho Horns
• construction paper, one sheet for each child
• glue sticks
• marker pens
• stapler
• brown construction paper, maybe five sheets cut into little squares to make bricks.

Give each student a sheet of construction paper. You should have the word JOSHUA written in large letters at the top of each sheet, or show them how to do this if they are old enough.

The small brown squares are bricks of the walls of Jericho which they can glue on in a haphazard fashion (as if they are flying).
**Note to students: If they only glue down half of each brick, the unglued part might vibrate and add to the noise, depending on the type of paper used, once the horn is made.

Have each student roll his paper lengthwise but unevenly, so that near the mouth, there is only a very small hole, and near the opposite end there is a bigger hole. They can blow through the horns.

Sometimes we think of being strong as having lots of muscles. But one of the most important things about true strength is that true strength sees the good in everyone.  A strong heart is more important than a strong body!

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With Jesus in charge of our lives, we can look forward to someday being very big and strong Christians. With Jesus in charge of our lives, we can count on Him to do the hard work to make us strong and successful. But we have to be willing to work at being strong Christians.

When Joshua led the Hebrew army to take Jericho, one of their biggest obstacles would be to break through the big, thick walls that protected that city. However, the Lord went before them and did the toughest work Himself, which was to demolish that wall and give the army many directions from which to attack.

Jericho was the first land the Hebrews took in the forty years since they left Egypt. Now they were being told to stand up like men and fight. Sometimes following God is not easy. Sometimes we have to do what we don’t want to do in order to build our faith or build up our courage and strength. Think of some things you don’t like to do but that you have to do.

Could it be that God wants us to work when we’re tired? Why would He want that? He
knows that working when you don’t want to makes you stronger. What happens when we do things we don’t want to do because we love God? We get stronger.

Ask your Sunday school students if they have to do things they don’t want to do or are too tired to do.
Prompts:
Minding your parents’ rules, even though you might not always like them;
Standing up for God when others say that faith is silliness;
Resisting temptation to lie or steal, even tho a friend is doing that.

When you do these things, God starts working his own little miracles inside of you. Every time you resist temptation to take the easy way out and you do the right thing, you get a little bit stronger in Christ.

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After the Hebrews’ 40 years in the desert, they were finally ready to become a nation, to capture land of their own. We’ve spent the last few weeks looking at some of the Ten Commandments. God gave these to the Hebrew people while they were wandering around the desert.

The Hebrews went into the desert with Moses as former slaves who needed to learn many things in order to become strong. God gave these tasks to the Hebrew people while they were wandering around the desert. Joshua led the Hebrew army after Moses led them for 40 years through the desert.

Try this activity with your younger Sunday school students to illustrate to them how much the Hebrews had to learn before they could establish their own nation.

Growing Up Strong Game
Have children form two lines for a relay race at one end of the room.
Each child must cross the room twice before the next child can go.

Each must:

• Crawl on all fours to the other end
• Hop back one foot
• Hop to the other end on two feet
• Run to the finish and tag the next child.

If you don’t have enough children for a relay, simply time them, one compared to the next. When all have been timed, ask them how it felt to have to crawl in the beginning?Then they ‘grew,’ but were still a little clumsy. That was the hopping-on-one-foot part. Did they feel clumsy? Then, they got to hop on two feet. Did they feel a little more graceful?
And how about running for the finish line? Were you glad to be free and strong?

We can’t expect to do everything right, especially when we are little and just learning.  But Jesus helps us, and every day we get a little bigger, stronger, and more free! With Jesus in charge of our lives, we can look forward to someday
being very big and strong Christians.

Technorati Tags: Bible studies for children, Moses, Joshua, Sunday school

Before Moses got the Ten Commandments from God, the Hebrews had to walk in the desert a very long time, and it was hot. But God took care of them.

This activity is a memorial to that journey. If we put it at home somewhere where we can see it, let it serve to remind us that God takes care of us in tough times also.

Give each student a baby food jar with lid and a spoon. Put the different colored sand bags down on the table where they can share.
Show them how to spoon in different colors to make layers.
Explain:
• brown sand represents the dry ground
• green sand represents what little vegetation they could find in the desert
• blue sand symbolizes the sky and how it rarely rained
• yellow sand symbolizes the sun
• red sand symbolizes how God fed them in the desert when there wasn’t any food
• white sand symbolizes God Himself and how he always watches over us

Note: For sand projects, it pays to put newspaper down under the work table.

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We want children to understand that God has established right from wrong, and we should keep his commands in our hearts.

Ask your Sunday school students if their mom and dad have rules for their house? What are some of the rules that their parents have that they’re supposed to follow? Let children list some, like brushing teeth before bed and saying grace before eating.

God has rules, too.  These rules help us to know Him better. God likes good and doesn’t like bad, like when people hurt each other or hurt Him.  He gave us the rules so we know right from wrong and so that we would know what He likes and doesn’t like.

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Children tend to “live in the now,” meaning they don’t worry about dinner until they start to feel hungry. “Mom or Dad will take care of it,” they think. Hence, they might be surprised to hear how fast the Israelites started to grumble at Moses with things like, “What will we eat out here in the desert?”

The Israelites were so happy for their freedom, and then they got unhappy really fast when they thought God wouldn’t give them anything to eat.How quickly they forgot that  God had freed them by throwing back the waters of the Red Sea. Soon after, they were complaining because they didn’t have food. God provided the food, and they tried to save it. When it spoiled, they were unhappy again.

Ask your students to draw a picture of something they want very badly. They should write at the bottom when they expect to get this thing (tomorrow, next week, next birthday, next year). It’s hard for us to remember what we have when there’s something we want. But guess what? There’s always something we want. However, when we forget what we already have, our feelings start to sink.

You can use a  bottle of bubbles and bubble blower to illustrate this point. Point out that sometimes the things we want are like bubbles. They shoot out into the air and look very fun and beautiful. Blow again, tell the children not to break them, and watch them get close to the ground. When we’re not grateful enough, and when we’re not patient enough, our desires burst, like the bubbles. Most of our desires are short term. We often get the item and then stop caring about it because something else gets to be a want. Then we want that new thing.

Teach them to ask God to help them be patient for the thing they want on the other side. And help them to accept His will, if you think we will lose interest in it quickly or you have an even better plan in mind!

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If we’re going to trust God to take our problems and work with us to be free and happy, we first have to believe that he hears our prayers. Here is The Listening Game to help your students understand God hears our prayers.

Show everyone six items:

• A quarter, spoon, ping pong ball, a small book, your car keys, and a plastic hanger.
• Have everyone sit in a circle facing outward or sit with their heads down on a table.
• Take turns dropping the items.
• When it makes its noise, ask: Was it the quarter, spoon, ping pong ball, book, car keys or hanger?

Go through every item, showing them after each turn that they were correct, then have them put their heads down again.

All our voices are different, and all our “Red Sea Problems” were different. But just like we know the sounds of different things, God knows the sound of each of our voices. We can believe he hears us and wants to help us be free.

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Through studying one of the greatest miracles recorded in the Bible, they can see that God is capable of anything, and in that, we can have hope for eternity.

We don’t have to run through a Red Sea today to escape bad armies! Still, we have “Red Sea” days in our lives. These are times when we could really use God’s help with something—we want something in our lives to change.

The Hebrews didn’t want to be slaves anymore. They wanted to be free and happy. Ask your students what is it that they want to be better or to change? Have your Sunday school students sit at the tables and, depending on their ages, either write down or draw something in their lives that they don’t like, that they would like to see changed.

Some triggers you might suggest are:
• We only have one bathroom in our house. I would like more.
• My big sister never lets me go anywhere with her. I want to do more things with her.
• I don’t have enough socks, but Mom says we can’t afford to buy anything now.
• My parents fight a lot, and I want things to be peaceful.
•  Nobody wants to sit with me at lunch at school, and it embarrasses me.

After crossing the Red Sea, the Hebrews had quite a long journey ahead of them.  Just like the Hebrews sometimes we don’t get rid of our challenges right away, but like the Hebrews, we can have hope because God can do anything.

During this lesson, we learn how to give a problem to God, and what that feels like in our hearts. If we’re looking to change a “Red Sea” problem in our lives, sometimes it helps to find a friend who will pray for us, too.

All our voices are different, and all our “Red Sea Problems” were different. But just like we know the sounds of different things, God knows the sound of each of our voices. We can believe he hears us and wants to help us be free.

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The Bible lesson they should start learning as early as possible, as exemplified through the journey, is that God uses normal people to do extraordinary things. Moses thought of himself as “just another man” who had actually done some bad things. But God looked at his willingness and his heart, and not at his appearance or his flaws. Therefore, we should feel confident that God cares about normal people like us. He watches over us and gives us messages, too.

Ask your students if any of them ever think it would be very cool to do something BIG for God someday? We don’t have any slaves in Egypt to lead away these days. But how about if God told you that you could feed a whole starving country or develop a cure for a terrible disease when you grew up? How would you feel about that?

Activity:
Give each child  three sheets of construction paper: orange and red and green. Have them place the red sheet directly under the orange sheet. Either draw for them or have them draw a giant flame. The flame should be big enough to take up most of the sheet. They should cut both sheets at the same time in the shape of the flame.
The green sheet should be a bush or treetop shape, which they can cut out.

You can use an orange juice lid to create the circles. The treetop should be big enough to take up most of the sheet. Put one flame sheet on either side of the treetop sheet. Using glue sticks, glue them together at the bottom.

Take two popsicle sticks and run glue down one side of each. Then place the sticky sides on either side of the flame/bush so that approximately two inches of the stick is pasted to the construction paper sheets, and the rest is pasted to the other stick.

Allow the students to fan themselves with the burning bush to let them know that God’s fires didn’t burn the bush, and it won’t burn them. They should put the burning bush in their rooms at home to remind them that God likes to speak to them in prayer, too.

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