May 15

Here are the lessons from Sunday School and Children's Church.  There are notes and questions for the 1st -5th graders and the sermon at the end of this post. 

Supported Workers for this week are the Pool's

This includes the weekly information:  Age group / Title / Theme / Passage / Memory Verse

Toddler
Building God’s House
God wants us to come together to worship Him
1 Kings 6:1-9; 2 Chron. 3:1-5:1
Ps 122:1

Kindergarten
God encouraged his people  - 
God gives us the courage to stand for Him.
Esther 3; 4
Ps 46:1 

1st Grade Sunday School
Lionlike – Courage
God’s glory is worth dying for
Dan. 6
Ps 9:10 

2nd & 3rd Grade Sunday School
Jesus surrendered to God’s Will –
Jesus Willingly died for the sins of the world
Luke 22:39 – 23:56
1 Peter 3:18 

4th & 5th Grade Sunday School
Money Wise
God expects us to manage His money to further His mission
Acts 2:40-47; 2 Cor. 8:1-9; 9:7 -15
2 Cor 8:9

Children’s Church (1st – 5th)
God’s Hard Lessons for Pharaoh
Exodus 4:27 – 10:29
Ex 3:13, 14

This morning's children's church (1st - 5th) and sermon were from the same passage
Here is the Service Video 
and the Sermon Audio

Below are some bullet point notes from my sermon notes to help families talk about the passage.  At the end of the notes are some questions for families to use as they talk with their children.

• A basic description of the plagues
• Not all 10 of the plagues are actual diseases.  The Story of God Commentary describes the plagues this way
• God is “striking” or punishing the Egyptians and Pharaoh in a variety of ways.  The most common way the Bible refers to these events is “signs” and “wonders.” 
• The first nine plagues, all involve creation in one way or another – most of them could be described as “natural disasters, which does not mean they were MERELY “natural” but rather God clearly planned his judgment on the Egyptians and Pharaoh through the realm of nature.
• The plagues are hypernatural – nature in excess – at various levels – timing, scope, and intensity.  A way to think about it in talking with your children is Creation going beserk UNDER GOD'S CONTROL.
• All 10 plagues are A SINGLE, SIGNAL ACT.  All 10 signs point beyond each plague to God’s sovereignty and power.

• But before this SINGLE, SIGNAL ACT, let’s get some context through a history lesson leading up to the plague - Genesis
• GOD CREATED the world, including man and woman.
• GOD JUDGED man and woman because of their sin.
• The sin problem continues to grow so GOD JUDGES the world with a flood.
• The sin problem continues to grow so GOD JUDGES AND SCATTERS the people from Babel.
• GOD CHOOSES to work through the patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 
• What Joseph’s brothers and others intended for harm, GOD INTENDED for good – the salvation of many people.  Remember our recent memory verse Genesis 50:20  “As for you, you meant evil against me but God meant it for good, TO BRING IT ABOUT THAT MANY PEOPLE SHOULD BE KEPT AS THEY ARE TODAY.”
• GOD GREW his people while they were in Egypt. 
• GOD PROVIDED a deliverer in Moses. 

• GOD is working things out according to his plan for his glory and our good. And the BEST GOOD in your life is that you would trust in Jesus Christ to save you and then learn to trust in God more and more

• The plagues show a battle going on between Pharaoh's will and ego and God's will and sovereignty.
• In a way this battle, not in a plague-like fashion is still going on today and it has serious consequences.
• James 4:1 asks the question “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?”  Do you remember the answer – YOUR DESIRES.  Later in that same chapter, James writes “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

Exodus 7:3-5 and 9:13-16 show three similar purposes of the 10 Plagues

1. Free Israelites – 7:3; 9:13
2. Egypt would know God. 7:5; 9:14
3. God’s name will be proclaimed in all the earth. 9:16

Two Trends/Patterns

Pharaoh's magicians inability to repeat the plagues shows “There is no one like you among the gods, O Lord.”  Psalm 86:8

•  Plagues 1 and 2  are repeated by Pharoah’s magicians but not Plague 3, which is attributed to “the finger of God.”  By the time it gets to Plague 6 they cannot even show up.  Chapter 9, verse 11 says “And the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils, for the boils came upon the magicians and all the Egyptians.”  Amid sufferings and temptations, God’s people need to remember that Christ will be victorious!

Pharaoh’s Hard Heart

 The Bible specifically says or suggests that Pharoah hardens his heart in Plagues 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7.  God hardens Pharoah’s heart in Plagues 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10.  In Visual Theology, Tim Challies show this dual cause of Pharaoh’s hard heart with the inside circles and he writes, "Pharoah progressively hardens his own heart.  He fills himself with self-confidence and determination that he is doing right and acting like the god he believes himself to be.  God progressively allows Pharaoh’s heart to become heavier and more guilty compared to the standard of what is right." 

Whether you read about the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart in Exodus or Romans 9, it is hard to understand.  But here is the bottom line:  God is sovereign and man is responsible.   This is a mystery we cannot completely understand but we must never mix these up.  

Hardening of Pharaoh’s Heart is a very specific, very tragic example of the pride of the human heart.  I can sometimes see a hardening of my heart and a discussion question from the book More Than a Story can lead to self-evaluation.

Here is the question:  What does it mean to harden your heart?

• To resist the things of God
• To be slow to confess sin
• To take His commands lightly
• To neglect time in His Word 

Back to the Purpose

This making God's name known is done many different ways but Exodus 10 and 12, refer specifically to doing this through the family.  This is NOT the children’s pastor trying to force a point into a message.

Exodus 10:1 – 2

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine among them, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am the Lord.”

God used the plagues and the hardening of Pharaoh's heart so that the Israelite children and your grandchildren would know the seriousness of sin and the awesomeness of God.

Then in Exodus 12, before the 10^th and most devastating plague, the death of the firstborn,  God established a meal to be done first to protect the Israelite families and then to help them remember what God did for them in Egypt.

Exodus 12:24 – 27

You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons forever.  And when you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service.  And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.’”

This meal was to remind them how the blood of lambs put on doorposts kept the Israelites safe.

Do we have a meal that reminds us of how the blood of THE LAMB OF GOD shed on a cross once saved those who have put their hope and trust in the Lord?

We do.  It is communion.

And as we think about what God did for us through Jesus Christ, it should make us want to glorify him and share him with our children and grandchildren.  

NIV Application Commentary states “The point of the plagues for today is not so much in what we do with it, but in having our hearts and minds opened to what God has done and thereby understand him better.  The plagues are about God. PERIOD.” 

SOME QUESTIONS FOR FAMILIES

1. What did the plagues show the people in Egypt and us today? – God’s sovereignty and power over this world. 
2. What does “God is sovereign” mean? -GOD is working things out according to his plan for his glory and our good. 
3. What are some trends you see in all 10 plagues?  Pharaoh’s magician ability and Pharaoh’s hard heart were two from the sermon but there are others.
4. What do Exodus 10:1-2 and 12:24-27 say about children?