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Below are the memory verses for the coming month. Each lesson will be posted as it is completed.
Below are the memory verses for the coming month. Each lesson will be posted as it is completed.
July
🐈 Sabbath, July 6th - "The Lord will watch over your life no matter where you go, both now and forevermore.” - Psalm 121:8 (NIrV) - Going Places
🐈 Sabbath, July 13th - "Like a good soldier of Christ Jesus, share in the hard times with us." - 2 Timothy 2:3 (NIrV) - Like a Good Soldier
🐈 Sabbath, July 20th - "You are my hiding place. You will keep me safe from trouble.” - Psalm 32:7 (NIrV) Baby in a Basket
🐈 Sabbath, July 27th - "My people, listen to my teaching. Pay attention to what I say" - Psalm 78:1 (NIrV).
Sabbath, July 6th
Going Places
"The Lord will watch over your life no matter where you go, both now and forevermore.” - Psalm 121:8 (NIrV)
Materials Needed: coin purse, eye glasses holder, helmet, belt, padlock, medicine bottle, etc.
[Show each item to the children. Ask them what they all have in common.] Each of these things keeps something safe. The coin purse keeps you from losing your coins. Your eyes glass holder keeps you from scratching your lenses. The medicine bottle has a safety lid to keep young children out of the bottle. Each one of these things keeps you safe. But are any of them foolproof? Can you still lose a coin? Can you still scratch your glasses? Can you still hurt your head in a crash? Yes.
Psalm 20:7 says, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.”
So when Joseph wanted his whole family to come to Egypt, to keep them safe from the famine, what do you think Jacob was thinking? He knew God had promised them the land. He might have wondered if they were walking out of God’s will if they went to Egypt. But knowing that there were still more years of famine ahead might have been a strong motivator. He undoubtedly was very eager to see the son he had thought was long dead.
Then God did something amazing. As Jacob was on the way to Egypt with the whole family and all of their possessions, God spoke to him. Genesis 46:3-4 tells us, “Then he said, 'I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation. I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again, and Joseph's hand shall close your eyes'” (Gen. 46:3–4).
This is an amazing thing! When you have a choice to make, how much would it mean to you if God appeared to you in a dream, told you where to go and then told you that He would be with you?! It would mean a lot. We trust God to lead us, to provide for us, to keep us safe, and to teach us His ways. Why does He do these things for us? Because we love Him and we demonstrate that love for Him through our obedience to His laws. Why in the world would we want to be disobedient and miss out on the blessings of God? It’s something to think about next time you have to choose whether to honor Him and obey Him - or not.
Sabbath, July 13th
Like a Good Soldier
"Like a good soldier of Christ Jesus, share in the hard times with us." - 2 Timothy 2:3 (NIrV)
Materials needed: A jar of pickles, a knife, a can opener, YE2G.7 lesson
We’ve talked a lot about Joseph and his brothers, about moving to Egypt because of the famine. But what happened next? What was the next event in the story? The Israelites were taken care of. They settled in the land of Goshen. Things were going well, right? Prosperity and security. But then, a Pharaoh came to power who didn’t know Joseph. (Exodus 1:8) How did that happen?! Joseph was renowned throughout Egypt. How in the world? Well, time has a way of erasing memory. . . and God had told Abraham in Genesis 15:13, "Then the LORD said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years.” As powerful and important as Joseph was, it wasn’t enough to last forever. And eventually, the people exchanged their freedoms for security from the state. And then, the country of Egypt decided these foreigners were a potential risk, because no matter how much they were oppressed, God blessed them and they multiplied. Eventually, Pharaoh decided to murder the baby boys of the enslaved people.
This was bad. Pharaoh told the midwives to let the baby girls live. But if it was a baby boy, the midwives were commanded to kill them as they were born. But Exodus 1:17 records that the midwives feared God and did not do as Pharaoh commanded. Exodus doesn’t tell us all the details. But can you imagine coming before the Pharaoh and having to come up with some explanation as to why there are baby boys all over the land of Goshen? The midwives had decided to obey God over obedience to the ungodly commands of the king.
That brings us to our memory verse today: "Like a good soldier of Christ Jesus, share in the hard times with us." - 2 Timothy 2:3 (NIrV)
We’re fighting a battle - every day - against the ungodly society around us. They say that it’s okay if boys decide that they are girls - or if they decide they are cats. The ungodly society says that marriage doesn’t have to be one man and one woman for life. The ungodly society says that lying is ok, if it’s for the good of the people. The ungodly society says that all of God’s laws are harsh rules that we have evolved past; we don’t need them any more. We just need to do what feels good to us. And if you happen to disagree with their view, then you are persecuted and, in some cases, prosecuted.
I propose that we stand, like the midwives of Egypt, for what is right because we fear God more than we fear the state. And we may not be able to do much, but we do what we can. And what we can do together is more than what we can do as just an individual.
I have a jar of pickles. Would you open it? It’s pretty tough, isn’t it? What if we work on it together? You hold the jar and you turn the lid. Working together we can accomplish more than we can alone. That’s what 2 Timothy 2:3 is saying. But it’s more than working together - it’s knowing whose army you are in, who you are fighting for, and then standing for what is Godly, regardless of the persecution that you may experience.
The Israelites in Egypt were in trouble. And the weird thing about being in slavery, you can’t really free yourself. You’re stuck. What was their only recourse - the only thing they could do? They cried out to God for help (Exodus 2:23-25). It wasn’t just one person, or ten people. It was the entire nation of Israel crying out to God.
In a similar way, we do what we can to live Godly lives, but we know that our only hope is the return of Jesus Christ. And so we need to be fervently praying, individually and collectively, “Thy Kingdom come.”
Sabbath, July 20th
Baby In a Basket
"You are my hiding place. You will keep me safe from trouble.” - Psalm 32:7 (NIrV)
Materials Needed: basket, stuffed lion, rainbow, fire, “As for me and my house” plaque
If I showed you a basket, what Bible character would that make you think of? (Jochebed? Moses? Paul? The spies of Jericho?) If I showed you a stuffed lion, what Bible character would that make you think of? (Daniel? saints of God? Samson?) What if I showed you a rainbow? What Bible character would that bring to mind? (Noah? Shem, Ham and Japheth?) What if I showed you fire? Who would you think of then? (Hananiah, Azariah, and Meshael?) What about the statement “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” - what Bible character comes to mind then?
Do you know what all of these Bible characters had in common? They all trusted God. Think about it! Joshua led the children of Israel into the Promised Land. At the end of his life, he warned the people that they have to quit waffling back and forth between paganism and serving God. But Joshua and his house trusted God and served Him! (Joshua 24:15) Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego (otherwise known as Hannah, Azariah, and Meshael) were going to be thrown into the fiery furnace if they didn’t worship Nebuchadnezzar’s golden idol. I love what they told him! “Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king, But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up” (Daniel 3:17-18). They trusted God even if it meant they died! Noah trusted God enough to build a boat, working on it for 100 years, in spite of the ridicule of his neighbors. Even after the flood, I would imagine he had to trust God every time it started to rain. Daniel trusted God enough to refuse to bow to the evil decree specifically designed to entrap him. He just quietly, steadfastly continued to pray to God, trusting God for the outcome. (Daniel 6:22) Jochedbed also trusted God! Here’s a tiny baby that you love very much. She put him in a basket in the Nile! What do you think the normal expectation would have been?! But she trusted God with her tiny baby boy! (Exodus 2:3)
Jesus said that we would have trouble in this world (John 16:33). How we respond to the trouble says a lot about the kind of trust we have in God. And our trust, faith, belief is vitally important. Without faith it is impossible to please God! What kind of faith do we need? We must believe that God exists and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6).
Does that mean that God will eliminate trouble from our lives? No! It does mean that He is with us and He determines the outcome. In fact, some people may experience trouble their entire lives, but this life isn’t the end of the story. This is just temporary; we’re looking for God’s kingdom where there is no more pain or sorrow or death. We have a great cloud of witnesses who encourage us to keep fighting the good fight. Trust God who is your hiding place.