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David: Trying to Help God

Unit 11 / Lesson 3

David: Trying to Help God

Slides for the Lesson

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Teacher's Prep

  • Games

    • Three Legged Race

      • Materials:

        • A roll of duct tape and a roll of toilet paper (the toilet paper can act as a barrier to prevent the duct tape from damaging clothing or skin)

        • Scissors to cut the duct tape at the end of the race

      • If unfamiliar with the game, you can watch this video to see what it is like:

    • The Zoom Out Game

      • Show these two YouTube videos:

      • Note: a large screen TV or projector is ideal for this game. In the absence of a large screen that everyone can see, a laptop might do for a small group, or maybe you can use several smartphones in the case that there are lots of helpers present and they can all start the video at the same time.

    • Marshmallow and Toothpick Tower

      • Approximately 100 toothpicks and 100 mini marshmallows per child.

      • Have tables available for children to build on. Alternatively, they can build on the floor.

  • Main Activity (Making Pizza)

    • A convenient way to prepare for this activity is to buy a pizza kit which includes pizza dough and all the toppings. They leave the assembly and baking to you. You might be able to find pizza kits at Walmart or Superstore.

    • Alternatively, you can DIY your own pizzas with sliced bread as a base. You would need to provide cheese, tomato sauce, and toppings and have them ready for assembly. You may be able to save time by buying shredded cheese and sliced pepperoni at your local supermarket.

    • You will need an oven and baking sheets if you are using raw dough. On the other hand, it may be possible to make a cold pizza, or a microwaved pizza entirely out of ready-to-eat ingredients.

    • For the general concept of how to make a pizza, you can watch this short YouTube video from 1:25 to the end (about 1 minute total):



Intro 

SLIDE 1

  • Gathering

    • How was your week?

    SLIDE 2

  • Intro Game: Three Legged Race

    • Instructions

      • We'll start our time with the three-legged race! All of you will have a partner, and one of your legs will be taped to your partner's leg so that you can only move that leg together if you want to move forward.

      • Your first job is to find a partner and then we'll tape your legs so you can walk together. You can practice a bit. Once we're all ready, we'll all try to walk across the room, and then we'll try to do another race where we go around the room.

      • Teacher:

        • Fasten legs together as seen in the video at the top of this lesson plan. In the absence of special velcro bands, you can use duct tape in multiple layers, and for sensitive clothing or skin, you can put tissue paper as a barrier to prevent damage. Give the children some time to practice. 

        • Line everyone up and have them race from one wall to the other. 

        • Then, have them do a relay race around the room where they start off touching a chair. Their goal is to touch the three other chairs and come back to the chair where they started. For the relay race, you can start up to four pairs at a time in different corners, and they can all move in one direction around the room (clockwise or counterclockwise)

        • At the end of the game, praise them for their efforts, cut off their duct tape bands and have them sit back in a circle.

    • Debrief

      • We played this game because it gets us thinking about our friendship with God. The Christian life is one big long friendship with God, where we are with Him all the way.

  • Relevance

    • It might feel like we're partners with God; for example, He helps us, and we help Him. That's how it might feel, but it's not really that way. God definitely helps us and He does a lot for us, but, it’s good to ask, “What can we do for God?”

    SLIDE 3

  • Big Question

    • Our big question today is:

      • What can we do for God?

  • Big Idea

    • We’ll see our big idea in our Bible story. We’ll see that:

      • 1. God doesn't need our help, but

      • 2. If we do our best for God, He will do amazing things for us.

    SLIDE 4

  • Bible Reference

    • Let's watch the cartoon version of our Bible story. It’s based on 2 Samuel 6 and 7.

    • Teacher: show this YouTube video from 3:52 to 6:45:


Point 1

  • Our first point is, God doesn't need our help.

    SLIDE 5

  • Game: The Zoom Out Game

    • Instructions

      • We'll start this point with a game! It's a picture guessing game on the TV. We’ll be looking at a whole bunch of things that are zoomed in, and the longer we watch, the more they will zoom out. As a class, let's try to guess the right answer as quickly as we can. For every picture you can only guess once. If you guess wrong, you'll have to wait for someone else to get the right answer.

      • Teacher: show these videos:

    SLIDE 6

    SLIDE 7

    • Debrief

      • In this game we played, we all started off not knowing what we were looking at. We did our best, helped each other out, and eventually we got the right answers. That’s the right way to work with other people. But it’s different when we’re working with God.

    SLIDE 8

    • If God were on your team, He wouldn't need your help because He already knows all the answers. It would be like that with any game that you play. If you were trying to build a tower and God were on your team, He could build it by Himself and wouldn't need your help. No matter what we are doing with God, He doesn’t need our help.

  • Bible Reference

    SLIDE 9

    • That's what King David had to learn in our Bible story. Let's read from the Bible.

    • 2 Samuel 7:1-7 (International Children's Bible)

      • 1 King David was living in his palace. And the Lord gave him peace from all his enemies around him. 2 David said to Nathan the prophet, “Look, I am living in a palace made of cedar wood. But the Ark of the Covenant of God is still kept in a tent!” 3 Nathan said to the king, “Go and do what you really want to do. The Lord is with you.” 4 But that night the Lord spoke his word to Nathan. The Lord said, 5 “Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord says: You are not the person to build a house for me to live in. 6 I did not live in a house when I brought the Israelites out of Egypt. I have been moving around all this time with a tent as my home. 7 I have continued to move with the tribes of Israel. But I have never asked their leaders who take care of them to build me a house of cedar wood.’

  • Explanation

    • I’ll explain what we just read.

    SLIDE 10

    • David really loved God, and God had given David the best of everything. When David was very young, God promised him that he would be the king of Israel. After that, God took care of him. Even when people were trying to hurt David, God made sure that David was always okay.

    SLIDE 11

    • Finally, David became king, just as God had promised him.

    SLIDE 12

    • David lived in the best house in the whole country. It was a really big house called a palace, and it was filled with servants who did everything for him. The palace was made of the best wood that a person could buy, which was cedar wood. Cedar wood was strong, and it looked good and it even smelled good. 

    SLIDE 13

    • But, then, David thought about the place where people went to worship God. Back then, they didn't have a church building like we do. Their place of worship was a big tent. The tent was hundreds of years old, and it was probably falling apart.

    • David thought, "This is not right. Why do I get to live in a nice house, and God only gets an old tent?"

    SLIDE 14

    • So David made a plan to build a house for God. 

    • But his friend Nathan passed on a message from God. The message was that God didn’t need a house.

    SLIDE 15

    • God didn’t need a house when He rescued Israel from Egypt, or when He split the sea in two so that the Israelites could walk through it. God didn’t need a house when He was taking care of David from the time that David was little. God just didn’t need David’s help.

  • Application

    • That's how it works for us. God doesn't need our help. Because of that, you might be wondering: why does God tell us to do things if He doesn’t need anything from us? 

    • The answer is that it's kind of like when your parents tell you to eat your vegetables, brush your teeth and not watch so much TV. We're not helping our parents when we eat our vegetables, but when we listen to them,

    SLIDE 16

    • we will be healthier and happier, and that makes our parents happy. That’s what it’s like for us and God. We don’t help God by doing what He says, but we will be healthier if we do what He says, and it makes God happier if we are healthy.

  • Discussion Question

    SLIDE 17

    • Let's pause for a discussion question:

      • In your imagination, what is God like?


    Point 2

  • Our second point is, if we do our best for God, He will do amazing things for us.

    SLIDE 18

  • Marshmallow and Toothpick Tower

    • Instructions

      • We'll start this point with another game! We'll be making towers out of marshmallows and toothpicks. Your goal in this game is to build the highest tower you can in the time I give you.

      • Let's get into groups of 2 or 3, and you'll all get some toothpicks and marshmallows. Then you can work together as a team to build a tall tower.

      • Teacher: put toothpicks and marshmallows at each table for easy access. Give the children ten minutes to build, using discretion to shorten or lengthen the construction time as necessary. When the time is up, go around and praise each team for their work, and for the cleverness of their strategies.

    • Debrief

      • In this game, we needed to keep in mind what marshmallows are like and what toothpicks are like. Toothpicks are really strong, but they can't stick together by themselves. Marshmallows are soft and squishy, but they can stick things together. That's just the way they toothpicks and marshmallows work. So, if we want to build a great tower, we need to remember what toothpicks do and what marshmallows do, and we need to work with them just the way they are.

      • Our friendship with God is like that too. God is a tiny bit like the marshmallows and toothpicks, because we didn't make the marshmallows and toothpicks, and we didn't make God either. He has always been there.

    SLIDE 19

    • But, when we remember what God is already like and we try to do things His way, He will do amazing things for us.

  • Bible Reference

    • That's what we see in the second half of our Bible story. Let's read what God told Nathan to say to David:

    SLIDE 20

    • 2 Samuel 7:8-11 (International Children's Bible)

      • 8 “You must tell my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord of heaven’s armies says: I took you from the pasture when you were following the sheep. I took you to become leader of my people, the Israelites. 9 I have been with you everywhere you have gone. I have defeated your enemies for you. I will make you as famous as any of the great men on the earth. 10 Also I will choose a place for my people, the Israelites. I will plant them so they can live in their own home. They will not be bothered anymore. Wicked people will no longer make them suffer as they have in the past. 11 Wicked people continued to do this even when I appointed judges. But I will give you peace from all your enemies. I also tell you that I will make your descendants kings of Israel after you.

    • Skip to verse 16

    • 2 Samuel 7:16

      • 16 But your family and your kingdom will continue forever before me. Your rule will last forever.’”

  • Explanation

    • When David wanted to build a house for God, God knew what David was thinking, that David was trying to honor Him out of a good heart. God liked the way that David was trying his best for Him.

    SLIDE 21

    • God said to David, "you won't build me a house, but I will help you with YOUR house! I’ll keep doing things for your family who lives at your house, and I will make sure your family will always have the house of the king."

    • That was an amazing promise! 

    • In the end, David couldn't help God, but God liked the way David tried his best for Him, and He helped David even more.

  • Application

    • That's how it works for us too. We can't help God, but He likes it when we try our best for Him. When we do our best for Him,

    SLIDE 22

    • He will give us more than we could ever give to Him. The Bible says that someday we will even rule with God like kings and queens. Our Bible story is not just about a guy named David who lived a long time ago, it is also about us.

    SLIDE 23

  • Discussion Question

    • Let's pause for a discussion question:

      • What is one way you can try your best for God?


SLIDE 24

Conclusion

  • Let’s wrap up our lesson by going over the big ideas again.

  • Our big question today was: what can we do for God? 

    • Today we learned that God doesn't need our help, but if we do our best for God, He will do amazing things for us.

  • Our big ideas were:

    • 1. God doesn't need our help, but

    • 2. If we do our best for God, He will do amazing things for us.


    SLIDE 25

    Main Activity: Making Pizza

  • Today for our main activity, we are making pizza!! Making pizza can help us remember our lesson better. We can remember that we didn't make the things that go into the pizza, and we didn't make the oven. God gave us all these things as a gift. He has always taken care of us, and He doesn't need our help. However, we also have a part in His plan. We need to do our best for God, and God will do amazing things for us.

  • Now let’s see how pizza is made:

  • Teacher: play this YouTube video from 1:25 to the end (about 1 minute of video to show):

  • Teacher: lead in pizza making.

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