Key Point – God hates pride – (What is pride? – Trusting something more than you trust Jesus.)
Memory Verse – Proverbs 29:23 23 Pride will ruin people, but those who are humble will be honored.(NCV)
God humbles the proud and gives grace to the humble.
Skit – Mr. Pride thinks that he is better than anyone else – Dressed very nicely. He walks around looking at everything and everyone. MC tries to interview the proud man but the proud man feels that he is too good to even talk to the MC. Mr. Pride eventually agrees to talk. But everything that he says has to do with looking down on others. Mr. Proud eventually has enough and must go he has talked to the “little people” for long enough. Mr. Pride walks off the stage and the MC asks the kids what was wrong with Mr. Pride, also ask if God is pleased with people who are full of pride.
Skit/Bible Story – Modern day reenactment of Rich man and Lazarus Luke 16:19-25 (please remember we don’t want to scare the kids so keep some of the details like burning flesh vague, without watering down the truth that pride separates us from God.)
Object lesson – Spell pride show how I is in the middle – Take a cardboard sign spell out pride use small letters for pr de and a very large I explain how the large I is in the middle of pride shows how pride only cares about yourself. Pride focuses on you and Humility focuses on others. God hates pride.
Object lesson – Marshmallow on a stick lit on fire puffs up then burns up. – Objects a stick, a marshmallow, and a lighter. – Explain how pride puffs up how if we are full of pride what happens is that we will eventually cause us to be separated from God. How some people don’t ever ask Jesus into their lives because they are so full of pride. Pride puffs up just like this marshmallow. How many would like to eat the marshmallow before it was burned. How many of you would like to eat it after it is burned, not many. When we become full of pride people don’t want to be around us. Sort of like the burned marshmallow that no one wanted to eat. People don’t like being around someone who has pride; but even more than that God hates pride. We must stay as far away from pride as possible.
Puppet – Puppet thinks people are most prideful in summer because the Bible says that pride comes before fall. MC clarifies that the Bible says “Before a Fall”. – The puppet is unclear at first but then begins to understand that the Bible is saying that God hates pride and if you continue to be full of pride you will eventually have a fall meaning your pride will catch up with you. God doesn’t let pride go unpunished for very long because God Hates pride. Pride has nothing to do with the time of year that it is
Small Group –
Key Point – God hates pride
MemoryVerse – Proverbs 29:23 23 Pride will ruin people, but those who are humble will be honored.(NCV)
Activity – Have kids volunteer to tell a story about a vacation they went on except they cannot say I, me, my. Have cell leader count how many times they use these words. Person with least amount of I, me, my’s gets a prize. Talk to all the kids how this was an extreme example there is nothing wrong with saying I, me, my. The problem of pride however is when we focus on ourselves more than anything else.
Questions –
- What is pride?
- What does it mean to be humble?
- What is grace?
- How does God feel about pride?
- What is humility?
- Let’s go to the Bible story. What happened to Lazarus?
- What happened to the rich man?
- What could the rich man done for Lazarus?
- Why didn’t the rich man help Lazarus?
- Who was the rich man separated from?
- What does it mean to be separated from God?
- How would that feel? – To be separated from God?
- Have “we” ever been prideful?
What should we do if we catch ourselves being prideful?