Sunday Club 24th November 2019 (taken from Sermon4Kids)
Title: The Pharisee & the Tax Collector
Theme: Don't think too highly of yourself.
Object: "Yertle the Turtle" by Dr. Seuss.
We asked:
"Have you ever known someone who thought they were much better than everyone else and deserved special treatment? Dr. Seuss wrote a story about a turtle who was like that. Perhaps you have read the story. The title of the story is "Yertle the Turtle."
Yertle was ruler of a little pond on the island of Sala-ma-Sond. All of the turtles at the pond had everything they needed and were quite happy. They were happy, that is, until Yertle decided that his kingdom was too small. "I am ruler of all that I see, but I don't see enough. My throne is too low down" complained Yertle.
So Yertle lifted his hand and gave a command. He ordered nine turtles in the pond to stand on each other's backs so that they could become his new and higher throne. He climbed up onto the backs of the turtles and he had a wonderful view. But Yertle still wasn't satisfied. "Turtles! More turtles!" he called from his lofty throne, Yertle swelled with pride and feelings of importance as turtles from all over the pond came to climb on the stack of turtles which made up Yertle's throne.
At the very bottom of the stack was a plain and ordinary turtle named Mack. He struggled under the weight of all the turtles until finally, he decided that he had taken enough. That plain little turtle named Mack did a very plain little thing. He burped! His burp shook the throne and Yertle fell right into the mud! And now the great Yertle is King of the MUD.
When you think too highly of yourself, you often wind up taking a big fall, don't you?
In our Bible lesson today, Jesus tells a story about a man who thought he was better than everyone else.
Sarah read the Story: Two men went to the temple to pray. One of the men was a Pharisee, a religious group that was very strict in obeying the law of Moses. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: "I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else. I don’t cheat, I don’t sin, and I’m certainly not like that tax collector over there! I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of all my income."
The tax collector stood at a distance and would not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he bowed his head in sorrow, saying, "Oh God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner."
Now, which of these two prayers do you think was pleasing to God? You are right. The prayer of the tax collector. Jesus said, "The tax collector, not the Pharisee returned home justified before God. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, but those who humble themselves will be exalted."
When we are tempted to brag about ourselves, we need to remember that other people are not impressed -- and neither is God!"
Prayer: Dear Father, we pray that you would help us to remain humble so that we would not think more highly of ourselves than we ought. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Activities:
HUMBLE PIE: Each child was given 6 pieces of a pie-cut-out (of a paper plate) and had to assemble them together so that the word HUMBLE (one letter of this word on each piece of pie) was seen. Each child then tired to think of a word for each letter that would explain HUMBLE . example: Helping, Understanding, Mindfulness, Believing, Listening, Enabling; to name a few
HUMBLE PICTURE FRAME: The children assembled and decorated a frame as shown below and drew a picture to put in the frame.
HUMILTY SKIPATHON: The Children skipped to the far side of the room to get a letter for Humility from the table. They then skipped back and forth until they collected all the letters and put them in the right order.
