Our God of love and mercy

All Activity Sheets

key words

thankful obey mercy

biblical reference

Genesis 6:5—9:17

lesson objective

To help the children are thankful to God for his mercy, and wish to obey him.

memory verse

“For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:23-24, NIV*).

prepare yourself to teach

The story of Noah has a special teaching for every child. For those who think that sin is not evil until they see the consequences, the story of the flood shows the seriousness of sin. This story talks about the justice of God, but also shows his great love and mercy. By God’s command, Noah was to warn people about the consequences of their sin. However, they did not want to listen. God showed his love by saving Noah and his family with the ark.

Many times the child is expected to obey simply because he must do so. Understanding what the reasons are for doing something is better than obeying just because someone orders it. Help them understand that God loves us and when we obey Him we show our love and loyalty to him.

biblical commentary

In Genesis 6:5-9:17 the emphasis of the story is not placed on a person, the flood, or the animals, but on the mercy of God and his plans for a new beginning of his creation.

Genesis 6:6 shows the intense anguish of God to see that the heart of man was inclined only to evil. He was not angry, but sad and repentant. “And the LORD repented that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart.”

Unfortunately, the human heart continued to lean towards evil, but the flood caused an irreversible decision in God. After that, he made a pact with his creation: that he would not destroy it again by covering it with floodwaters. Our God was committed to having a love relationship with his creation from the beginning, but that commitment intensified. For the first time God expressed the pain he suffered for humankind’s betrayal. But once again, we see that his love is so great that he did not completely exterminate humankind, but gave us a new opportunity.

introduce the lesson

Choose some of the following activities to complement the development of the lesson.

Repeat the phrase!

Have the children sit in a circle, and tell them: “God made a perfect world where everything there was good. Imagine with me what a perfect world would be like. I am going to start: In a perfect world, there should be...” (Much love). Have each child complete the sentence with a phrase or a word. A nearby child should then repeat the sentence as he/ she heard it but add another idea (for example, in a perfect world, there should be a lot of love and no hate).

Continue the game around the circle, allowing time for each child to repeat the phrase and add the desired words. When someone cannot remember the whole sentence, pause the game and give the necessary help.

Tell them: “When God created the world, He made everything perfect.” Then ask: “What happened that changed everything?”

Allow them time to respond, and remind them that sin came through the disobedience of Adam and Eve.

Take time to review with the children what they have learned in the previous lessons, and briefly introduce today’s topic.

teach the lesson

Gather your children to hear the Bible story, and tell them: “After the first sin of Adam and Eve, their children and grandchildren continued to disobey God. Today we are going to learn about a man named Noah and what he did.”

Try to use some visual materials when teaching the story. If you do not have printed illustrations, draw an ark on a card.

Then, get drawings or photographs of animals and use them as visual aids to illustrate the story.

Noah obeys God

After God created Adam and Eve, the number of people increased. They all lived in the world that God had created.

However as time passed, people forgot God and began to do evil. They no longer listened to the voice of the Lord, and disobeyed Him. They did things that they knew were not the right ones. That hurt God and made him feel very sad, so much so that he wished he had not created humankind.

But among so many bad people, there was a man who loved the Lord and had obeyed him all his life. His name was Noah.

One day God told him, “You are the only person of this time who lives according to my will. The others are bad and disobedient. That is why I am going to send a great flood to cleanse the earth of all evil. Build an ark of the measurements that I will give you. In it, you and all your family will be safe. You must also put in it pairs of each species of animals. In this way they will be protected from the water.”

Noah worked steadily to build the ark. When he had finished it, he put food and everything needed in it.

After all the animal pairs were inside the ark, Noah and his family took their belongings and entered there as well. Then, God closed the door of the ark and it started to rain. It rained for 40 days and 40 nights. When at last it stopped raining, the whole earth was covered with water. Noah could only see water everywhere. The only people remaining alive were those on the ark.

After many days, the water level began to fall, leaving the ark on top of a mountain. Forty days passed and Noah sent a raven outside. But, not finding a dry place, it returned to the ark. After a few days, he sent out a dove, which also returned to the ark. Noah waited another seven days and when he sent a pigeon, it returned with an olive branch in its beak. That meant that the earth was beginning to produce again.

Seven days passed and Noah sent the pigeon again, but this time it did not return because it had found dry land to live on.

When the water finally dried up, Noah, his family and the animals left the ark. God put a beautiful rainbow in the sky as a reminder of his promise that he would never again send another great flood to destroy the earth. Noah built an altar of stones and thanked God for having saved him from the flood.

connect the lesson

Ask the children: “What is the difference between Noah and the other people?” (allow some to respond) Then, read to them Genesis 6:8-9. Ask: “What are some characteristics that Noah had?”

practice the memory verse

Download Additional Memory Verse Activities PDF

Download Suggestions for Bible Memorization PDF

Divide your group into two teams, and put on the table the circles you prepared last week. Mix them, and ask that each team try to put the memory verse in order in the shortest possible time. Every time a team finishes, everyone should repeat the text aloud. Then ask that some volunteers stick the circles on the wall to keep them in a visible place for the rest of the unit.

Activity: Hidden words
Hand out Student Activity Sheet #169-A and #169-B. Help the children find the hidden words: love, obedience, goodness, hatred, sin, evil, faithfulness in SAS#169-A.
Give them time to color the marked spaces to find the hidden message.

Mural
Return to Student Activity Sheet #167-C which says PROMISE and have the children put it on the mural.

wrap-up

Pray

Ask the children to share their prayer needs. Conclude by interceding for them and thanking God for the love and mercy he has for his children.

Encourage

Encourage your children to remember that God cared for Noah because he was obedient.

Invite

Encourage them to bring guests to the next meeting, and say goodbye in praise of God.

* Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™