KId's Club - Week #3

No Idols

Matthew 22:37–39 NIV

Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

Do any of you remember last week’s memory verse which is the 1st commandment?

Exodus 20:3 NIV

“You shall have no other gods before me.

This commandment has to do with our relationship with God.

Today’s commandment also has to do with our relationship with God.

Today, I want to tell you a story about an idol.

What is an idol?

An idol is something that we make to worship. There are many religions that might have idols. It could be an statue of a person. It could be an animal, ultimately, it’s something that we make that we worship instead of God or more than God.

Our verse for today is

Exodus 20:4 (NIV)

“You shall not make for yourself an idol.

The whole verse goes like this:

Exodus 20:4 NIV

“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.

Our story comes from Exodus 32.

Now Moses had gone up on Mount Sinai to get the Ten Commandments, after a while, the people started to wonder what was happening.

Here’s how the story goes.

Exodus 32:1–8 NLT

When the people saw how long it was taking Moses to come back down the mountain, they gathered around Aaron. “Come on,” they said, “make us some gods who can lead us. We don’t know what happened to this fellow Moses, who brought us here from the land of Egypt.” So Aaron said, “Take the gold rings from the ears of your wives and sons and daughters, and bring them to me.” All the people took the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron. Then Aaron took the gold, melted it down, and molded it into the shape of a calf. When the people saw it, they exclaimed, “O Israel, these are the gods who brought you out of the land of Egypt!” Aaron saw how excited the people were, so he built an altar in front of the calf. Then he announced, “Tomorrow will be a festival to the Lord!” The people got up early the next morning to sacrifice burnt offerings and peace offerings. After this, they celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry. The Lord told Moses, “Quick! Go down the mountain! Your people whom you brought from the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. How quickly they have turned away from the way I commanded them to live! They have melted down gold and made a calf, and they have bowed down and sacrificed to it. They are saying, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.’ ”

Can you believe what happened next?

God got angry and told Moses that He planned to destroy them and that He wanted to make a great nation out of Moses.

Moses knew that God was kind and merciful so He pleaded with God that God would show mercy to the people even though they didn’t deserve it.

Finally God told Moses to go down the mountain.

Exodus 32:15–20 NLT

Then Moses turned and went down the mountain. He held in his hands the two stone tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. These tablets were God’s work; the words on them were written by God himself. When Joshua heard the boisterous noise of the people shouting below them, he exclaimed to Moses, “It sounds like war in the camp!” But Moses replied, “No, it’s not a shout of victory nor the wailing of defeat. I hear the sound of a celebration.” When they came near the camp, Moses saw the calf and the dancing, and he burned with anger. He threw the stone tablets to the ground, smashing them at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf they had made and burned it. Then he ground it into powder, threw it into the water, and forced the people to drink it.

Because God loves us so much, He wants us to love Him with all of our hearts, souls, and minds.

God is not pleased when we worship other things and make them more important than Him.

I’m sure that each of us have best friends.

Think for a minute about your best friend...

Have you ever had a time when your best friend didn’t want to hang out with you but wanted to hang out with other people instead?

How did it make you feel? …Were your feelings hurt?

Did it make you feel jealous or angry?

That’s how God feels when we love someone or something more than Him.

Can you think of something that we might put ahead of God in our lives?

Let’s pray for God to help us keep Him first.

A couple volunteers to read a

story about Amanda...

Work sheets...