Essential Gospel Truth #1

#1) God is Sovereign Creator of all things.

Suggested Verses: Isaiah 44:24, Psalm 19:1, 24:1, 22:8

Explanation to children: "There is a living, eternal God who created all things. Eternal means that God had no beginning and will have no ending. God was never born. He never had a birthday. He has always been alive and will always be alive. God will never die. And this one, eternal God made everything – all by Himself. God made the sky and the stars and the ground and the trees and the plants and the animals and all the people. God can do this because He is an almighty God. This means God is all-powerful and nothing is too hard for Him to do

Because God made everything, everything belongs to God. That means that God owns all of the rocks, trees, stars, oceans, plants, and people – everything! God is also the sovereign ruler over all that He has created. That means that God is “the boss”. He is the King of His creation and He controls it and rules over it."

Illustration: (Use child’s contact with the created world-see, smell, touch, taste & hear)
• Seeing a Rainbow: Instead of- “oh, that’s pretty” Say- “God created rainbows to show us how beautiful he is.”
• Thunder: “God created that thunder to show us a little bit of how powerful he is.”
• Favorite pizza: “God created that pizza because he wants to show us how good he is.”
• Hugs: “God gave you a mommy & daddy and that hug is to show you how loving God is”
• Playing with the puppy: “God created your dog to play to show you that God is a happy God”

(Use opportunities like that to show how great God is through what he’s created)

Further Illustrate that God has a rightful rule over his creation:
Box of crayons Activity (Younger child): Give them crayons & say, “Why don’t you draw a picture of something. You choose whatever you want to draw.” As they start drawing put your ear to the crayon box & say “Wait a minute Sarah. Stop drawing. You know what? The crayons are saying to me that they don’t want to be a puppy.” The child will look at you strange. You say “ I think your crayon should decide what your picture is going to look like-not you…..Is that right? Who should decide how the picture will look? The crayons or the child who is drawing the picture?” *This can help our children understand everything belongs to God so it’s right for God to decide how his creation is going to look. He owns everyone, he owns everything, he is the boss-not us.

Baking cookies (Older kids) - As they are adding ingredients you can do the same thing. “You know I think these chocolate chips would rather that they not have the flower and sugar in there. I think it would be better if we let the chocolate chips decide how they will be baked” The child will look at you and think “What in the world are you talking about? Who is going to decide what goes in the chocolate chip cookies? The baker or the ingredients?”
*Use this kind of obvious illustration to say “that’s something like understanding that God is the sovereign ruler of his creation. He decides what is true and right. He decides what his world will look like.”

Finally we don’t stop there. We give the Implication: God created YOU. YOU belong to God and it is right that God rules over you.

Just want to tell you guys again. This was taken from Jill Nelson's "Presenting the Gospel to Children" from www.childrendesiringgod.com. If you'd like to hear all 10 of the Essential Gospel truths right now, go there. But I'd love to hear what you think about this one. Tomorrow I'll post Essential Truth #2 which is God Created People for His glory. I look forward to sharing and also seeing what you guys think!