Purpose: Use this children’s sermon on the Fall to teach kids that every choice we make shows our obedience or disobedience to God.
Scripture: Genesis 2:15-17
Needed: a copy of the test questions included at the end of this children’s sermon for every student (feel free to make up your own test questions as well)
Children’s Sermon
Show your stack of papers and tell students, I have a test I want all of you take today. How many of you like taking tests?
This test asks you to give the meaning to very long and difficult words. It asks you to solve very difficult math problems. It asks you hard questions about science and history. And you can’t ask anyone for help.
(Hand out the tests. Wait for some of the kids’ reactions and then read some of the questions out loud for the benefit of the congregation. When the kids can’t answer any of the questions, direct them to the last question.)
What about the last question. You can answer that one, can’t you? How did you like this test?
It was too difficult, wasn’t it? I have to tell you truth and say that I don’t know the answer to some of those questions, either.
But did you know that God gives us tests?
The first test that He gave the first man, Adam, was much easier than the test I just gave you.
(Read Genesis 2:15-17 , quoted here in the NIV.) “The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.'”
What did God tell the man not to do? (Not to eat from a certain tree.)
What would happen if the man ate from the tree that God told him not to eat from?
He would die. If the man never ate from the tree, he would live forever.
So, the first test that God gave Adam was whether Adam would listen to Him and not eat from the tree or not listen to God and eat from the tree. He could eat or not eat. Listen to God or not listen to God. That was the test.
And God gives us tests too. Every day, we have choices. Some of those choices are to listen to God or to do things that God has told us not to do. And God is watching to see what we’ll pick. He’s watching to see if we’ll obey Him or disobey Him. When we choose to listen to God, we pass the test!
The good thing is that God’s tests are easy. It’s usually pretty easy to know what God wants us to do and what He doesn’t want us to do. God’s tests aren’t difficult like the test I gave you.
So, let’s all try to listen to God all the time so that we can always pass the test.
Closing Prayer
Lord, we thank You for making Your tests for us very easy. You tell us what You want us to do and You tell us what You don’t want us to do. Help us to listen to You every time so that we can always pass those tests. In Jesus’ na,me we pray, amen.
Very Difficult Test Questions
- What does “floccinaucinihilipilification” mean?
- What does “psychoneuroendocrinological” mean?
- A person 100 meters from the base of a tree, observes that the angle between the ground and the top of the tree is 18 degrees. Estimate the height h of the tree to the nearest tenth of a meter.
- What number does “x” represent in the following equation? -0.25x + 1.3 = -0.55x – 0.2
- In what year did Queen Cleopatra die?
- What is the name of the hormone that makes people sleepy?
- How did you like this test?
You can also find this children’s sermon for Kindle or in print in my book, Children’s Sermons about the Fall and the Flood