Purpose: Use this children’s sermon on the Passover to teach kids about how God saved the Israelites and how He saves us.
Scripture: Exodus 4:18-14:31
Needed: Items that you want to sort through to keep or get rid of, stickers or some way of marking what you want to keep
Children’s Sermon
Show children your collection of items. Explain that you’re going to throw some away, but you might want to keep the others. You’ll take their help in deciding which to keep. You can show them each item and let them vote whether to keep it or get rid of it. Those that they want to keep, you’ll mark with a sticker or by some other visible sign. When you’re finished sorting your items, remind the students that the ones you marked are those you’re going to keep.
Say, Sorting and marking those items reminds me of a Bible story.
(Summarize Exodus 4:18-14:31 with the following story.)
After God spoke to Moses out of the bush that was on fire, but didn’t burn up, He sent Moses back to Egypt to free the Israelites from slavery.
But when he got to Egypt, the wicked king Pharaoh said that he didn’t believe in God and that he wouldn’t let his slaves, the Israelites, go. He said he needed them to work!
So, God punished Pharaoh and the Egyptians. First, he used Moses to turn all the water in Egypt into blood. Then, God made millions of frogs come bother the Egyptians. Next, God made millions of flies come.
Then, God made all the Egyptians’ cows and other farm animals die as a punishment to them. Then, he made them all get sores on their body that itched and hurt.
Next, God made hail fall from the sky to destroy all the Egyptians’ farm crops. Then, He made it totally dark everywhere in Egypt except where the Israelite slaves lived.
God did all these thing to the Egyptians because they wouldn’t listen to Him and let the Israelites go out of slavery. Every time God punished the Egyptians, Pharaoh said he was sorry. He promised to let the Israelites go, but he never did. He always changed his mind.
So, finally, God brought the greatest punishment on the Egyptians. First, he told the Israelites to all kill and eat a lamb for dinner. They were to take some of the lamb’s blood and put it on the doorframe of their houses.
That night, God sent an angel through Egypt. The angel went into every house that didn’t have the blood of a lamb on the doorframe and killed the oldest child he found there. He even killed the oldest child of Pharaoh himself.
The Israelites were saved because they had the blood of the lamb on their doorframes. The blood marked them as safe, just like we marked the items that we want to keep. The Israelites called that night Passover because the angel passed over their houses.
And we know that we’re also saved from God’s punishments by the blood of a lamb. The Bible calls Jesus the Lamb of God, and He was killed thousands of years later on the same day that the Israelites celebrate Passover.
Jesus died on the cross to take the punishment for all the wrong things we do. And now, if we believe in Him, His blood, the blood of the Lamb of God, saves us from God’s punishments. It marks our hearts so that God doesn’t have to punish us because He already punished Jesus in our place. We’re saved by His blood just like the Israelites were saved by the blood of a lamb.
Closing Prayer
Jesus, we thank You for coming to die for us, to take our punishment for us. Help us to believe in You and to trust in You our whole lives. Amen.
You can also find this children’s sermon for Kindle or in print in my book, Children’s Sermons about the Exodus