Purpose: Use this children’s sermon on Noah’s Ark and the Flood to teach kids that God always gives us hope.
Scripture: Genesis 9:12-16
Needed: Picture of a rainbow
Children’s Sermon
Ask students, How many of you have ever had a bad day?
What kinds of things can happen to make it a bad day?
When you have a bad day, does that mean that the next day is going to be bad, too, or do things usually get better?
Things usually get better, don’t they?
There’s a story in the Bible about how the whole world had some bad days, but then things got better.
(Summarize the story of Noah’s ark in your own words or with the following story.)
Things in the world were very bad. Everyone’s hearts were full of evil and they were doing all the things that God hates. Only one man, Noah, and his family were living in a good relationship with God. So God decided to send a great Flood to kill all of the people who weren’t following Him. He told Noah to build an ark, or a big boat, so that he and his family could float on top of the waters of the flood. God also told Noah to take some of each kind of animal on the ark so that they could survive too.
When Noah was finished building the boat, God made it rain for 40 days and 40 nights. It rained so much that water covered the tops of the mountains. Everything on earth was destroyed except for the people and animals in Noah’s ark. That sounds like some pretty bad days, doesn’t it?
But then, the waters slowly dried up, the ark landed on top of a mountain, and Noah and his family and the animals were able to get back out. The world was new again and everything was better after those bad days.
Then, God made Noah a promise.
(Read Genesis 9:12-16 , quoted here in the NIV.) “And God said, ‘This is the sign of the covenant I am making between Me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between Me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”
(Show your picture of a rainbow.)
God made the rainbow as a reminder of His promise that He will never flood the earth again. And a rainbow is a reminder to us, too, that even when we have bad days, things won’t stay bad forever. God will help things get better for us, like a rainbow coming out after a storm.
Closing Prayer
Father God, we thank You for the rainbow. It reminds us that You will keep Your promise never to flood the earth again and it reminds us that even when we have bad days, You will always help things to get better for us. Amen.
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