Purpose: Use this children’s sermon on the Tower of Babel to teach kids how to be humble and give glory to God.
Scripture: Genesis 11:1-9
Needed: instruction cards printed in different languages (provided at the end of this children’s sermon)
Children’s Sermon
Hand out the instruction cards and tell students to form a line based on the number on their card.
When they can’t do it, instruct them to sit down instead. Say, It’s difficult to work together to do something if you can’t understand your instructions, isn’t it? God made it difficult for people to work together once.
In the beginning, all the people spoke the same language. Everyone could talk with and understand each other. After Noah’s Ark and the Flood, some people wanted to build a city.
(Read Genesis 11:4 , quoted here in the NIV.) “Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
Did you hear why the people wanted to build a city and a tower? (They wanted to make a name for themselves.)
They wanted to be famous for building such a great tower.
Do you think God wants us to want to be famous?
The Bible tells us that God wants us to be humble. He doesn’t want us to think about how we’re so great. Instead, He wants us to give Him the glory because He’s so much greater than we are. No matter what we do, God has done much more. No matter how high of a tower we build, God is higher.
So, because the people were trying to make themselves seem great instead of giving glory to God, He made it so that they all spoke different languages. They were trying to build the tower, but they couldn’t understand each other to work together. They had to stop building the tower.
God made them stop working together because they weren’t giving Him the glory for giving them the ability to build a tower.
But when we are focusing on God and giving Him the glory, He does help us work together. Can you think of some ways that God helps us work together in church? (You might mention the ministries that your members work together to accomplish or the worship service itself in which the leaders and the congregation work together to glorify God.)
When we are giving God the glory, He helps us to communicate and understand each other better so that we can work together.
Closing Prayer
Father, we thank You for helping us to work together as Your Church. We pray You’ll help us not to focus on ourselves and get prideful about what we can do, but remember to give You all the glory. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
For Instruction Cards
These are the numbers 1-30 written out in Latin. If you have more than 30 students, add more Latin numbers .
unus, duo, tres, quattuor, quinque, sex, septem, octo, novem, decem, undecim, duodecim, tredecim, quatuordecim, quindecim, sedecim, septendecim, duodeviginti, undeviginti, viginti, viginti unus, viginti duo, viginti tres, viginti quattuor, viginti quinque, viginti sex, viginiti septem, duodetriginta, unusdetriginta, triginta
You can also find this children’s sermon for Kindle or in print in my book, The People Build a Tower, but God Builds a Family