God Saves Baby Moses (Exodus 1-2:10) Sunday School Lesson

Title: God Saves Baby Moses
Scripture: Exodus 1-2:10
Target Age Group: 3^rd-5^th grade
Supplies: Bibles, story sequence sheets, construction paper, glue, scissors
Optional: Baby Moses Dot-To-Dot Printable

Lesson Opening

Ask: What are some examples of times you’ve needed protection?
Ask: Who or what protected you?
Say: Our main point for our lesson today is: “we can trust God to protect us.”
Ask: When has God protected you? What kinds of things does God protect us from?
Say: Our story is about God protecting a helpless little baby. We will learn that we are a lot like the baby in the story, totally dependent on God to rescue us from danger, and especially from sin.

Tell the Story of Baby Moses

Moses’ story begins long before he was even born. Jacob and his 12 sons had settled in the nation of Egypt. Pharaoh had given them some of the best land, so their family had prospered. Eventually Jacob and all of his sons died, but their families continued to grow. After awhile a new man became Pharaoh, one who didn’t know Joseph. He saw that the Israelites were becoming numerous and he got scared. He thought for sure the people would grow in number and eventually be able to overpower him! So he came up with an evil plan.
Pharaoh’s evil plan was to have all the Hebrew baby boys killed. If there were no baby boys, they wouldn’t grow into strong men who could take over Egypt. That was Pharaoh’s way of thinking anyway. But you know what? God is bigger than Pharaoh, and stronger too! God had a plan to save a very special baby boy named Moses, who would later grow up to be a great leader of the Hebrew people.
When Moses was born his mother saw that he was a very fine baby, and she hid him from Pharaoh for three whole months. Can you imagine trying to hide a baby for that long? When Moses’ mother could no longer keep him hidden she found a reed basket and coated the inside with tar so it wouldn’t leak. She placed Moses in the basket and set him afloat on the Nile River. His big sister Miriam stood on the bank to see what would happen to him.
Ask: What sort of dangers might there have been for baby Moses in the river? (Alligators, currents, big waves, etc.)
Read from Your Bible: (Exodus 2:5-10)
Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the river bank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to get it. She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying and she felt sorry for him.
“This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said.
Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?”
“Yes, go,” she answered. And the girl went and got the baby’s mother.
Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him. When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son.
Ask: How did God protect baby Moses? (God saved him from the dangers in the river, and caused Pharaoh’s daughter to have compassion on him and save his life.)
Say: This story seems almost impossible doesn’t it? Pharaoh had issued a decree that all the baby boys were to be killed yet Moses survived.
Ask: Was there anything that Moses could have done to save himself from all the danger around him? (No way, only God could have saved baby Moses!)
 Ask: Did you know that we are a lot like baby Moses?
Say: We might not be in diapers and drink out of bottles, but we are just as helpless to save ourselves as he was as he floated down the river in the reed basket. Moses needed God to save him from Pharaoh, and we need God to save us from our sin.
Ask: What can we do to save ourselves from our sin? (Nothing!)
 Say: We are totally dependent on God to rescue us from the clutches of Satan. It’s God alone that sets us free from the sin in our hearts. He did it by dying for us on the cross. God took the punishment that our sins deserve, and now when we confess and repent of our sin we are forgiven! Just like God saved Moses, God saves us too, and we can trust God to protect us!

Review/Discussion Questions:

• How did God protect baby Moses?
• How are we like baby Moses? (We are helpless to save ourselves from sin)
• What does God protect us from? (Physical and spiritual harm, God protects us from Satan, and He saves us from our sin that would ultimately lead to death.)
• What should our response be to God’s protection? (We should thank God and submit our lives to Him.)

Learning Activity 1: Comparing the Stories

• Explain that the story of God saving baby Moses is similar to another story we read in the New Testament about baby Jesus.
• Let the kids find a partner to work with and pass out Bibles to each child. Ask one of the partners to look up Exodus 2:1-10 and the other partner to look up Matthew 2:13-18. Give them time to read each story and look for similarities and differences.
• Have the class come back together and share what they learned.

Learning Activity 2: Put the Story in Order

Supplies: Bibles, story sequence sheets, construction paper, glue, scissors

• Have the kids work in groups of 2-3 and pass out the story sequence sheets and one piece of construction paper. They will need to cut out the events from the story sequence sheet, and work as a group to put the story in order. They will glue the events in order on the construction paper.