Finishing well
James 4:7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Several actors will do charades and after each act, the kids will guess what the actors are playing and what he forgot to finish.
- Dressing up, wearing pants but forgot to buckle up.
- Cooking then eating but leaving without washing the dishes nor clean up himself.
- Playing with toys, then going to bed without cleaning up their toys.
- Taking a bath, dressing up but forgot to fix her hair upon leaving the house.
After each act, ask the kids what the person forgot.
* The message *
Kids, today we are going to talk about the importance finishing well. There are a lot of stories in the bible that talks about people who didn’t finish well and today we are going to talk about King Hezekiah which is found in 2 Kings of the Bible. King Hezekiah became king when he was 25 years old, he was the greatest king of Judah has ever had because he trusted the Lord. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. Which mean he always obey what God ask him to do. Hezekiah’s father was an evil king but he didn’t follow his dad footstep nor blames anyone for what have happen to him because his trust is in God.
King Hezekiah was king for 29 years but at the end of his reign as king, he didn’t finish well. He got sick when he was old but God sent the prophet Isaiah to tell him that he will be healed but he instead of believing, he ask for many signs that God will heal him. This show that he lack faith in his God. Then when visitors visit him, he showed them his palaces, treasures, gold, silver, everything in his kingdom. God was testing his heart and it shows pride and foolishness. It was foolish because the visitors are the Babylonians which later will make war with Judah and take all those treasures to Babylon.
Today many people make that mistake. When we are successful, we tend to forget God or give glory to God. Remember the end is important, for people tend to forget the things we do in the past but only remember how we finish.
* Lead the kids in prayer *
