‘Hope When it all Goes Wrong’ Childrens Lesson on Joseph

BIG IDEA: I CAN HAVE HOPE WHEN THINGS GO WRONG

AIM: The aim of the ‘Hope When it all Goes Wrong’ Childrens Lesson on Joseph is to help children to see that although sometimes things go wrong, and it isn’t our fault, we can always have hope in God.

SONG IDEAS: 

1. ‘Free’ by Uncle Charlie
2. ‘I Am Free’ by Shout Praises Kids
3. ‘Break Every Chain’ by Kids Praise Company

GAME IDEAS:

1. Jail Break. (regular/widescreen) You will need: dodgeballs or foam balls and cones. Divide into two teams, each team has a jail area. Everyone lines up behind their boundary line, then a leader shouts ‘go’ and everyone runs to grab a ball from the centre of the room. Both teams throw the balls at one another. If a ball hits you below the shoulders you go to the opposing team’s jail. If you hit someone above their shoulders you go to your opponent’s jail. Teams can take balls out of their jail if nobody is a prisoner. Otherwise you must get a ball from inside your boundary line.To get out of jail, you can grab a ball that is thrown into jail. Once you have grabbed a ball from the jail you can go to your own team’s area before you become ‘live’. This is a never ending game, unless your whole team is jailed! Variations: If a leader shouts ‘jail break!’ everyone is released back to their own sides.  Otherwise you could have everyone in jail remains there, but can still use their balls to throw at their opposing team from behind.
2. Kick The Can. (regular/widescreen) A can is placed in an open space and children go and hide. A player is ‘on’ and goes looking for the other children. If they get found they must race to kick the can first. If the original player kicks the can, the hider placed in an area designated as a jail. If the hider kicks the can everyone is released from jail and the player that is ‘on’ begins again.
3. Prisoner Of War. (regular/widescreen) Teams choose a prisoner who will go to their opposing team’s jail. The object is to free their prisoner by going through their opposing team’s area. However, if they are tagged before they reach and rescue their friend, they will join the prison also. A rescuer can only rescue one prisoner at a time.

ICE BREAKER: What is the best thing you have ever achieved?

BIG VERSE: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13.

(regular/widescreen)

God of Hope Bible Cards

 

DRAMA: Access the fun ‘When it All Goes Wrong’ drama here.

 

SET the Scene:

If you are using Star Wars clips to link into the overall theme you could use the ‘Finn and Rose escape Prison’ scene from the Last Jedi.

Read Genesis 39. Remind the children that at the beginning of Joseph’s life he was perhaps ‘showing off’ when he told his brothers about his dream. They hated him because he was the favorite, and he gave a bad report about them to his father, Jacob. Yet in this part of his story, Joseph doesn’t seem to do anything wrong.

You could use the ‘Joseph Works for Potiphar’ video by Faith Kids Story Videos.

REVIEW QUESTIONS:

1. How did Potiphar get Joseph to work for him? (He bought him)
2. What happened to Joseph when he came to Potiphar’s house? (He became successful)
3. When Joseph became successful, what did Potiphar do? (Put him in charge of everything – except his food)
4. What did the Lord do to Potiphar’s house? (He blessed it)
5. Who wanted to be close to Joseph? (Potiphar’s wife)
6. Why did Joseph not want to be close to her? (Because she was Potiphar’s wife and not Joseph’s)
7. What happened when Joseph tried to run away from her? (She grabbed his coat)
8. How did Joseph get thrown into prison? (Potiphar’s wife lied about Joseph and Potiphar believed her)
9. Did the prison warden hate Joseph? (no, he liked him)
10. What did he do for Joseph? (Put him in charge for all that was done in the prison)
11. Who caused the prison warden to like Joseph and to make him successful? (The Lord God)

 

SPOT the Simple Meaning:

1) SOMETIMES WE DO RIGHT AND EVERYTHING GOES WRONG

Encourage your kids to give you some feedback on these questions. Use a photo on the screen to talk about each question. 

What would you do if:

1. Your teacher accused you of cheating on a test, but you didn’t cheat.
2. Your friend called you a liar, but you didn’t lie.
3. Your family said you broke a family heirloom (a family treasure), but you never did.
4. Your brother or sister said you stole their toy/tablet/phone, but you didn’t.
5. Your coach said you tripped someone up, when it wasn’t you.

Say: When Joseph is sent to Potiphar’s house he does everything right. Everything is going really well for him! Have you ever had a really good week where everything goes right and you do really well? [Get feedback]

Sometimes we can do everything right and it all still seems to go wrong! Joseph did everything right in Potiphar’s house. He was successful and did everything to please God. Yet Potiphar’s wife said that Joseph had tried to get close to her, when he never did! She lied! Joseph knew she was Potiphar’s wife and not his, so he tried to stay away from her. Yet Potiphar’s wife wanted to be close to Joseph. She took Joseph’s coat and told lies about Joseph to her husband.

Has something like that ever happened to you? [Get feedback] Has someone ever lied about you? [Get feedback] You may have felt like shouting ‘It wasn’t supposed to be this way! Why has it all gone wrong? It wasn’t me! I didn’t do anything wrong!’ I’m sure this is just how Joseph felt.

You see, sometimes we can do everything right. Live right, think right, speak right and act right – and things can still go wrong for us. Yet we don’t need to lose hope! We can still do what’s right.

 

2) GOD ALWAYS DOES WHAT’S RIGHT

RIGHT OR WRONG? (regular/widescreen) Get children to run to sides of the room marked ‘wrong’ or ‘right’ according to what they think if the statement is morally wrong or right to do. (For some there may not be a right or wrong answer – depending on the circumstance – which makes great discussion!)

1. You hit someone because they hit you first.
2. You steal someone’s favorite pen because you liked it.
3. You decide not to talk to a child in class because they smell. [Note to leader: a great opportunity to talk about bullying]
4. You tell your parent/guardian you will never tidy your room.
5. You help an old lady cross the road.
6. You tell your opponent you have a different name and age when playing against them on a computer game. [Note to leader: a great opportunity to talk about safety online and on video games]
7. You tell someone they cannot play with you on the playground.
8. You throw a pen at your teacher’s head during class, but she doesn’t see it was you.
9. You give your sister her favorite candy as a present.
10. You lie about where you are going to a stranger. [Note to leader: a great opportunity to talk about stranger danger]

 

Application:

Say: Well, why should I bother doing what’s right if sometimes things will just go wrong anyway? There doesn’t seem much point?! Do you think I should always try to do the right thing? [Get feedback] I guess it’s good to do what’s right and it helps other people.

Do you think God ever does anything that is wrong? [Get feedback] God always does the right thing. He always helps, always loves and always protects. He is a God who always does what’s right – no matter what.

So if we want to be like our perfect God – our righteous God – our God who always does what’s right, we need to do what’s right too. Do you think Jesus did what was right in coming to live in the world? [Get feedback] Do you think he always lived right? [Get feedback] Well, I do! I believe He lived perfectly, never doing anything wrong. He was God and chose to do the right thing. Yet it all went seemed to go horribly wrong for him! Things turned bad. He was killed for never doing anything wrong. Jesus is God’s Son and He chose to always do what is right.

God always does what is right, so I always want to do what is right too!

 

3) I CAN HAVE HOPE THAT GOD WILL MAKE THINGS RIGHT

You could invite the children to stand up or sit down depending on whether they think something is fair or not as they answer the questions below.

Is it fair?

1. A girl gets paid less for the same job a boy does.
2. A person gets sent to prison for something they didn’t do.
3. A child in a poor country wants to go to school but doesn’t have the money or a car to get there.
4. Someone is being bullied for having a different colored skin.

Say: Sometimes unfair things happen in life. Things go wrong and people are treated badly; unfairly. When people decide to do the morally wrong thing – something in their hearts they know is wrong – it means people can be treated unfairly.

Joseph was treated badly and unfairly. Potiphar did not treat him right. Joseph wasn’t allowed to tell the truth about what happened with Potiphar’s wife… nobody wanted to listen to him. Sometimes unfair things happen to us and to others. We have a choice about what we do and how we react. If we will do the right thing or not.

Not everything is going to go right in this lifetime, some things may stay unfair. Why? Because people aren’t perfect and sometimes they do wrong and bad things. For some things to change we will have to wait until heaven. For other things, we can start to speak up for what is fair and right. We can show people what we believe God thinks about those things. God will make all things right; either in this life or when we get to Heaven. Why? Because He is righteous and He reigns over everything.

So when it looked like everything went wrong for Jesus, God made it right. He used the cross and Jesus’ horrible death to help us to be made right with God so that we can be His friends. He used it for good. God also used everything that Joseph went through to help make things right in the end – you’ll see that at the end of his story!

You see, God can turn everything around! He can do anything. We can have hope that He will make things right. All we need to do is never lose hope – keep expecting that He will do what He has promised!

 

SEARCH the Scriptures:

People that are treated unfairly in the Bible:

Abel: Cain kills his brother Abel, but Abel hasn’t done anything to deserve being killed.

Joseph: Joseph was thrown into prison when he did nothing to deserve such a punishment.

Job: Job’s friends all thought it was his fault and blamed him when things went wrong in his life, yet God said he was a righteous man.

Israelites: The Israelites were made slaves when their nation became too big. They were beaten and treated badly as slaves for doing nothing.

Jesus: Jesus was whipped and nailed to a cross when he didn’t do anything wrong.

Preparation: Prepare some strips of paper with the names of people in the Bible that were unjustly treated. Do this for each group that will play the game. Create a paper chain with mostly blank links and put the strips of paper in to make some of the links as you go along.

Break Every Chain. (regular/widecreen) Children must take turns to run up to their paper chain and break one link off it, then run back and tag the next team member. If they find a link with a Bible name on it they must run back with the link. The first team to find all six links with Bible names are the winning team.

Discuss how each of the people in the Bible was treated badly and unfairly.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. Have you ever been treated unfairly or seen someone treated that way?
2. What can we do when people are treated unfairly?
3. What kind of attitude should we have when we are treated unfairly?
4. Does God care when people are treated unfairly? Why/why not?
5. How was Jesus treated unfairly?
6. What does the Bible say about caring for those that have been unfairly treated?

 

SENSE How You Feel:

Encourage the children to think about what it would have been like for Joseph inside the prison, by asking them:

How would you feel to be stuck in prison?

1. Using the Joseph in Prison create a picture of Joseph behind bars using popsicle sticks or wool/yarn or chenille sticks/pipe cleaners.
2. Fill in/color the activity booklets for 5-7s and 8-11s.
3. Make a prison snack by using crackers and icing or cheese spread with bread sticks or thin pretzels around the sides. Then place a Haribo bear inside.
4. Build Joseph in a prison cell using Lego or building blocks.
5. Mould Joseph in a prison cell using play dough or clay.

 

SEEK God:

1. Pray for all those that are being treated badly by others. Create a chain circle using staple-less paper chains and remind the children that we are all connected to one another, especially as the family of God; the Church. We can pray for those that are treated unfairly and believe that God will help them.
2. Thank you Jesus that you were willing to be treated unfairly for us. Create a cross and have children put post it notes of thanks on it.
3. Please help me to treat others right.
4. Please help me have a good attitude when I am treated unfairly, but also to stick up for the right things.