The Ugly Truth about Wrath

The Ugly Truth about Wrath
From A to Z, there are words in the Bible that many of us can’t pronounce.  Need some examples?  Here you go:  Artaxerxes and Zerubbabel.  That’s just one A and one Z… think of all the others in between!  In addition to the brain-boggling task of deciphering some terms in God’s Word, there are also those words that we just don’t understand.

These words are easily pronounced for most anyone.  We can read a definition in the dictionary or a Bible commentary.  We may even have some way of defining it in our own words, but do we really understand them?  You know the words…wrath, justice, judgment…just to name a few.  Do we really understand God’s wrath, tempered with grace? 

Wrath was the topic of last Sunday’s lessons for our elementary kids.  Kids understand anger.  Just imagine the sea of hands raised when I asked if anyone had ever been mad at a brother or sister.  And…I won’t tell you how many kids (unsolicited) wanted to tell how mom or dad showed wrath! 

Wrath is a word that is not talked about a lot in children’s ministry.  God is loving.  God is kind.  God is powerful.  Kids “get” a God that is loving, kind, and powerful, but looking at a God Who is also capable of great anger is a little harder. 

The ugly truth about wrath is that…well, it’s Truth.  The Bible is chockfull of times when God’s wrath was “poured out.”  This makes us uncomfortable so we skip over those stories.  The reality is that we shouldn’t skip over anything that gives us a better understanding of God’s character, including the parts that make us scratch our heads or shift in our seats. 

Look at those stories where God’s wrath was poured out.  What is He mad about?  Sin. God is holy so therefore He cannot tolerate anything that is unholy. 

It was explained this way to children…
Imagine that you created something perfect and wonderful.  You loved your creation so much that you wanted to hang it on the refrigerator so you could enjoy its beauty every day.  Now imagine that a big, hairy, nasty, slobbering (they loved that part) monster rips it off the fridge, tears it up, stomps on it, and then takes it outside to roll it in the mud.  How would you feel? Mad!

Now, think about what happened to God’s world…
He created a perfect world and put His most prized creations right in the middle of it.  He said, “This is very good.”  He wanted to spend time with His creations, and enjoy the beauty of what He’d created.  Enter the big, hairy, nasty, slobbering monster- sin.  The enemy and sin are all about destroying God’s creation.  How does God feel?  Mad! That is what God’s wrath is about.  He is mad at sin, BUT He is kind (in the form of grace) to us. 

Wrath is ugly, but it’s Truth worth exploring.  When we better understand what God’s wrath is about, we also understand more about those “comfortable” things too- His love, kindness, and power in our lives. 

This Week’s Announcements:
Help still needed!
We are so blessed to have more than 80(!) volunteers who said YES to serving your children.
Even with that incredible number, we are still in need of help in certain rooms/areas. 
Our specific needs are:
An adult male to lead 3rd-5th grade boys as a small group leader at 9am
Nursery help at 9am and 11am 

What God is Teaching Us:
This section will have links to the previous Sunday’s lessons.  Feel free (I encourage it!) to open, read, and review with your children.  Click on the links below to view our lessons from 9/28 and 10/05.
This link is no longer available