Firm Foundations 10:1 - Continuing down the Romans Road

I haven't posted our catechism lessons lately! Sorry about that - the holidays sort of threw my schedule for a loop. Anyway, if you're interested, here's the next lesson for my Firm Foundations series:

Theme: Sin is disobedience to God
"But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness." (Romans 1:18, NLT)

Scripture Memory: The next stop on the Romans Road is Romans 6:23 - "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." There are quite a few options for singing, if you want to learn this verse by song! Check out these Romans 6:23 melodies from Amazon's MP3 store.
We're going to memorize just the first half of Romans 6:23 today. Here are the actions I'm using:

• For the wages (Pretend to be handing out money)
• Of sin is death (Bow head)

Catechism Q&A: For clarity's sake, I've again changed (and condensed) some of the Catechism question and answers. If you'd prefer to use the real wording, this week of lessons is based off The Catechism for Young Children, questions 28-30 & 37.

Q. What is sin? A. Sin is disobedience to God's commands.
Q. What does every sin deserve? A. The anger and curse of God.

Missing the Mark: If your children have grown up regularly attending church and Sunday School, they probably have a general idea of what the word "sin" means. Nevertheless, I felt like it was important to define it clearly for this week of lessons. One of my goals is to help my children see sin as a personal issue - that they'll know THEY are sinners too and not just those "bad guys" out there somewhere!

Play "Simon Says". Increase the speed of the game until your children finally mess up. Explain to them that they lost the game because they didn't obey you perfectly. You told them to do"this" and they did "that".
Sit down with the Bible and read the following commands God gives us. For each command, discuss what "this" God tells us to do and point out what "that" we often do instead. Try to think of recent examples to illustrate how easy it is to disobey God's rules.

• Colossians 3:9 - "Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds."
• Ephesians 6:1-2: "Children, obey your parents because you belong to the Lord, for this is the right thing to do.  'Honor your father and mother.' This is the first commandment with a promise."
• Matthew 5:21-22a: “You have heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.'  But I say, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment!"
• 1 Thess. 5:18: "...give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."
• 1 Thess 5:15: "Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else."

Notebook: I didn't prepare any notebooking pages or ideas this week. If you've got something, let me know and I'll link to it here!