OC Kids This Week

Unit 18, Session 4: Malachi the Prophet
Gospel Project for Kids
Sunday 2/23/20

Dear Parents,
After many years living as prisoners in Babylon, God’s people had returned to Judah.
They had worked hard and overcome opposition to rebuild the temple and the walls
around Jerusalem. Surely God would restore them … finally! But nothing happened. As
they waited, they faced drought and economic uncertainty. God’s people probably didn’t
feel like God had blessed them at all.

“It is useless to serve God,” they said. “What have we gained by keeping his
requirements?” (Mal. 3:14). Did God still care? It wasn’t long until God’s people fell back
into the same patterns of sin that led to their exile in the first place: idolatry,
covetousness, hypocrisy, arrogance, and abuse of the poor.

But God did still love His people. He had been working out His divine plan of redemption,
and He never gave up on them. God sent a message to His people through the prophet
Malachi.

Malachi was the last of the Old Testament prophets. He spoke to God’s people
approximately 100 years after the end of the Babylonian captivity. Malachi’s message
from God was a wake-up call.

God communicated through Malachi that the people’s lack of blessing didn’t mean that
God didn’t care. God exposed His people’s sin and made clear that their actions merited 
a curse. God’s people needed to repent and turn back to God. “But for you who fear my
name,” God said, “the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings” (Mal. 4:2).

Explain to your kids that 400 years of silence followed Malachi’s prophecy; God did not
communicate to His people. This period brings us to the New Testament, when the
silence would be broken by the last prophet before Jesus, John the Baptist. His words
about Jesus in John 1:29 offered hope to all who heard: “Here is the Lamb of God, who
takes away the sin of the world!”

Malachi was a messenger—a prophet—who told God's people to repent. Malachi
also told about another messenger God would send. This messenger, John the
Baptist, would call people to repent and get them ready for a final Messenger,
Jesus Christ. Jesus would bring good news of salvation.

Check this session’s Activity Page and Big Picture Card as well as the Gospel Project for
Kids Family App for ways to interact with the Bible content this week.

FAMILY STARTING POINTS

 Babies and Toddlers
○ Nothing can stop God’s good plan.
○ Jesus came to give us good news.
○ Malachi told people God’s words.
○ God promised to send a messenger before the Messiah.
○ Jesus is God’s Son, the Messiah.

 Preschool
○ Who is in control of everything? God is in control of everything.
○ Malachi said a messenger would get people ready for the Messiah.

 Kids
○ Who is in control of everything? God is in control of everything in heaven
and on earth.
○ Malachi called God’s people to repent to prepare for the Messiah.

UNIT KEY PASSAGE
 1 Peter 5:10

NEXT WEEK
 “From Adam to Jesus” (Matthew 1; Luke 3; John 1)