Children’s Sermon: Teaching Children about Jesus and his church

Text - Matthew 18:15-20 “Where two or three are gathered in my name…there I am with them.”

Basic bible story idea:

I’m going with the idea that there is actually a way that 1 plus 1 equals 3! Where there are two or more Christians gathered Jesus is there too. Show two pieces of coloured glass. Bring them together and show them how there is a third colour where they overlap. Show the children 4 small cut out triangle. Piece them together and show how pieced together the 4 triangles make a 5^th large triangle. (Like all analogies this is does not describe perfectly how Jesus is present in our midst.) Explain how when believers gather there is actually an extra person present – Jesus.

Complete Children’s sermon:

Good morning children! I have a question for you. What does one plus one equal? Right. However, I’m going to show you a way that one plus one equals three! This morning I have two colourful pieces of glass with me. I have this pretty piece of blue glass (hold it up for them to see), and I have this piece of yellow glass. Therefore, you can see that I have two colours in total, blue and yellow. Watch carefully. I’m going to put there two colours together. Look what happens when I put the two colours together. What colour do you see here in between? Right. There is a third new colour, green! Two pieces of coloured glass and a third new colour. I’m going to show you something else. Look at these 4 small triangles. (It might be easiest to place these on a felt board or stick them one by one on cardboard. Show them how you can fit them together in the shape of one big triangle.) There, I have 4 small triangles here but look carefully. These 4 actually make another big triangle when they are all together. When they are all together, there are actually 5 triangles. That’s pretty amazing. This reminds me of something that Jesus taught his disciples. In Matthew 18 Jesus said that where two or more believers gathered that he was there too. Now, we know that Jesus is with us always, but in some special way Jesus is right here with us when we come together. We can’t see Jesus but he said he would be right here with us. Let’s count how many children are up here now. (Count together) Great! There are ten of us. However, we know that there are really 11 of us because Jesus is here too. Let’s pray.

Children’s Prayer: Dear God, Thank you for this wonderful miracle that when we gather Jesus is right here with us too. In Jesus’ name – Amen!

Children's object lesson - Parable of the weeds and the wheat Matt 13: 24-30, 36-43
-- For Sunday school, youth group or children's church --

Sunday School Sermon idea: Have a bag filled with different types of weeds along with small flowers or plants. Making two piles, have the children decide which are the good plants and which are the weeds. After this hold up cut out pictures of people (from a magazine). Ask them if they can decide who are the good people and who are the bad people. After seeing the pictures and realizing it cannot be done, explain how it’s not really our job to go around separating good people from bad people. Our job is to show love and care to all people.

Object lesson items: Some weeds; some small flowers or plants; Pictures of people cut out from a magazine.

Complete kids sermon: Good morning children! Have any of you helped plant things in the garden or helped pull weeds? I haven’t done a lot of gardening and I find it hard to tell the difference between the weeds and the flowers. Look at this bag here. It’s full of weeds and its full of flowers. Let’s see if you can tell the difference. I’ll make two piles on this tray; one for the good plants and one for the weeds. OK. What about this one? Is it a weed or a flower? How about this one? (Some may be easy to recognize and some difficult. Have some fun with this.)

I think you did pretty well. However, sometimes it was hard to tell the difference, especially when the plants had not yet produced pretty flowers. Now I want you to look at these pictures here. They are pictures of people I cut out of a magazine. Why don’t we try to put them in different piles: We’ll have one pile for good people and one pile for bad people. (Hold up the pictures and ask the children to decide by looking at the people.) Hmmm. I don’t think this is working. I don’t think it’s really our job to put people into “good people” and “bad people” piles. In our bible reading today from Matthew chapter 13 Jesus makes it clear that it’s not really our job to try to decide who are the good people and who are the bad people in the world. God knows who are his friends and who are his enemies. Our job is to show the love of Jesus to everyone.

Prayer for the Children: Dear God, help us not to worry too much about who is good and who is bad. Help us to show the love of Jesus to everyone. In Jesus’ name – Amen

Sundaychildrensfocus - Childrens Biblical Lesson: John 11:1-45 Lazarus come out - wake up

Jesus Raises Lazarus from the dead

Kids sermon idea: Explain how Jesus had the power to wake up even the dead. Demonstrate different ways of waking up people; alarm clock, clapping hands, singing, banging pots and pans, etc. We can wake up people when they are sound asleep but with the command of his voice Jesus can wake up the dead. (Explain this or act it out with a volunteer “Lazarus.”)

Object lesson props: Various noise makers: alarm clock, bell, rolled up paper megaphone, pots and pans etc.

Children’s sermon: Good morning children! Do you find it easy to wake up in the morning? Hmmm. Well, some people wake up easily and others find it hard to wake up. I have some different ways of waking people up. Many people use an alarm clock like this. Listen to the ring. That would wake up some people. Other people wake up when the birds sing outside. Can you make the sound of a bird chirping? That’s good. There are other people who sleep very soundly. They need to be woken up with something like this. (Bang the pots and pan lids.) We can wake up just about anyone if we make enough noise. However, no matter how much noise we make I don’t think we could wake up someone who had died. That would be impossible. But did you know there is someone who can even wake up the dead. His name is Jesus. In chapter 11 of John’s gospel we can read about how Jesus’ friend Lazarus died. By the time Jesus got to his house he had already been dead four days. Of course, no one else could bring him back to life. But Jesus called out, “Lazarus come out!” Let’s call that out loudly together, “Lazarus come out.” Immediately Lazarus came back to life from the dead. That’s amazing that Jesus has power to raise people from the dead.

Children’s Prayer: Dear God. Thank you the Jesus has the power to wake up people from the dead. Help us to follow him and trust that nothing can separate us from his love and power. In Jesus’ name – Amen.

Copyright 2020 Andrew Hewlett (Sunday Children's Focus) feel free to use this 5 minutes children's sermon but please "Like" this on facebook (see link top of main page) and link to this web site. Blessings, A.H.

Children`s sermon – Spiritual Blindness John 9: 1- 41

Kids sermon idea: Show the children a pair of dark welding goggles and let them try them on. They can`t see things that would normally be easy to see. Explain how some people in the bible could not “see” or understand the light and love of Jesus. It was like they were wearing dark sunglasses making them blind to the things of God. Thank God that although we can’t see Jesus physically he has helped us to understand, know and “see” the real Jesus.

(I realize the idea of spiritual sight will not be grasped by all the children.)

Kids Object lesson props: Welding goggles or very dark sun glasses (used for mountain climbing)

If you can’t find any you could get an old pair of sunglasses and darken them up with paint or a felt pen marker.

Children’s Sermon: Good morning children! Look at these special glasses I brought in this morning. They are special glasses used by people who work with very bright fire. Would you like to try them on?

Great! They look good on you Sally. Now, I’d like you to look over there on the front row. Can you tell me what colour sweater Mrs. Jones is wearing? No. It’s very hard to tell because the glasses are so bright. When you wear these glasses it’s almost like being blind. (Let some other children try.)

In our Bible reading today from John’s gospel there were people who just couldn’t understand Jesus and his love and power. Even when Jesus did something wonderful like healing a blind man some people became very angry at him. They did not want to believe in him. It was like they were blind to understanding Jesus. Yes they could see him with there eyes but it was like their “understanding eyes” were blind as if they were wearing these dark glasses.

The good news is that although we cannot see Jesus today with our eyes we can know his love and his life. The Holy Spirit of God has helped us to know Jesus so that we are no longer blind to his life and love.

Children’s Prayer: Dear God, thank you that we are no longer blind to Jesus and his love. Help us to know him more and more each day. In Jesus’ name – Amen!

Copyright 2011 Sundaychildrensfocus.com Andrew Hewlett Feel free to use this story on Sunday morning but please give credit to Sunday Children’s focus and consider linking and / or donating to this sight. Thank you. A.H.

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