Childrens Sermon Service

“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me — just as the Father knows me and I know the Father — and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. (vv. 14-16)


Hi, everyone! (Let them respond.) I have a few questions for you today. Are you ready? (Let them respond.) Great! Here is my first question: Can anyone tell me what a disciple is? (Let them respond.) A disciple is a person who learns something from someone else. You probably remember us talking about Jesus and his disciples; the people who followed Jesus around and learned about him, right? (Let them respond.)

Okay, now here is my second question: Can anyone tell me how many disciples Jesus had? (Let them respond.) The Bible tells us that Jesus had twelve disciples who followed him, and that is the reason everyone called him the teacher because he taught his disciples.

Now, my next question. What does a shepherd do? (Let them respond.) A shepherd takes care of sheep, right!

Now, here is one more question for you: How many sheep did Jesus have? (Let them respond and have fun with their responses.) Well, Jesus told us he was the good shepherd, and if a shepherd takes care of sheep, doesn’t that mean Jesus must have had sheep with him? (Let them respond.) Okay, that was kind of a trick question, but let’s see if we can figure out what Jesus meant when he said he was the good shepherd. Let me tell you some things about shepherds like Jesus was talking about.

Being a shepherd was hard work. Usually, the youngest child in the family got the job of being a shepherd. And a shepherd usually didn’t own any sheep but spent their time taking care of other people’s sheep. They would gather all of the sheep and take them out into the hills for months where they could eat and grow strong.

During the day, the shepherd would lead the sheep up into the hills where they could find fresh grass, and then they would lead them back down the hills where they could get water from the streams in the valley. At night, the shepherd would lead the sheep back to the safe place he had built for them called a sheepfold. It was a small yard the shepherd had built a tall fence of rocks around. And on top of the rocks, the shepherd put bushes of thorns and other things to keep wild animals from climbing over to bother the sheep.

But before the sheep went in the sheepfold, the shepherd sat down by the gate and called each sheep to him one at a time to make sure it was okay. The shepherd rubbed each sheep’s soft nose to make sure it hadn’t gotten scratched by any rocks or thorns during the day. And after all the sheep were cared for, the shepherd closed the gate and sat nearby to keep an eye on them and make sure they were safe all night.

And all the time, the shepherd had one of these with him (show the shepherd’s crook). This is called a shepherd’s crook, and it helped the shepherd take care of the sheep. When they were going up and down the hills, sometimes a sheep slipped and fell off the path into a hole. So, the shepherd would reach down into the hole with his crook and hook the sheep to pull them out. Sometimes a sheep fell into the stream and the shepherd used their crook to pull them out. Sometimes the shepherd used the crook to scare off some wild animal that was bothering the sheep. They might bang it on a rock to make noise to scare them away, or they could use it to push the animal away if they had to.

Now, does anyone have an idea why Jesus called himself the good shepherd? (Let them respond.) Well, I think Jesus called himself the good shepherd because we are all God’s children, kind of like God’s sheep, and Jesus takes care of us the way a shepherd takes care of someone else’s sheep. Jesus is like our shepherd.

Jesus asked us to be good shepherds, too, and help him take care of his sheep. He asked us to care for each other the way a good shepherd cares for his sheep. That makes me wonder about what kind of things we can do to show people that we care about them. We probably can’t go around carrying a big stick with a hook on the end of it, can we? (Let them respond.) And we probably can’t just build a bunch of walls and put thorns on top of them to protect everyone, can we? (Let them respond.) And, I’m thinking most people probably wouldn’t like us going up and rubbing their noses to check for scratches, would they? (Let them respond.)

So, here is my last question for you today. Does anyone have any ideas about how we can help take care of each other the way a good shepherd would? (Let them respond.) Let’s ask God to help us think about how we can show people we care…that we are good shepherds.

I hope you’ll remember how much God loves you, and how much God wants us to show everyone around us how much we love them, too.

Let’s have our prayer and ask God to help us remember.

Prayer:
Dear God, thank you for reminding us how much you love us. Please help us remember that you love all of the people you have created and help us let the people around us know that we love them just like Jesus loves us. Amen.