Childrens Sermon Service

Object: A tomato seed and a tomato to cut open. If you can’t find those, you could have a picture of a tomato seed and a tomato. For extra visual punch, you could also have a white board or piece of poster board with a marker. You would use the white board or paper to show how the seeds multiply, similar to the table I've included below. You might only want to “do the math” on white board if you have some older children in your group who would understand, otherwise just mention the big numbers and keep it simple. But if you are preaching to the adults too…do the math!

NOTE: This message has the potential of becoming mind-numbing with all of the numbers. But if you practice it a bit and fit it to your age group it can be a pretty cool message. I did it once with a watermelon…far too messy…

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Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.” Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus.

Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me. (vv. 20-26)

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Hi, everyone! (Let them respond.)

Who can tell me what I have with me here? (Show the tomato seed and let them respond.) A seed, right? Do you know what kind of seed it is? (Let them respond.) Well, if we planted this seed in the ground and waited a while, it would grow us a bunch of these (show the tomato and let them respond.) Yes, this is a tomato seed. And, wow, this is one pretty cool seed.

If we planted this one little-bitty seed in the ground, in a couple of months we will have a plant that might grow as many as 90 new tomatoes on it. And you know what? Every one of those tomatoes will have more seeds inside, just like our little seed here. In fact, each of those tomatoes might have as many as 150 little seeds inside.

So, think about that a second. (If you are using the white board or paper you might say, “So let’s see if we can see what that looks like!) If we plant this one little seed and grow 90 new tomatoes, and each tomato has 150 seeds, we multiply 90 x 150 and see that the new tomatoes will give us 13,500 new seeds to plant. And if we plant each of those thousands of seeds and let them grow tomatoes, we multiply the 13,500 by 90 new tomatoes and see that we will end up with more than 1,240,000 new tomatoes! Wow!

And, if each of those tomatoes has one hundred and fifty seeds, we multiply 1,240,000 x 150, and we end up with 180,100,000 little-bitty tomato seeds to plant.

Wow! And it all started with this one, little-bitty seed.

Now, I have another question for you. Does anyone know why in the world I have told you all about this little-bitty tomato seed and what it can do? (Let them respond.)

Well, one day Jesus was talking with his disciples because some strangers had come to see Jesus and the disciples didn’t let them see him. The disciples couldn’t figure out how the strangers had heard about Jesus since they were from far away and none of the disciples had told them about Jesus before, so the disciples did not welcome the strangers like they were supposed to.

So, Jesus told his disciples that they were kind of like seeds; just like our little-bitty tomato seed here. And even though they had never seen the strangers before, the strangers still might have heard about Jesus because of something the disciples had said to someone else. That sounds confusing, doesn’t it?

Let’s think about our little-bitty seed and see if we can understand what Jesus meant.

(It will help to use the white board for this part.)

Let’s imagine that starting tomorrow, Monday, each one of us does one thing to show three people around us that we love them like God loves them. That makes four people who know God loves them, right? (Let them respond.) Then on Tuesday all four of us show three more, so now, 3 x 4, that means 12 people know God loves them. On Wednesday, all 12 of us tell 3 people so then 36 people know. On Thursday, we all 36 people tell 3 more people and then 108 people know. On Friday, we tell 3 more people and then 324 know. On Saturday, we tell three more people and then 972 people know.

So, if each one of us just shows three people each day that God loves them, when we get together next Sunday, there will be almost one thousand people who know that God loves them.

Wow! It is like the little bitty tomato seed isn’t it? (Let them respond.)

I hope we will all remember that God loves every one of us, no matter who we are, or where we are from, or what we look like, or anything else like that. God loves all of us because we are God’s children. And God wants us to take care of each other. That’s what matters

Let’s say a prayer to ask God to help us remember to always do the things God wants us to do to take care of each other.

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.


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1 Seed
One plant
Grows 90 tomatoes
Each tomato with 150 seeds

First time
90 tomatoes
13,500 seeds

Second time
1,214,000 tomatoes
182,100,000 seeds

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Show three people each day:
Monday......4
Tuesday......12
Wednesday......26
Thursday......108
Friday......324
Saturday......972