Good fruit
Children's sermon
Object:
a bowl filled with both real and plastic fruit
Hello again, everybody! Last week our Gospel lesson was about planting seeds. The sower tried to plant seeds in many places, but the seeds didn't grow unless they had been planted in good soil. Today's lesson is about planting too. In this parable, Jesus teaches that a field of seed was planted in good soil. While the sower was asleep, though, an enemy came and planted weeds among the good seed. So, as the good seed grew into wheat, the weeds grew up among it. The workers were worried about what to do, but the owner of the field told his workers to let the plants grow and that the good would be separated from the bad at harvest time.
I've brought a bowl of fruit. (hold up the bowl) At first it looks like it's all good, but if you look closely you'll see that some of this fruit isn't real. There are some plastic pieces of fruit mixed in with the good fruit. They all look the same, but they're not. In the parable, Jesus teaches that people are like this. There are good people, just like the good fruit and just like the wheat that came from the good seed. There are also people that are not so good. They may look good, just like the plastic fruit in the bowl, but they really aren't. The hard thing is that they're all mixed together and it's hard to tell them apart.
Jesus wants people to love him, but not everyone does. Because of that, not everyone will get to be with him in heaven. Eventually, people will have to be separated out, just like when the workers separated the weeds from the wheat. The people who love God will get to be with him forever. The others won't. We should be careful to be good fruit. Make sure you don't just look like good fruit -- be good fruit.
Prayer: God, help us be real and like you want us to be. Amen.
I've brought a bowl of fruit. (hold up the bowl) At first it looks like it's all good, but if you look closely you'll see that some of this fruit isn't real. There are some plastic pieces of fruit mixed in with the good fruit. They all look the same, but they're not. In the parable, Jesus teaches that people are like this. There are good people, just like the good fruit and just like the wheat that came from the good seed. There are also people that are not so good. They may look good, just like the plastic fruit in the bowl, but they really aren't. The hard thing is that they're all mixed together and it's hard to tell them apart.
Jesus wants people to love him, but not everyone does. Because of that, not everyone will get to be with him in heaven. Eventually, people will have to be separated out, just like when the workers separated the weeds from the wheat. The people who love God will get to be with him forever. The others won't. We should be careful to be good fruit. Make sure you don't just look like good fruit -- be good fruit.
Prayer: God, help us be real and like you want us to be. Amen.
