Childrens Sermon Service

Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!” (vv. 21-23)

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Hello, everyone! (Let them respond.) I have another story for you today, but as I tell it to you, I think we will try to act it out, okay? (Let them respond.) Great!

This is a story about a day when Jesus was talking with some people and a man ran up and pushed his way through the crowd to see Jesus. The man asked Jesus what he needed to do to follow God. Jesus told him that he needed to obey all of the commandments God had given; to not murder, to never steal, to never lie, and to always honor his parents. The man looked at Jesus and said, “Oh, I have always done those things ever since I was a child.”

Now, this man was very rich and very important, and in my imagination, I think when he said that he said it differently than that. Let me show you what I think happened. And I would like you to help me, okay? (Let them respond.) Great. Let’s all pretend to be the rich man when he answers Jesus. Let’s all stand up and pretend we are the man who thinks he is just perfect and better than everyone else. (Stand with the children.) Maybe we stick our noses up in the air a little bit (stick your nose up), and maybe we put our hands on our hips or just fold our arms like we are important (Place your hands.) And when we say the words to Jesus, we kind of look around at everyone and then say, (have the children repeat the words as a powerful, rich, entitled person might say them, kind of “snooty-like”) “Oh, I have always done those things ever since I was a child.” Well, Jesus looked at the man and just smiled at him. I think Jesus knew the man was not perfect, and he wanted to help the man learn what it meant to follow God.

Jesus looked at the man and said, “That’s great. Then if you want to follow me, all you need to do now is go and give everything you have to the poor.” And do you know what the rich man did? (Let them respond.) He turned around and walked away. The man loved his money and his power, and he just couldn’t give all of those treasures away, so he left. Then Jesus said, “It is really hard for a rich person to follow God.”

Now, I have a question for you. Do you think Jesus really meant that if we want to follow him, we have to give away everything we have to someone who is poor and that if we are rich, we can’t follow God? (Let them respond.) It sure sounds like that, doesn’t it? Well, let’s see if we can figure out what Jesus really meant when he said that.

Let’s pretend that one of us here is really rich. (Get out your pennies.) I am going to give this treasure to you. (Give all of the pennies to one of the children.) Now, you are rich, and the rest of us are poor, right? (Let them respond.) Okay, Jesus said that if you are rich, you should give all of your treasure to the poor, so you should give your treasure to one of us poor people in the group. (Have them give the pennies to someone else.)

Great! But now we have another problem, don’t we? (Let them respond.) Now you are rich, and the rest of us are poor. So, now why don’t you give everything you have to someone else who is poor. (Have them give the pennies away.) There, that’s better, right? (Let them respond.) Uh oh. Now we still have a problem, don’t we? (Let them respond.) Now you are rich, and the others are poor.

You know, I’m not sure Jesus was really saying that we all need to give away everything we have. Maybe he was telling the man that if he wants to follow God, he needs to love God more than he loves his treasures and should be willing to share his treasures with people who had nothing. Maybe Jesus isn’t saying you need to give all of your treasure to someone who is poor, but that you need to be willing to share your treasure instead of keeping it all to yourself.

(To the child with all of the pennies.) So, why don’t you take your treasure and divide it up with all of us in the group? (Help them work out the equal division so everyone has the same number of pennies.) Now we all have something, don’t we? (Let them respond.) Now the rich person has helped all of us, haven’t they? (Let them respond.)

I don’t think Jesus just wanted that rich man to be poor, but he was telling him that if he truly wanted to follow God, he needed to show that he loved the people around him more than he loved his own riches. And I think Jesus is telling us that we don’t have to give everything we have away right now, but when we see someone who has nothing and really needs help, we should be willing to share what we have with them instead of keeping it all to ourselves.

I hope you will 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 to 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.