Childrens Sermon Service

Object: A card, or button you create that has the letters “TWSWG” on it. See the attachment for an example of a card you might use.


From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

“You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.

Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.” (vv. 66-69)

Note: I pronounce the letters in the story “Twe’-zwig”, though if you have a better pronunciation feel free to use it instead.

Hello, everyone! (Let them respond.) We have another story about Jesus today, are you ready? (Let them respond.)

This is a story about another time a crowd of people came to see Jesus and hear the things he was teaching them. But, before I tell you this story, I have a question for you. Who can tell me one of the things Jesus taught the people when they came to see him? Who can remember one thing that Jesus taught us to do? (Let them respond.)

[Note: Depending on your group, you can ad-lib this part and have the children think of things they remember that Jesus has taught us to do. Examples might be to love God, to love your neighbor no matter who they are, to forgive others and not try to get even, to help the needy and don’t ignore them, and to not judge others but to treat others the way you would like them to treat you. If you don’t think your group can handle the ad-lib approach, you can mention each of these yourself. The goal is to get them thinking about some of the things a follower of Jesus is asked to do.]

Excellent! Those are some of the things Jesus told us God wants us to do. Sometimes it seems like there are a lot of those things, doesn’t it? (Let them respond.) Well, that’s what some people were thinking in the story I want to tell you today.

Jesus was talking with people, and he was telling them a lot of the things we just talked about. And as he was talking, he saw some people in the crowd turn and walk away. They left and went back home. They heard the things that Jesus was saying, and they decided to stop following him and go home. They heard the things Jesus wanted them to do and they thought it was just too hard to do, so they left. They went home and stopped following Jesus. That’s kind of sad, isn’t it? (Let them respond.)

But sometimes it is hard to follow Jesus and do those things God wants us to do, isn’t it? (Let them respond.) Jesus said that if we want to follow him, our main job is to do whatever we can do to help take care of other people the way God takes care of us. But sometimes we meet people who are difficult to care for, don’t we? (Let them respond.) Sometimes we meet people who behave differently than we do, and who do things we don’t understand or agree with, don’t we? And sometimes, we meet people who do things that hurt us, or they just seem mean to us, and treat us badly, don’t we? (Let them respond.) And it can be really, really, REALLY hard to take care of those people the way God wants us to take care of them can’t it? (Let them respond.) Sometimes we would rather punish those people for behaving the way they do, wouldn’t we? (Let them respond.) Or sometimes we would like to force them to do things we think they should do those things, wouldn’t we? (Let them respond.) Or sometimes, we might even want to do something to get even with those people who hurt us or are mean to us and make them feel as bad as they made us feel, don’t we? (Let them respond.)

Yes, sometimes it can be really hard to stay and follow Jesus and it would be a lot easier to just stop following him, just like the people in our story.

When Jesus saw the people leaving, he went to his disciples and said, “What about you? Are you going to leave me now too?” And Peter looked at Jesus and said, “TWSWG!” (Pause and give them a second to be confused.) Well, okay, he didn’t actually say “TWSWG”, did he? (Let them respond.) When Jesus asked if the disciples were going to leave, too, Peter actually said, “To whom shall we go?” He said there was no one else they could go to who could teach them about God like Jesus did, so even though it might be hard sometimes, they were going to stay with him.

I just took the first letters of Peter’s words, “to whom shall we go”, and made up the word, “TWSWG”, so I could remember it better in case I ever thought about walking away from Jesus. If I meet someone that I just don’t feel like I want to take care of, I say to myself, “TWSWG”, and take care of them the way Jesus asked me to take care of them. Sometimes it can be hard to follow Jesus, but there is no one else I want to follow. To whom shall we go?

I have made something for you here. (Show the TWSWG cards.) These little cards will help us remember that special word, “TWSWG”. (Hand out the cards.) If you ever have a hard time doing the things Jesus wants us to do, you can look at your card and remember “Where else shall we go?” so we can all keep following Jesus.

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.