Childrens Sermon Service

Object: A piece of purple cloth and an old, worn-out rag.

Hello, everyone! (Let them respond.) It is great to see you! Are you ready for our story today? (Let them respond.) Great!

One day, Jesus was talking with some people about God, and about how God wanted them to help take care of others. But some other people came up and joined them. They were Pharisees and were very important and very rich. The Pharisees started laughing and making faces at Jesus. The Bible says some of them even sneered at Jesus. Does anyone know what a sneer is? (Let them respond.) Can you show us what a sneer looks like? (Encourage them to show what a sneer looks like.) What does it mean if someone sneers at someone else? (Let them respond.) If we sneer at someone, we are making fun of them, aren’t we? (Let them respond.) Well, that’s what the Pharisees were doing. They were making fun of Jesus for what he was saying about God wanting us to take care of other people.

Jesus heard them laughing and saw them sneering, and do you know what Jesus did? (Let them respond.) He told them a story.

He said that one day, there was a very rich man who lived in luxury. He had a great big house with a big fence around it and a big gate to keep other people away. He wore clothes that were made out of fancy cloth, and he even wore clothes that were purple! (Show the purple cloth.) Is anyone here today wearing purple clothes? (Let them respond.) Back then, almost nobody wore anything purple because it was so expensive. The dye they used to make purple cloth was so expensive that usually only someone like a king could afford it. It sounds like this guy must be really rich, doesn’t it? (Let them respond.)

Well, there was another man in the story, whose name was Lazarus. He didn’t wear clothes made from fancy cloth, and he sure didn’t wear anything that was purple! He just wore a dirty robe made out of old rags. (Show the old rag.) And he didn’t have a big house with a fence and a gate around it. In fact, Lazarus didn’t have any house at all, and spent all of his time sitting in the street by the rich man’s gate, begging for anyone to give him something to eat. He was very sick and couldn’t afford to see a doctor. He sure wasn’t living in luxury, was he? (Let them respond.)

Every morning after breakfast, when the rich man left his house, he walked right past Lazarus but just ignored him. Lazarus prayed that one day the rich man might just throw him a few of the leftover scraps from his breakfast. Maybe a stale piece of bread, or something like that. But the rich man never did. He just walked right past him. Sometimes the rich man sneered when he walked past Lazarus, mumbling that Lazarus was just being lazy, and he could take care of himself if he really wanted to.

Then, one day, both of the men died. The rich man looked around and saw he wasn’t living in luxury anymore. The story says he was in torment, which means he was feeling really miserable. As the unhappy man looked around, he saw Lazarus standing on the other side of a big hole talking with Abraham. Abraham was one of the most important people from the Bible, and if you were with Abraham, it meant you must be pretty important too.

The rich man was confused and said there must be some kind of mistake. He said that he should be the one with Abraham and Lazarus should be over here in the really miserable place. But Abraham said, “You had all of the good things when you were alive, but you kept them all for yourself and did not share them. So now, God is taking care of Lazarus like you should have, and is letting you have what you gave to Lazarus.”

Then the man realized how he should have shared his riches with other people and he felt really sad. Does anyone know what the man did next? (Let them respond.) Did he ask God to forgive him? (Let them respond.) Nope.

The man said, “I have five brothers and I want you to send Lazarus back to warn them about this so they don’t end up here suffering with me.”

He was still acting like he was more important than Lazarus, wasn’t he? (Let them respond.) He didn’t feel sorry for what he had done, or feel bad for how he treated Lazarus, did he? (Let them respond.) He still treated Lazarus like he was a poor servant or something, didn’t he? (Let them respond.)

Abraham said that he wouldn’t do it. He said that God had already sent him and the other prophets to warn everyone, and if they hadn’t listened to any of them there was nothing else he could do to help them.

I’ll bet the man was really sad now, don’t you? (Let them respond.)

Now, I have a question for you. Do you think Jesus is telling us this story to warn us that it is bad to be rich like the rich man and that it is bad to have nice things? (Show the purple cloth and let them respond.) No, I don’t think so either. I think Jesus is just reminding us that God wants us to take care of each other, don’t you? And that means if we have more riches, we can use it to do more to help others who don’t have what we have. (Show the purple cloth and the old rag.) The more we have, the more we can do to help those who need our help.

Let’s all pray together and ask God to help us remember how much God loves every one of us no matter who we are and ask God to help us remember to never treat other people like we think we are better than they are.

Prayer:
Dear God, thank you for reminding us how much you love us. Please help us understand what you are trying to teach us in your stories. And help us to 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.