You Are Loved More
Children's sermon
Jesus’ audience believed that someone had to be extra special for God to care for them. To dispel this idea Jesus points out that even the two sparrows worth only a penny are cared for by God. This showed that God cared for everyone no matter what worth the world gave to them. By saying God loves the sparrow, too, showed that God’s love does not depend on the worth the world gives to someone. If God cares for these cheap birds how much more will God care for you!
Homes with children spend a lot of time on laundry. Sometimes it takes all day or it is a constant chore for the household. Since our world equates time spent with love given it could be argued some homes love laundry more than their kids. This would be ridiculous to assume simply on the amount of time someone gives. We know quality time is better than quantity of time.
In your lesson say something like:
I want you to think of the person in your house who does the laundry. Picture their face in your mind, it may be more than one person. (Give them time to imagine.) I want you to take a moment with me and think about all they do to make sure the clothes are taken care of. First, they gather them all up in a special basket. I know all of you put every single sock and shirt in the laundry bin in your room, right? You never put anything on the floor, right? (You can be a bit funny with the kids here.) I bet none of you have ever pushed a pair of pants under the bed to make your room look cleaner, right!?
Okay, maybe we do make mistakes and some of the laundry does end up on the floor. Lucky for us, I bet the person who does the laundry takes care to look around your room and find the stray sock to include in the laundry. After they gather the laundry, they sort the colors. A special place for whites, for light colors, and for darker colors. They do this because they care about the whites not turning pink or blue from a dark colored pair of pants. They like the whites the way they are so they take care to wash them the right way.
There might be a few items that got especially dirty that week. Maybe a pasta sauce stain or grass stain is on our favorite shirt. The person doing laundry puts special soap on the stains and scrubs them or lets them soak. This helps get the stain out before it goes in the wash with the other clothes. Each load of laundry requires special settings. Some things get cleaner with cold water, some need hot water. Some need to be in the wash longer, some can go into a dryer, some need to air dry. There are a lot of things the person doing laundry needs to think about and do to make sure each piece of clothing is taken care of.
Then when everything is dry they probably fold them in a specific way, or hang them up so they don’t get wrinkly. It might take all day to do the laundry in your house. That person must really love laundry to give it so much time and attention. Do you think that person loves (sarcastically) laundry? Maybe not. Or maybe they do love doing the laundry because it is fun to get things done and check them off our to do list.
Even if that person loves doing the laundry it would be wrong for us to think they love the laundry more than us. Just because they take such good care of the laundry and spend time cleaning does not mean they don’t love us.
When Jesus was with some friends he pointed out that God loves all creatures. God even cares for little sparrows that aren’t worth a lot of money. Jesus then teaches that if God can love a little sparrow then how much more must God love us. God’s love is big enough to love all these things.
It’s the same with the laundry in your home. Just because your laundry person spends time and gives extra care to the laundry doesn’t mean you aren’t cared for. They are probably doing the laundry in the first place because they love you! If you wish they had more time to be with you, try helping them with the laundry. You will spend time together and it will get done fast so you can get to the real fun.
Let’s say a prayer together.
Loving God, you love small birds and you love us. Help us to see how the people around us love us. Even when they are spending time doing other things. In Jesus name, Amen.
Homes with children spend a lot of time on laundry. Sometimes it takes all day or it is a constant chore for the household. Since our world equates time spent with love given it could be argued some homes love laundry more than their kids. This would be ridiculous to assume simply on the amount of time someone gives. We know quality time is better than quantity of time.
In your lesson say something like:
I want you to think of the person in your house who does the laundry. Picture their face in your mind, it may be more than one person. (Give them time to imagine.) I want you to take a moment with me and think about all they do to make sure the clothes are taken care of. First, they gather them all up in a special basket. I know all of you put every single sock and shirt in the laundry bin in your room, right? You never put anything on the floor, right? (You can be a bit funny with the kids here.) I bet none of you have ever pushed a pair of pants under the bed to make your room look cleaner, right!?
Okay, maybe we do make mistakes and some of the laundry does end up on the floor. Lucky for us, I bet the person who does the laundry takes care to look around your room and find the stray sock to include in the laundry. After they gather the laundry, they sort the colors. A special place for whites, for light colors, and for darker colors. They do this because they care about the whites not turning pink or blue from a dark colored pair of pants. They like the whites the way they are so they take care to wash them the right way.
There might be a few items that got especially dirty that week. Maybe a pasta sauce stain or grass stain is on our favorite shirt. The person doing laundry puts special soap on the stains and scrubs them or lets them soak. This helps get the stain out before it goes in the wash with the other clothes. Each load of laundry requires special settings. Some things get cleaner with cold water, some need hot water. Some need to be in the wash longer, some can go into a dryer, some need to air dry. There are a lot of things the person doing laundry needs to think about and do to make sure each piece of clothing is taken care of.
Then when everything is dry they probably fold them in a specific way, or hang them up so they don’t get wrinkly. It might take all day to do the laundry in your house. That person must really love laundry to give it so much time and attention. Do you think that person loves (sarcastically) laundry? Maybe not. Or maybe they do love doing the laundry because it is fun to get things done and check them off our to do list.
Even if that person loves doing the laundry it would be wrong for us to think they love the laundry more than us. Just because they take such good care of the laundry and spend time cleaning does not mean they don’t love us.
When Jesus was with some friends he pointed out that God loves all creatures. God even cares for little sparrows that aren’t worth a lot of money. Jesus then teaches that if God can love a little sparrow then how much more must God love us. God’s love is big enough to love all these things.
It’s the same with the laundry in your home. Just because your laundry person spends time and gives extra care to the laundry doesn’t mean you aren’t cared for. They are probably doing the laundry in the first place because they love you! If you wish they had more time to be with you, try helping them with the laundry. You will spend time together and it will get done fast so you can get to the real fun.
Let’s say a prayer together.
Loving God, you love small birds and you love us. Help us to see how the people around us love us. Even when they are spending time doing other things. In Jesus name, Amen.
