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Object: One piece of clear glass and one mirror. I found a piece of clear Plexiglas and a plastic mirror at a local box store. Both pieces were one square foot, which is a good size to use in this message.

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Hello, everyone! (Let them respond.) Are you ready for our story today? (Let them respond.) Excellent! I have a question for you. Have you ever heard someone say something that you didn’t understand and thought it was really strange? (Let them respond.) Jesus did that sometimes, didn’t he? One day, he said something that a lot of people think sounds really strange. He was talking with his friends and said, “If you want to save your life, you will lose it. But if you lose your life for me, you will save it.” Now, I think that sounds pretty confusing, don’t you? (Let them respond.) If you want to save your life you will lose it, but if you lose your life for me, you will save it. Does anyone have an idea what Jesus meant when he said that? (Let them respond.) Well, let’s put on our detective hats and see if we can figure it out, okay? (Let them respond.) Great!

The day Jesus said that he was with his friends in a place called Caesarea Philippi, which was a long way from where they lived. Back home, they went there because a lot of the religious leaders had gotten really angry with Jesus because of what he had been doing. One day, over five thousand people had come to see Jesus, and when they got hungry, he fed all five thousand of them lunch with just two fish and five loaves of bread. The religious leaders didn’t want Jesus doing miracles like that because they couldn’t do it and it made them look bad, so, they decided they needed to figure out how to stop him.

Jesus took his friends and went where it was safe so he could teach them things and help them get ready in case the religious leaders came after them. Jesus looked at them and said, “I am going to suffer many things, and they are going to kill me. But don’t worry because I will come back after three days.”

When Jesus’ friends heard that, Peter jumped up and shouted, “Hey! You need to stop doing things to make those people so mad at you. You need to just take care of yourself!” Peter sounded worried about Jesus, didn’t he? (Let them respond.)

Jesus looked at Peter and said, “Get away from me!” And that’s when Jesus said, “If you want to save your life, you will lose it. But if you lose your life for me, you will save it.”

Now, let’s see if we can figure out what Jesus meant. (Show the two pieces of glass.) Who can tell me what I have here? (Let them respond.) I have two pieces of glass, don’t I? (Let them respond.) But what is different about them? (Let them respond.) Let’s see.

First, let’s all take a look through this piece and tell me what you see. (Hold up the piece of clear glass and invite everyone to take a look through it and respond.) We can see right through it, can’t we? (Let them respond.) We can see each other, and everyone else here, can’t we? (Let them respond.) Now, let’s all take a look through this piece, and tell me what you see. (Hold up the piece of mirrored glass and invite everyone to take a look through it and respond.) What do we see? (Let them respond.) We don’t see anything but ourselves, do we? (Let them respond.) If we look through this glass (hold up the clear glass) we see everyone around us. But if we look through this piece, (hold up the mirrored glass) all we see is ourselves.

I think that’s what Jesus was telling Peter. (Hold up the mirrored glass again.) If we spend our time just worrying about ourselves and doing things just for ourselves and not caring about other people, we are not living our lives the way God wants us to. (Hold up the clear glass.) But, if we spend our time caring about other people and doing things to help them, we are living our lives the way God wants us to.

That’s what I think Jesus meant when he said that strange thing. (Show the mirrored glass.) We can just think about ourselves and waste our lives. (Show the clear glass.) Or we can care about others and really live our lives.

We have a choice. We can spend our time thinking about “Me! Me! Me!” Or we can spend our time thinking about “Us! Us! Us!”

Let’s pray and ask God to remind us that Jesus loves every one of us and wants us to follow him and take care of each other the way God takes care of us.

Prayer
Dear God, thank you for reminding us how much you love us and for forgiving us when we forget that. And 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.