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There Is Enough Friendship To Share

Children's sermon
John 1:29-42
Epiphany 2 | Ordinary Time 2 - A
Bethany Peerbolte
John the Baptist gives us a great example of how to be a friend. Many times, when someone new comes along people get scared their friends will like the new person better. This happens to kids and adults. Bullying often stems from the fear that someone else will steal friends away. A bully sees the only line of defense as making fun of the new kid. They hope by ruining their reputation their friends won’t want to be friends with the new person, and the bully can keep all their friends to themselves.

This reaction to a new person is based in a scarcity fear. The fear that there is only so many friends a person can have before the forget or leave behind current friends. God wants us to see the world as full and abundant. God wants us to have a “the more the merrier” view on friendship.

When John the Baptist saw Jesus, he was not worried about losing his friends. He told hisis friends how great Jesus was and encouraged them to hang out with Jesus. Some did choose to follow Jesus but that didn’t mean John had lost friends, he hadtrusted their loyalty and wanted good things for them. If that meant following Jesus, he was happy for them.

In your message say something like:

Our Bible story today is about how John the Baptist helped Jesus make a few friends. Friends are very special to us. Some of us may have lots and lots of friends and some of us may have one or two who are extra great friends. We might call them best friends!

When we have a best friend we want them to be happy. We look out for them and make sure people are being nice to them. And they do the same for us. But what happens when someone new comes along? Someone else who our best friend likes to hang out with? Seeing our best friend play with someone else can be scary because we worry they won’t have time for us. We might get sad thinking they won’t want to be our best friend any more.

When we get scared like this we might feel mad. Our anger might lead us to do things we normally wouldn’t, like maybe saying something mean about our best friend’s new friend. We might think that will make them not like them and then we can keep our best friend all to ourselves.

But in our Bible story today we see that there is enough friendship inside everyone that we can share our friends with others. We might even be able to be best friends with more than one person. The Bible tells us that John the Baptist had a group of best friends. They would go everywhere together. Then one day John met Jesus and they got along really well. John got to know Jesus and found out Jesus was a great person. John could have gotten scared that Jesus would steal his friends, but John got excited.

He wanted his friends to know Jesus too. John introduced his friends to Jesus and told them if they wanted to follow Jesus it would be okay because John knew Jesus needed some best friends. John was willing to share and instead of losing friends he found a friend in Jesus.

Let’s say a prayer asking God to help us share our friends.

Loving God, Thank you for our great friends. Help us find ways to share our friends by inviting others to play with us, and being excited with them when they make a new friend. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
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The Way to God
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Isaiah 58:1-9a (9b-12)

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In this morning's lesson Jesus said that we are the salt of the earth. What do you think he meant by that? (Let them answer.) In Jesus' time salt was very important. It was used to keep food
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