Free Access

Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”

“You are a king, then!” said Pilate.

Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” (vv. 36-37)

* * *

Hello, everyone! (Let them respond.) I have something really important for us today. Are you ready? (Let them respond.) Great!

Have you ever had a hard time figuring out if something is true or not? (Let them respond.) Maybe someone has told you something and you just aren’t sure if they are telling you the truth. Or maybe there are two people telling you two different things, and you aren’t sure which one of them is telling the truth. Has that ever happened to you? (Let them respond.) It sure has happened to me.

Sometimes it is hard to tell what is true, isn’t it? And sometimes there are a lot of different people telling us a lot of different things, aren’t there? Some of them say, “THIS is the truth!”, while others say, “No, THIS is the truth!”, and even others might say, “No, you are both wrong. THIS is the truth!” Sometimes there are so many people telling us what is true and what isn’t true that it just gets really confusing, doesn’t it? (Let them respond.)

Let me ask you a question. Have you ever had someone tell you that you should do something, but then another person told you that you shouldn’t do that thing but should do something else? (Let them respond.) Yeah, I have that happen a lot. And sometimes I just don’t know who is telling me the truth, and I don’t know which of them I should believe and what I should do.

Sometimes it is very hard to know who is telling us the truth. So, how can we know what is true and what is not true? (Let them respond.) Sometimes people do a lot of different things to try and find out what the truth is.

Here is an easy one. (Show the coin.) Some people just flip a coin. They say, if the head of the coin is on top, it is true and if the tail of the coin shows up, it isn’t true. So, when someone tells them something, they flip the coin. Let’s try it. (Ask one of the children their first name.) Okay, let’s find out if you are telling the truth. (Flip the coin.) Heads means what they said is true, tails means it is not true. (Show if the coin is heads or tails. Repeat it if you want to show how the coin results might change.) Do you think this is a good way to find out if something is true or not? (Let them respond.) Yeah, probably not all that good, is it?

[If you have a Magic 8 ball, show it now. If not, skip the next paragraph.]

Some people don’t use a coin, but they use something like this Magic 8 Ball. You turn it over and over, and then when you look at the little window it will tell you if something is true or not. Let’s try it too. (Ask someone else their name then roll the 8 ball and read what is in the window.) Do you think this is a good way to find out if something is true? (Let them respond.) It’s kind of like the coin, isn’t it? Probably not all that good.

I know two more ways people believe they can prove what is true. For the first one, we need to divide into two groups. (Have the children stand in two groups facing each other.) Now, I want you to all yell as loudly as you can. Let’s all yell, “THIS IS TRUE!” over and over and over. Okay? Ready? Yell! (Have them all start yelling and keep encouraging them to get louder.) Okay, now stop! (Have them sit back down and give them a moment to calm down a bit if you need to.) Some people believe that when you aren’t sure what the truth is, the people who are yelling the loudest are always telling the truth. Do you think that is a good way to find out what is true? (Let them respond.) Yeah, it’s kind of silly, isn’t it?

I know even a sillier way some people believe they can prove something is true. Do you know what it is? (Let them respond.) They fight! Yes. They believe that whoever is the biggest, and strongest, is telling the truth. So, they fight. Does that sound like a good way to find out what is true? (Let them respond.) No, I sure don’t either.

But our story today tells us there is another way to know what the truth is, and it is the very best way of all to find the truth.

It is a story about the day Jesus was arrested and was taken to see a guy named Pilate. Pilate was the guy in charge of things and was going to decide what should be done with Jesus. Pilate was trying to figure out who Jesus was, so he asked him, “Why are you here? Are you a king?”

Jesus said, “The reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth.” Jesus said that God sent him to us to simply show what the truth is. If we want to know what is true, we just need to look at Jesus and listen to what he is telling us.

And can anyone tell us what Jesus said is the most important truth God wants us to remember? (Let them respond.) Jesus said the most important thing God wants us to remember is to take care of all the rest of God’s children.

What is truth? God loves us very much and wants us to love each other and take care of each other! So, if we are asked to do something that might hurt someone else, it cannot be the truth or the right thing to do. The truth always shows that we love each other, just like God asks us to love each other.

That is the truth.

I hope you will remember how much God loves you, and how much God wants us to love others and do as much as we can to help take care of other people.

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.