Stronger?
This must be stronger than that!
How strong is your faith? Today we are thinking about how our faith in God needs to be stronger than the things we face in life. That we need to pick following Jesus over everything else.
The service starts at 9:30am on stwderby.online.church
But this button will go live about 11am on Sunday 2nd May for you to watch the service again if you missed it live! You won’t want to miss out!
Hope you enjoyed our Werb’s Kids Service this morning!!
We love how everyone is getting involved so don’t miss out! Just email Amy (amy.farrar@stwderby.org) so that we can keep making it better and better and involving more and more people!
Today we are looking at how our faith in God needs to be stronger than the things we face in life. That we need to pick following Jesus over everything else.
In our service today we played a fun game of THIS or THAT? In this game there are no wrong answers but you just have to quickly decide which you think is better for you.
Which thing would you choose? THIS OR THAT?
Would you rather pet a dragon or a dinosaur?
Would you rather jump into a swimming pool filled with chocolate milk or strawberry ice cream?
Would you rather be a bird or a horse?
Would you rather have really big ears the size of your head or a crazy long nose like an elephant?
Would you rather fly a kite or ride a scooter?
Would you rather eat a caterpillar or a spider?
Would you rather have spaghetti for hair or biscuits for fingernails?
Would you rather eat pizza forever or pasta forever?
Some of these would be rather funny if they actually happened. But today
This needs to be stronger than that. Jesus needs to be stronger in us than anything else.
THIS FAITH we have needs to be stronger than whatever THAT is which we face.
One way we can strengthen our faith is by reminding ourselves who God is and we can do that through worship and singing to God. Our God is stronger than anything we could ever face and that is why he is worth following.
Today we looked at Luke 13v25-33. You might want to reread the passage again below.
“Large crowds were traveling with Jesus.
He turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me but loves his father, mother, wife, children,
brothers, or sisters more than he loves me, then he cannot be my follower.
A person must love me more than he loves himself!
If anyone is not willing to die on a cross when he follows me, then he cannot be my follower.
If you wanted to build a tower, you would first
sit down and decide how much it would cost.
You must see if you have enough
money to finish the job.
If you don’t do that, you might begin the work,
but you would not be able to finish. And if you
could not finish it, then all who would see
it would laugh at you. They would say,
‘This man began to build but was
not able to finish!’
If a king is going to fight against another king,
first he will sit down and plan.
If the king has only 10,000 men, he will plan
to see if he is able to defeat the other king
who has 20,000 men. If he cannot defeat
the other king, then he will send some men
to speak to the other king and ask for peace.
In the same way, you must give up everything
you have to follow me.
If you don’t, you cannot be my follower!”
What did you think of that passage? It’s a little bit of an odd one isn’t it.
Jesus tells a story about a man who builds a tower and the fact that the man decides to plan out his tower to avoid having to make big changes to his tower because he can’t afford to finish it.
Have you ever built something with Lego and not had enough bricks to complete it?
You probably would in this case have to adapt it and make it different.
Jesus also says that we must love him more than anyone in our family. What do you think of that? Jesus wants us to love our families and one of the ten commandments is to honour our mums and dads so to love them lots and obey what they say.
But here Jesus is talking about something slightly different. He’s talking about the sacrifices we might need to make if we choose to follow him.
This morning Amy helped us understand this better with a picture. She showed us a list of things and then put them in order of things she loved most to the least or things that were most important to here to things that didn’t matter as much to her.
How would you order these things?
GOD - TV - FOOD - FRIENDS - FAMILY - SCHOOL - PETS - football - clothes
Some of these are obvious to put in order. For most of up our family and friends are near the top but in this passage Jesus is telling us that it doesn’t really matter what order everything is in because regardless God should come first and he is more important than EVERYTHING else.
Jesus is showing his disciples – and us – that when we make a decision to follow him we need to look at the sacrifices we might be asked to make and think about whether we are happy to make them – Jesus doesn’t want followers who suddenly decide it’s too hard: he wants followers who see that following him might not always be easy but know it’s the best thing and pick him anyway and will do anything to put him first.
There are many ways you can grow your faith but it’s always important to ask yourself if God is first in your life, is he at the top or is there anything you love more than him? How important is God to you? You are no.1 to him so why not let him be no.1 to you?
GO DEEPER!
SPARKS (Preschool)
What is your favourite thing?
Do you have someone you love the most?
Do you have a toy you can’t live without?
It is good to love our families.
What do you love most about your family?
What do you love most about your mummys or daddys, sisters or brothers?
Thank them for the things they do for you that you love about them.
Jesus tells us that we are love him MORE than anything and anyone.
What do you love about God?
He’s a great friend, never leaves us and always looks after us.
You can have favourite things but God needs to be your ABSOLUTE favourite number 1.
Finish now by saying this prayer.
“Dear God,
Thank you for our
families and friends.
Thank you that they love us and care for us.
Thank you that you love and care for us EVEN MORE than our friends and families do.
Help us to put you first God. Help us to follow you and show your love to others.
Amen.”
FLAMES + BLAZE (KS2)
Todays passage was a bit of an odd one.
It’s a little hard to get our head around that God wants us to love him more than anyone or anything else. But this is because he is faithful and we can trust him and he will never ever let us down even if our own friends and family do sometimes.
Spend some time now thinking about what it means to follow God and truly let him be no.1 in your life.
To do this grab a piece of paper.
We’re going to spend a little time thinking about the difference between what we want and what God wants. This is a chance to think about the sacrifices or things we might need to let go of or give up before we decide to follow Jesus.
Fold your paper into 4 (in half and then half again). Then write in the top 2 boxes ‘I WANT’ and ‘GOD WANTS’.
Think about what you would put in each box.
For “I want” don’t just think about now but about the future for example write what job you might want when you’re older or what kind of person you want to be.
For “God wants” think about what they know about what God's plans for us; to be a Christian, to tell people about Him, not to swear, steal, etc.
In “God wants” you could also write anything you feel God is specifically calling you to do.
When we think about these things we can also think about things to stop and things to start.
If we want our faith to be the strongest thing in our lives there might be some things that you need to stop doing because they aren’t good or aren’t helping anyone including you!
But there also might be things you need to start doing. Last week we talked about the fruits of the spirit these are all good things to have in our lives.
In order to grow some of these better in your life like we talked about last week you might need to stop some things but also start some things!
In the bottom 2 boxes write “THINGS TO STOP” and in the other “THINGS TO START.”
In order to be more kind you will need to start doing more kind things. Once you start these things will grow and become more and more regular in your life and you will become more kind!
If you aren’t very patient then you may need to practice waiting. Like sitting nicely at the dinner table until EVERYONE is finished and not running off asking to get down just because you’ve finished. Or maybe you need more self control and you’re a little greedy so you’ll stop asking for biscuits before lunch or dinner. Or maybe you will try your best not to get angry or frustrated when someone has something you want.
Look at your aims and God's aims and see where they don't fit together. What do they have to do in order to make their aims more like God's?
For example you might need to stop gossiping or stop talking badly about someone.
Maybe you need to stop wasting time, or you need to be better at starting your homework without being asked. Maybe you need to stop talking so much in class and concentrate better on your school work.
Or maybe you need to stop ignoring someone at school and be kind and start talking to them.
Or you need to start reading the Bible or praying and talking to God more?
But maybe God also just wants you to start trusting him more or for you to tell others about Him.
PICK ONE THING FROM YOUR START AND STOP LISTS AND PROMISE TO DO THAT THIS WEEK!
It begins with you, it’s up to you to make a difference and change things for the better in your life. Remember following Jesus sometimes means it’s gonna be hard and we have to give things up that are tough. But we can do it and by doing this you’ll become a better person and a better follower of Jesus!
FUN ACTIVITIES + CRAFTS!
For those who LOVE colouring and activity sheets check these out:
Grab some Lego or Duplo and make an amazing tower. Make it the best tower you can. Then think about how you made it. Did you plan beforehand?
Do you think by planning first it would help it look better?
Build your own tower.
Think about what makes a good tower and then use recycling materials to make a cool tower. Create a plan before you get started and remind yourself that Jesus in the passage tells us to prepare when we follow him too.Following Jesus Game!
Here is a fun game you can print out and play at home that gets you thinking about what it means to follow Jesus, but you will need a dice to be able to play it!Food craft!
Make some of your favourite food - maybe some cupcakes or brownies. As you make them talk about today’s session and how you talked about sacrifice. Think again about the things we we might have to give up in order to follow Jesus.You could discuss these questions:
What does “sacrifice” mean?
Why might we have to make sacrifices to follow God – for instance, what of our hobbies might we have to give up?
Might we have to sacrifice money? Why and how?
What other types of sacrifice might we make?
Once you’ve made all your cakes think about who you would want to give them to. No doubt you might want one but would you sacrifice one in order for your friends to benefit instead?
Would you mind going without? Would you sacrifice your piece for someone else?
WORSHIP + PRAYER
This song is all about being more like Jesus. Look at the lyrics and think about how you can be more like him this week.
“King of endless worth
There’s no crown above You
Take Your rightful place
Here in my life, here in my life
God of boundless love
Tearing down my idols
Every battle won
Here in Your light, here in Your light
Come and change my heart, show me who You are
I wanna be like You, I wanna be like You
Take my heart, my soul, I give You control
I wanna be like You, I wanna be like You
Center of my world
Nothing comes before You
And there’s no place I’d rather be
Found in Your name, found in Your name
Found in Your name, found in Your name”
Created by Amy Farrar using several different sources including energize.net
