Children’s Sermon April 25
Title: Is It Worth It?
Theme: How do we rightly earn money.
Objects: a dollar bill
Scripture: …so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark…
Revelation 13:17a
Good morning, kids. Today, I have a dollar bill with me. Now, if I crumple that dollar bill up, is it still worth a dollar? What about if I drag it through the mud? It’s still a dollar, right? That’s a good example for another children’s sermon…
Now, who would like to have this dollar? What would you do with it if I gave it to you? Now, what if I said you had to earn it? What would you do for it? Are there things you wouldn’t do for it? What if I asked you to smack someone over the head really hard with a hymnal? (Thankfully, there are none in our pews due to COVID.) What if I asked you to break something valuable that belonged to someone else or to steal something?
Hopefully, you said, “NO!!!” to all those bad things. We should never be willing to do anything for money. The Bible tells us about a time when we will not be able to buy or sell anything if we don’t receive a special mark. That’s in Revelation 13. Just a little later, it tells us that faithful people who don’t get the mark will receive a special reward from God, Revelation 14, and obeyed God. The second group obeyed God rather that people of this world. They were unwilling to do anything for money—even when it meant hardships for themselves and their families.
Can you imagine not being able to buy food or pay for your home or be able to go work? That would be a huge hardship if your parents couldn’t do those things because of their faith. It would be tempting to get the mark just to get those things, especially when it meant providing for your family.
You might want to say, “It’s okay if I do a bad thing for that dollar because I can do a good thing with it.” God doesn’t want us to do things like that. He wants us to do good things with the money we have, but He also wants us to do the right things to earn it too.
O God, teach us all, especially these kids, to know right from wrong, to pursue good things, and to earn rewards the right way, Your Way. Help us to do all that as Jesus would. In His name we pray, Amen.
©Randall J. Forester, 2021
