Children’s Sermon

Mark 8:31-38

A Difficult Journey

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Mark 8:31-38

A Difficult Journey

By Lois Parker Edstrom

OBJECTS SUGGESTED:

If your church has stained glass windows use them to illustrate this lesson. Otherwise, use a small stained glass object or a picture of a stained glass window.

If a member of your congregation works with glass, ask them to bring in some of their tools.

Pictures of stained glass windows available at:
Stained glass pictures

How blessed we are to have beautiful stained glass windows in our church. Often stained glass windows tell the story of Jesus’ life. Light comes through the windows and makes the colors glow.

As you can see, the windows are made of many small pieces of colored glass that fit together to form the picture. Have you ever thought about how stained glass windows are made? It is a difficult process.

Working with glass, is not only difficult, but dangerous. You must wear glasses to protect your eyes when working with glass and many special tools are needed such as glass cutters, glass grinders, and pliers.

Small pieces of glass must be cut to exactly the right size. Sometimes the glass breaks in the wrong place and you must be careful that the glass doesn’t cut your hands.

Even though working with stained glass is difficult, it is worth the effort because the end result is a beautiful, inspiring piece of art that can cause us to think about God’s love.

The Bible teaches us that following Jesus is a difficult thing to do. Jesus said, “Whoever wants to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (8:34).

Jesus warns us that to follow him is like carrying a huge, heavy cross. Even though you choose to follow Jesus there may be times when you have difficulty making the right choices and doing the right thing. You may get discouraged. Others may make fun of you. You might think it is just too hard to do, but it is worth the effort.

In much the same way that stained glass is beautiful and inspiring, so too will your life be beautiful and inspiring to others when you show them God’s love. Just as light comes gleaming through stained glass, God’s light comes from within you shining out for others to see.

Scripture quotations from the World English Bible

Copyright 2009, Richard Niell Donovan