Children's Messages
More Than a Taste
By Mary Gruell
Bible Text: 1 Peter 2:2-3
Materials:
- Plate of broken cookie pieces
- baby bottle
- small bags with two or three cookies in each (you may want to buy small packages of prepackaged cookies) to hand out at the end of the message.
Message: How many of you like chocolate chip cookies? I have some here and each of you can have a taste of one (hand out cookie pieces - one each). Are the cookies good? Did you have enough? I know that when there are cookies around, I sure want to have more than a taste. I want at least two of them so that the good cookie taste lasts longer.
1 Peter 2:2-3 says, "Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good."
A baby’s first food is milk. (Show bottle.) Would just a taste of milk be enough for a baby? No way! Once babies taste the milk they want to keep drinking until their tummies are full. Babies need milk to grow and they need lots of it.
Christians, what do you need in order to grow in your faith -- what is your spiritual food? That’s right! Your food is God’s Word. The verse I read to you says to crave pure spiritual milk -- God’s Word -- now that you’ve had a taste of how good God is. If you crave something, you want more and more of it; you just don’t want to stop having it.
We respond to the good news of Jesus’ death on the cross and His resurrection -- the good news that we read in the Bible -- by wanting to hear and read more of it and by wanting to share it with others. There are over 440 million people in more than 3,000 language groups in the world who still do not have any part of the Bible in their language. They cannot read and understand God’s Word in the language that speaks to their hearts. They also are unable to take in the spiritual milk of the Word of God which they need in order to grow in their faith in Jesus Christ
Missionaries with Lutheran Bible Translators are working with people in language groups in many other countries of the world and helping them to write the Bible in their language. They do this by living with the people, learning their language just by listening to the sounds they make, and matching the sounds of the language to letters to put it into written form. Then they train someone from that language group to work with them and begin the work of translating the Bible into the language of that people group. How long do you think it would take to do that? (Listen to answers.) The whole process takes around 12 years.
You have the gift of God’s Word, our spiritual milk, in your language. You are able to crave the spiritual milk of the Bible and grow in your faith. You are also able to help those who are still waiting to have the Bible in their language. No, you probably can’t go over to Africa or down to South America right now, although you may feel God leading you to do that when you get older. What you can do right now is PRAY. You can pray for the people who still need to know Jesus and for those who still need God’s Word. You can also pray that God would send missionaries and would be with the missionaries who are already in other countries. You can also give your offerings to help send missionaries and to supply the materials they need, and you can give of your time by writing to missionaries to tell them that you are praying for them.
When we started I gave you just a taste of a cookie and most of you said you wanted more. I do have some cookies that you can take with you to eat later. When you eat them remember that God’s Word is food for our spirits. Just like we need lots of food for our bodies, we also want to continue hearing and reading the Bible so that we can grow in our faith. Inside each package are enough cookies for you to eat two and still give away one. When you give one away, remember that we also want to share God’s Word with others.
Thank you for coming up this morning. After you get your cookies, you may return to your seats.
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