Simplicity – Jesus teaches about Worry

Key Bible Passage: Matthew 6:25-34

You’ll need: a tangle of skipping ropes, coloured wools, embroidery threads, wires or similar; and one brightly coloured non-tangled thread, rope or wire; a picture of a bird and a flower (optional)

1 Hold up your tangle of threads. Oh dear! They’re in such a mess! I was trying to pull out three colours at the same time and it all ended up in a big tangle.

2 Sometimes my life feels like this. Does yours? Like lots of different threads that have all got tangled up.

(Take some threads as you speak and tangle them up in each other.)

I’ve got school to go to and clubs I belong to – Cubs or Brownies or football or gym club. Then there are all the programmes and adverts that get thrown at me from the television, all trying to make me do something or buy something. And there are all sorts of things to do on the Internet. And I worry about money and about what clothes I should wear to the party on Saturday and what I should cook for tea or what the weather will be like tomorrow’And sometimes I get to the end of the day and I think ‘Oh dear! My life is all tangled up with worries and problems and things I haven’t got round to doing, and it all feels a bit of a mess.’ And do you know? The older we get, the messier our lives can get! Grown ups often have very messy lives!

3 But Christians believe Jesus doesn’t want us to live like that. He tried to help people live happy lives and one of his clues to a happy life was K.I.S.S. Not kissing! The letters stand for ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid!’ Jesus helped people see that if they lead a simple life, they can be a lot happier. Instead of a tangle of threads like this, they can have one simple straight thread like this.

(Show the straight thread)

He said that all we have to do is watch what happens in nature. Then we see that God cares for every bit of the world, so he’ll look after all the things that we might worry about. He told us to think about the flowers and birds especially.

(If possible, have a picture of a flying bird or a beautiful flower to look at while the passage is being read.)

Listen to what he said to some crowds who had come to listen to him:

4 Read Matthew 6:25-34 from the Bible (read on Biblegateway)

5 Say: Jesus was a simple carpenter from a simple family. He told simple stories. He lived a simple life. He had no house or possessions. He wore simple clothes. He travelled simply. He lived each day as if it was the only one he would ever live. He treated each person as if they were the most important person ever. And he was the happiest person in the history of the world.
I wonder why?

6 A Prayer:
‘Lord Jesus, help us not to want all the things that make life messy. Help us to be happy with what we have. Help us to want what you want.