Children’s Sermon

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

The Power of Your Love

By Lois Parker Edstrom

OBJECTS SUGGESTED: Package of yeast, five cups flour, one cup water. Fresh bread to share with the children – optional.

Have you ever had the opportunity to smell bread baking? Isn’t the aroma delicious? Have you tried making bread? Only three ingredients are needed – flour, water and yeast. Some bakers add other ingredients such as salt, sugar, eggs, or milk, which makes the bread taste good, but those ingredients aren’t essential.

Yeast is what makes bread rise and become light and tasty. (Yeast is actually a living fungus that is found in the air.) To make bread you need about five cups of flour, one cup of water and this tiny amount of yeast. (Show proportions of ingredients.)

This small amount of yeast, when combined with flour and water, grows and forms gas bubbles all through the bread dough causing the bread to rise. It is yeast that causes bread dough to expand and change its shape.

Jesus tells us that “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.” (Leavened bread is bread that has had yeast added to it and has risen.)

We can apply this idea to our own lives. Jesus teaches us that something very small, like yeast, can be powerful and bring about change. Think of small acts of kindness and love as being like yeast. What are some of the ways you can share your love? Yes, a smile, a kind word, being helpful. When you show love other people will be able to see “the kingdom of heaven” in you and your small acts of kindness may cause others to grow in love and become more than they were. Don’t underestimate the power of your love.

–– Copyright 2008, Richard Niell Donovan