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So Jesus called them over to him and began to speak to them in parables: “How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man’s house. (vv. 23-27)

Object: A collection of building blocks that fit together. They don’t have to be Lego™ brand blocks, but just the kind that have sides that can stick together. Just have enough blocks so each child has a nice handful to use. For the message, you can pour the blocks on the floor, or for more fun, use a table so anyone else there can see what the children are doing as they build. Have fun!


Hi, everyone! (Let them respond.) I have a challenge for you today; kind of a game. Are you ready? (Let them respond.) Great!

One day, a long time ago, Jesus was in the town called Capernaum and there was a huge crowd of people who had come to see him. That happened a lot, didn’t it? (Let them respond.) Well, this time it was a really big crowd. There were so many people trying to see Jesus that he and his disciples didn’t even have time to get away for a few minutes to get something to eat. Finally, when the Bible says that Jesus’ family started worrying about him and thought he was crazy for not eating, so they went to get him to make him come in and eat.

Well, do you know what happened when they did that? (Let them respond.) Yes, the crowd started getting upset that Jesus was going away, and a bunch of them started yelling. People started arguing, and pushing, and shoving, and it was a real mess. And do you know what Jesus did? (Let them respond.)

Jesus walked back outside with a big bag of building blocks and poured them out onto a table. (Pour your blocks onto the floor or table. Let them respond. Have fun with this.) What? You don’t think Jesus had blocks? (Let them respond.) Well, okay, maybe he just talked to them, but we’re going to use blocks to see what he was talking about. Here’s my challenge for you:

I want each of you to take some blocks and see just how tall of a tower you can build. (Let them respond.) But wait! There is one rule. You can’t connect the blocks together. You can stack them on top of each other but can’t use the sides to connect them together like you usually do. Okay? (Let them respond and answer any questions.) Let’s build!

[Let them build for a while, encouraging any who might be having problems and making sure everyone gets their share of blocks. Watch to see that no one is actually “connecting” their blocks. If something bumps the table and blocks fall, well, that’s just how it goes, isn’t it? Before the frustration grows too high, start talking again.]

How did the building go? (Let them respond.) It looks like you might have had some problems. Let’s try again, but this time you can stick them together like you usually do when you build with them, okay? (Let them respond.) Great, let’s build!

[This round should be fun. Encourage, and make sure everyone gets their share of blocks. Once it is clear they are being more successful, you can stop them and continue talking.)]

Well, that was better, wasn’t it? (Let them respond.) What was it that helped make it so much better? (Let them respond.) You were able to join the blocks together, right? (Let them respond.) That helped the blocks stick together and not fall apart, didn’t it? (Let them respond.) Well, Jesus may not have had blocks for them to play with, but he told them the same thing.

Jesus went out to the people who were arguing and said, “Now listen. If a kingdom is divided and can’t stick together it cannot stand up. If we are divided and not sticking together, then we cannot stand up and do the things God wants us to do.”

We are kind of like our blocks. When we work together and stick together, we can do some really great things. But if we just argue and fuss and don’t work together, we will fall apart just like our first blocks did.

We are all different kinds of people, but our blocks are different and that’s what let’s us stick them together, isn’t it? (Let them respond.)

I hope we can remember this the next time we can use our differences to help us stick together, instead of just arguing about them, don’t you? (Let them respond.)

And I hope you’ll remember how much God loves you, and how much God wants us to show everyone around us how much we love them, too.

Let’s have our prayer and ask God to help us stick together and do the things God wants us to do to take care of each other.

Prayer:
Dear God, thank you for reminding us how much you love us. Please help us remember that you love all of the people you have created and help us let the people around us know that we love them just like Jesus loves us. Amen.