IT'S ALL ABOUT ME - NOT!

If you do this again, the kids REALLY connected with the cartoons intro, but the transition to self-centeredness didn’t work.  You need to either eliminate the cartoons part, or find a way to help the kids move beyond this!

VIDEO CLIP OF DICK AND RICK HOYT, marathon runners

INTRO

How many of you watch cartoons?  What are your favorites?

Why do you think people like to watch cartoons?

What kinds of things can happen in a cartoon that couldn’t happen in real life?

·         Animals talk

·         People get hurt but don’t really get hurt

·         People pull things out of thin air to use as a prop – bug bunny gets a big mallet to bang someone on the head

Maybe when you were smaller you thought that some of the things you saw in cartoons would work in real life.  Did any of you think that?

When is it fine to think this?

When might it be dangerous? 

How would this world be if we acted like we were in cartoons?  What if I really believed I was like Batman and could jump off a building and fly?

What if I really thought I could take up a big frying pan and hit my little sister on the head, and it wouldn’t hurt?

Sometimes we just don’t think – could something I want be good for me, but hurt someone else?

There are so many good things that God gives us.  One wonderful blessing is that he frees us from just thinking about “me” and think about others too. 

Phil. 2:3-5

When I think only about myself, what am I?

I am being something called self-centered.

Here’s a good way to think about what it means to be self-centered.  I want you to imagine what the solar system looks like.  What’s on the far, far edges of our solar system?

What’s in the solar system as we move in from the edges?

What’s in the very center?

Our whole solar system revolves around the sun.  That’s really good because we need the sun to have life!  The sun warms the earth so we don’t freeze and die.  It provides the energy for plants to make oxygen.  It even gives us Vitamin D that keeps us healthy.  You could say that our solar system is sun-centered.  And that’s really good!

What would happen if I deep down believed that I was the center of the world, not like the sun, but that I was the most important thing in the world?

We sometimes call it selfishness.  But selfishness is just a little part of being self-centered. 

Sometimes we’re self-centered because we’re really afraid that we won’t get what we really want.  We sometimes actually get panicky!  Maybe you find this happens when there’s only one thing left – like a donut or a piece of candy.  You want it so bad, and it’s so hard to think about anything else but how much you want that thing!   It’s easy to see this in kids, but adults can be this way too.

What if everybody was out just for themselves?

What would happen if a mom or dad only cared for themselves and not the family? (kids really got the impact of this question)

What would happen if a kid only cared for herself and not the family?

When you and I become Christians, not only does God wash our sins away and make us clean, but he begins a big, big construction project  in us.  It’s a project that is going to change who’s  the most important thing from being me to being God.  This is such a huge project it is like moving the sun out of the center of the solar system!  God moves ME out of the center and He moves into that place. 

Maybe you’ve said to someone – you’re not the boss of me.  When you and I become a Christian, we tell God – you ARE the boss of me!

(I don’t know that this idea below really made sense to the kids)

Do you know that when we act as if we are #1, we think we’re doing just what we want to do, but we are actually in slavery?  The need to be #1 pushes us around and holds us down.  I don’t know about you, but I HATE the idea of anyone pushing me around.  But I LOVE the idea of someone  helping me to be free!

When God frees me from needing to be the most important one, the funny and wonderful thing is that I am lots happier, really deep down happier!  My heart comes alive!  Because God made me and you to love God and other people.

I want to show you a wonderful video tonight.  It’s the true story of a dad and a son.  As you watch it, I want you to think  about why the Dad did what he did.

(show video of Dick and Rick Hoyt – dad and son who run marathons together)

Okay, let’s talk about what we see.

• What challenge did this family faced? 
• What new thing did the son want to do?
• What did you notice about the boy’s face as they ran together?
• Was it easy for the dad?  Do you think he believes it’s worth it?  What if the dad only care for himself?  Would he be happier?

Boys and girls, that dad could have lived his life with him in the center.  But what joy he would have missed, and how much joy others would have missed.  Not only did he look full of joy, but wow –what a grin on his son’s face!  And everyone watching them run couldn’t help but see love!

You and I can choose to live our whole lives with us in the center, like the sun.  But that is a very awful way to live a life.  God calls you and me to let HIM be the center and to get out of the middle.  Will you do that?

Repeat Phil. 2:3-5