Don't Step on the LEGOs
Did you know there is a scientific reason for why it hurts so much to step on LEGOs? According to one report:
As it turns out, a LEGO won’t squish under your foot unless you weigh 953 pounds. Each brick can take 4,240 Newtons of force.
And it doesn’t help that the bottom of your foot is one of the most sensitive areas on your body. Your feet have up to 200,000 exteroceptors, or nerves, that connect directly to your brain.
Careful stepping, America!
In an effort to illustrate allowing the light of the Lord to guide your path you can lead students to "feel" how it is to to walk in the light of the Lord vs.walking in darkness.
Ask for a volunteer (make it clear their participation may not be totally comfortable!). Then have them blindfolded.
PART 1:
Scatter a bunch of LEGO bricks in their path. Have them take off their shoes and socks, and then have them slowly walk toward you (over the path of the scattered LEGOs).
As they walk on the LEGO bricks they will begin to "feel" the pain of walking in the darkness. No doubt, the other kids will begin to giggle, watching their freind walk through this minefield of LEGOs!.
PART 2:
Now have them take off their blindfold and walk back toward you. They will "feel" how much more comfortable it is to walk that same path when they can see how to avoid those pesky LEGO bricks.
Take the students to Psalm 119:105. Expalin that the Lord wants to guide our paths through the light of His Word. Explain how the LEGO bricks illustrate various temptations in our lives. Giving in to these tempations can result in really painful or harmful consequences. Ask for some examples of bad experiences with sin and giving into temptation. Examples: Getting caught for cheating at school, and thus receiving a bad grade; trying drugs and having a bad reaction or getting addicted; stealing and having to go to jail; lying, and thus people not trusting you anymore.
Living with the consequences of giving in to temptation can lead to a really sad and painful life. By asking the Lord to guide our paths, we are able to avoid these painful temptations.
BONUS ILLUSTRATION for this verse can also include a slight variation of this exercise:
Have all the kids take off their shoes and socks and walk around on the LEGO bricks. Then explain that, over time, their feet would begin to toughen up and get used to the feel of the bricks, so they won't hurt so much.
When it comes to temptation and sin, this can be very dangerous. We may get numb to our sin, and no longer respond to the conviction of God's Word.
Ask the Lord to guide your path in life ("And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one," Matthew 6:13, NIV). Use the light of God's Word and the leading of the Holy Spirit to guide your decisions in life. Live in the light and not the darkness.
"Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path" (Psalm 199:105, ESV).
"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7, ESV).
"For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light!
For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true. Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them" (Ephesians 5:8-11, NLT).
Of Prayers and Paper Airplanes
OBJECT LESSON ...
Take a moment right now to write down a prayer request on a slip of paper. Your mission is to get your prayer request up to the pulpit. You can throw it. You can try to shoot it with a rubber band. Or you can fold it into a paper airplane and try to fly it. Do your best, then let 'er fly!
We often make certain assumptions about prayer. We think it’s some kind of game with a long list of complicated rules, or that it requires some magical strategy or gimmick. So we devise elaborate methods in order to get God to hear us and accept our prayers.
Maybe we think we’ll be heard for our many words, or our impressive words. Or maybe the task looks so daunting that we don't even try.
But truth is, we could have simply walked up here and placed our prayer request on the pulpit.
God doesn't want us to just try to be heard from afar. Rather, He invites us to come near to Him.
Prayer isn’t about getting the right words, but having the right heart -- a heart transformed into a child of God.
"Come close to God, and God will come close to you" (James 4:8, NLT).
"Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 4:16, ESV).
""Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus ... let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith ..." (Hebrews 10:19, 22, ESV).
Of Sinful Selves and Crushed Pretzels
Hand out a small ziplock bag with two pretzel sticks covered in salt. Explain how a pretzel is just a salt delivery device and that a pretzel without salt is pretty sad and worthless. Have the congregation take out one pretzel stick, then tell them, throughout the remainder of the message, to rub salt off the pretzel everytime they feel convicted of a sin.
Then walk through the 10 Commandments, traditional numbering: 1. Prioritizing other things over God; 2. Using His name as an expletive; 3. Failing to take a day of rest and reconnection with God; 4. Failing to honor your parents; 5. Harboring hatred and bitterness; 6. Looking lustfully at someone who is not your spouse; 7. Taking something that is not yours or failing to be generous; 8. Talking about others instead of to them; 9. & 10. Being envious of what God has given other people, or failing to be grateful for what God has given you.
If they're honest, no one should have any salt left on their pretzel. Jesus asks the question, "If salt loses it saltiness, how can it be made salty again?" Then he answers His own question by saying, "It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet." Tell people to put the now worthless, saltless pretzel stick back in the bag by itself, zip it up and do what Jesus says to do with it. Throw it down and stomp on it.
That broken worthless pretzel is a picture of what it means to be broken and sinful people. It is a picture of what it means to be poor in spirit or having nothing to offer God in terms of righteousness. Salt cannot be made salty again.
Take your broken, sinful flesh and throw it away. Bury it six feet deep.
Then realize this: Jesus says that the poor in spirit are blessed and that "theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." Our sinful flesh is unsalvageable, but Jesus makes us a new creation, covered in His righteousness. Now hold up the second unmolested pretzel covered in salt.
Paul says in Gal 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." So burying that worthless pretzel is a daily activity. Everyday we crucify our flesh and live by the righteousness of Christ.