Sheepish

Children’s Sermon

26 April 2026

Good morning, guys. How are we doing? Are you looking forward to May? I am. I think that May might be the most beautiful month of the year in Minnesota.

So I have a question for you. Who here has seen a sheep, maybe on a family farm? What do you think of sheep? Woolly, aren’t they? Often white, though they come in different colors. They’ve got that lanolin on their wool when you pet them. And they aren’t terribly bright, are they? But that’s more our fault than theirs.

In Jesus’ day, sheep were very important. Peoples’ clothes were woven mostly from their wool. We would make cheese from their milk. Of course, back then sheep were ornerier too. They used to have more horns, like six of them. And they would keep most of their fat in their tails. It’s true. Look up “fat-tail sheep” when you get home. It helped them keep cool in the heat.

Sheep needed a shepherd. A shepherd protected the sheep from wolves and bears and lions. A shepherd led the sheep to nice pasture and cool water. A shepherd stayed with them at night, keeping watch while they slept. And if a little lamb got lost, the shepherd would go and find her and then bring her right back home.

Now, we can be a lot like sheep sometimes, can’t we? We can be stubborn. We can maybe not make the best decisions. And we definitely do tend to go astray. But God in Jesus is always with us, guarding us, guiding us, leading us out and bringing us home. That’s why we call Him the Good Shepherd.

But we also call Jesus the Lamb of God, because while He does indeed take care of us—like a shepherd cares for his flock—He also lives as one of us, like a little lamb Himself, sharing all our sorrows and our joys. In Jesus, God is one of us, the best of us. And because Jesus loves us, we can never truly be lost.

Sound good? Okay. Let’s pray.