[Note: Use a fairly large, nice looking drinking cup and a bottle of soda pop or other soft drink for this lesson.  Be sure the outside of the cup is very clean, but fill the inside part way up with mud.  If there is time, let the mud dry. Hold the cup up high enough so that the children will not see the inside until you pass it around.  Let them discover the mud inside.]

I brought along something special today. It's my favorite cup.  I like to drink coffee and tea out of it.  I also like hot chocolate.  In the summer time I fill it with ice and drink either cold water or iced tea from it.  It's a beautiful cup.  Look at the painted pictures of ducks on the outside.  I'm going to pass around for you to see but I'd like to ask you to be very careful with it.  If you drop that it might break. 

(Pass cup around) 

So what do you think of my cup?  What? You're telling me it's dirty inside?  So what?  That's no big deal.  As long as the cup looks pretty on the outside, why should I wash the inside? I have a bottle of pop here.  Would any of you like to drink some out of my cup? 

Actually, I made the inside of the cup dirty to teach you something important.  One day long ago Jesus was speaking to a group of religious leaders.  They went to all kinds of trouble to look good on the outside to other people.  They wore special clothes, they change their language to sound religious, and they love to strut around for everyone to see them.  But Jesus knew what was really in their hearts.  He knew they were really dirty on the inside.  Here's what he said to them: 

“Hypocrites! You are so careful to clean the outside of the cup… but inside you are filthy—full of greed and self-indulgence! …First wash the inside of the cup… and then the outside will become clean, too.” (Matthew 23:25-26 NLT)

 I have found Jesus words to be true every time I wash is cup.  If I concentrate on washing the inside, the outside gets clean too.  If I just wash the outside the inside never gets clean. 

But Jesus isn't just interested in cups.  He wants all of us to be clean. But He wants us to be clean all the way through, not just on the outside.  It's not enough for us just to look nice and talk nice when we come to church.   We need to actually be nice.  

This week, each time you see a cup, remember what Jesus taught about cleaning up the person you are on the inside.  It's the right way to be pleasing to Him.

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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