Children—Michael Hapanowicz
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All right, is this working?
People hear me. All right, well, good morning and welcome to the Sunday school. So it looks like most all of you kids are sitting up front. This is fabulous because I've got this here with me. There's 180 pieces of candy and I see six kids up front. So there's a lot to go around. And if you want a piece of candy, you've got to be sitting on the front row.
So you guys are the place to be. OK, so does any of you have a song? We've got these little sheets around, but if you know a song from here and you can tell us what it is, I'm sure that we can sing that from memory too. So who has a number they want us to start with?
Landon has #47 for us. OK, Is someone going to be able to start these songs for me today? I would appreciate that.
Morning. Let's shine.
A chance for a minute's crown.
Well, I remember when I was younger, this was one of my favorite songs, and it still is. And I've got a question for one of your kids. Does your mom have a jewel? Does she have one? No, she doesn't. Does your mom have one? Where is it?
Yeah, you got it right. It's on her ring. You think that she she values that jewel? Yeah, I'm sure she does. And that's what this song is talking about. It says God has.
Some jewels? His jewels are in a crown, they're not on a ring. And does anyone know what these jewels are?
Yes.
Yes, exactly. It's us, it says little children who love their redeemers. So I hope that includes you too, that you're a little child that loves your Redeemer. OK, who has another number for us?
Yes.
WIBLE.
I'm pretty sure we know that one if someone would like to start that for us.
I stand alone on the word of God.
And chains of a chef for me.
Well, that song talks about two things, right? Bible and the blood.
And I see that some of you here are you've got your Bibles with you. And that is really good because we're going to say a verse from the Bible a little later and then we're going to talk about the Bible. And so you guys can go along with us and that is fabulous. So who has another number? Yes, 15.
00:05:20
Oh, blessed and glossful sound.
Not fear with joy now may be here, yeah.
Sound in Christ, we say.
You're listening to party, Yeah.
Swelling now to say.
Oh, you can believe.
Yeah, there is a room.
Yeah.
There is no guests will be the last.
Yes, there is no.
Salvation stay from you will pass away.
Then grace no more will say.
Yeah, there is room.
So this is a nice song about the gospel that tells us that God has a house that he wants all of you children to come to by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says there is room for every single one of you. There's also still room on the front row in case any more kids come. So that's good too. All right, who has another song for us? This might be our last one this morning. Yes.
Jesus loves me. OK, I'm sure we know that one, so let's sing Jesus loves me.
Jesus loves me.
So.
He is strong.
Yes, it's not slow speak.
Jesus wants me to die and stay to open.
Life, He will wash away my sin.
Let the bottle, handsome child come in.
Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yes, Jesus loves me.
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Ways to hold me in hands on it may say from every arm.
Yeah, she's just like me.
Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yes, dreams. I love steady.
My my ear fell white speed where I like Yes she transplants me.
Yes, she's always loves me.
Yeah, the streams of swords being of my motels being so.
Oh my God.
God.
She's a smart speak. The Bible tells me so.
All right, well, that singing was very nice, but now we're going to pray.
And then we're going to say the verse that you guys have memorized for this Sunday. All right, so let's just bow our heads and pray. God and Father, we thank Thee for this nice, beautiful morning that we can come here to learn about Your word. We just pray that each of these kids and the older ones too, would have hearts that are opened to hear what you would have to say.
So we just ask all of this if it is your will in Jesus name, Amen.
All right, well the verse that we have for this morning is not too hard. It says believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Acts 1631. So who here thinks they know it?
Yes, you want the mic or no?
And thou shalt be saved first. John 10/9.
At 1631, perfect. All right. Do you know it?
No. OK, well, here I need to do this. You can. You can have two pieces of candy. And then later, if your mom and dad are OK with it, we'll see if we can have some more. OK, So do you know the verse?
The fruit of the Spirit is Lovejoy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance.
Galatians 522 and 23. Wow, that's even harder.
And he said, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved on thine house. Acts 1630 and 31.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
1631.
Leave on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be safe. Acts 1631.
The fruit of the Spirit is Lovejoy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. Galatians 522 and 23.
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Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be safe and.
Nine House Acts, 1631.
And what is this, twice 1000 pieces?
At 642-1630.
Just cute. So you got it. That's right. OK. Well, you, you children did a fabulous job today memorizing your Sunday school versus. I'm very impressed. And you know, if I look down this row at you kids, this is a lot different than when I look down the row at the Sunday school I'm from. And it's not because some of you have blonde hair and all of you are in nice clothes instead of jeans. What I'm thinking of is the Sunday school that I go.
The children are from Nepal and they come from families that are Hindu families, and you come from families. I think I know all of you kids come from families that are Christian. And so in your house on the shelf where you would have a Bible, they have an idol. And in your house, on the wall where you would have a verse, they have an image of an animal like God.
And in your house at mealtimes when your dad stops and he prays and he thanks God for the food.
What they do is they take their food and they offer it to their dead ancestors. And so every verse they memorize is like a beam of light that pierces a thick darkness if they only have eyes to see. And the burden on my heart with them has been to tell them what you already know. And that is the verses that we memorize in Sunday school.
They're not like 1000 in one different islands that are all off by themselves.
These verses, they're connected to other verses. Every verse is found in a chapter. Every verse is part of a bigger story, and that is true of Acts 1631, the verse that we memorize today. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. It's part of a bigger story that happens in the city called Philippi. And So what I wanted to do with the time that we have left, which is already shorter than I would have liked.
Is to look at this 16th chapter of Acts and to see some of the things that happen in that city to those people. And so I see that some of you have your Bibles. That's really good. I'm going to read.
Just a few verses that will help us get some of the background on the people and the events of this 16th chapter in Acts. And so this is what it says in the 15th chapter and it says we're going to just start with.
Verse 39 And it says in the contention was so sharp between them, that they departed asunder one from the other. And so Barnabas took Mark, and sailed unto Cyprus. And Paul chose Silas, and departed, being recommended by the brethren unto the grace of God. And so there were these two men, they would travel together, and their name was Paul and Barnabas, And they got into an argument.
And that argument was so.
Heated and so fierce that these two Christian men.
And that is very sad, but sometimes that happens. And so Paul was now, he had lost the man that he traveled with. And it's good when we go and we do the work of the Lord that we can do it with someone else. So we're not by ourselves. And so Paul, he wanted someone to go with him.
On the journey that he was going to take, and this is what it says, it says, and Paul chose Silas and departed, being recommended by the brethren unto the grace of God. And so Paul was thinking, who's going to go with me now? And he was there in an assembly and they had a recommendation for him. They said we've got this guy here and he is really good. He's going to be a big help to you. And so Paul chose Silas because he was recommended by the brethren.
Good, when the people around us can say good things about us. And so then we come on and verse. Now we're in the 1St 16th chapter, the first verse. And it says Then came he to Derby and Lystra, and behold, a certain disciple was there named Timotheus, the son of a certain women, which was a Jewess and believed. But his father was a Greek, which was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lister and Iconium. Who him would Paul have to go forth with him and.
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Circumcised him because of the Jews, which were in those quarters where they knew all that his father was a Greek. So now we have another man, and this is a young man. I don't know exactly how old he was, but I like to think that he's my age. And I thought that a couple years ago. And I'll probably think it's still in a couple years and Timothy will get older as I'll get older. But he was a young man. And So what it says here, you know, Timothy and Paul became very close over time.
Paul could refer to him as his own son in the faith. Timothy was a man that could sometimes be scared, but he was, we call him a protege. That means he learned under Paul, and Paul was a mentor to him. And so Paul, from the very first time they meet, Paul starts to act as a father to him. He even makes a father's decision. And he has Timothy circumcised here. And so once Timothy recovers from that surgery, then they start traveling.
Now we're going to in the next couple verses, it tells us how there God told these three men now that are together. Remember we've got Paul, he's the leader and we've got Silas and we have Timothy. So these three men they're traveling together and God tells them I don't want you to preach the gospel in this certain place. I want you to preach the gospel over here. And so we're going to read in the 10th verse. This is going to be.
Our final man is introduced here and says after he had seen the vision. I was talking about Paul.
Immediately we endeavored to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them. And so you might have missed it if you blinked, but there's another man that gets introduced to us in this tenth verse. Now if I said.
We're going to go to the park like you and me, we are going to go to the park.
That means I'm going to the park too, because I'm part of the we. And if you look at the verses that go before this, the writer of this letter, he always says they and them. But now in the 10th verse, he says we. And so in this tenth verse, Luke, the man who wrote this book, now starts to travel with these three other men. So now you've got Paul, you've got Silas, you've got Timothy.
And you've got Luke. And Luke, he was a doctor, he was an evangelist, he was an apologist, and he was a close friend of the apostle Paul. In fact, at the end of Paul's life, when everyone else forsake Paul, there was Luke, a loyal friend. And so here Paul has three good men who are going to travel with him. So I've got a question for you guys and where I'm from at the gospel meeting.
If the kids come and they can answer a question.
We give them chocolate chip cookies. So I've got some chocolate chip cookies here with me. And so I'm going to ask a question and we'll see if anyone here knows the answer. Who can tell me at least two names of the four men that were traveling together?
Paul, that's one. Can you give me another one? Barnabys? No, those two separated from each other.
Paul and Timothy. Paul and Timothy, that's two names. Now can anyone think of the other two names?
Or at least give me one.
Look, very good. So we've got three and I think the one that we're missing is Silas. So let's see, maybe I should fiddle around with this.
Well, we've got.
Those were good answers and good tries. So I think we had three people, so we'll give a cookie to each one of you.
You're welcome.
All right, there you go. OK, so now we've got here's a harder question. This is going to be really hard. Let's see if anyone knows this answer. How did Paul choose Silas to go with him?
That's a fabulous answer, but we're going to let him answer. OK, since you've got a cookie.
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No. All right. Well, we'll have you say that again.
Because the people said he was good. That's right. He was recommended to Paul by those that were in that assembly. So we're going to give you another cookie. And maybe if you keep getting more and more than you can start sharing them with your your cousins. OK, so now we're going to go to the next verses. And this says here, we're going to pick up in verse 12 and it says and from fence to Philippi. So now these four men, you have Paul, you have Silas, you have Timothy, you have Luke. These four men are in the city of Philippi.
And it says in verse 12, which is the chief city in that part of Macedonia, in a colony, and we were in that city abiding certain days.
I don't know how many days is certain days, but it's certain to the word of God in verse 13. And on the Sabbath we went out of the city by a Riverside where prayer was once to be made, and we sat down and spake unto the women, which resorted thither. Now this verse is really interesting. You know why it's really interesting to me?
Because when Jesus talked to the lady and John Scott's in the chapter 4 and she was a Samaritan, then the disciples came and they wondered.
Why is Jesus talking to a woman?
But by the time you get to this chapter.
Paul doesn't ask that question because he's learned what the disciples hadn't learned yet.
Which is that men and women are more valued and loved by God than you could ever imagine. And so Paul doesn't go to this Riverside, and he doesn't have some behemoth lectern built from the scraps of the HMS Resolute where he pounds. And he says thus saith the Lord, you know, Paul comes to that Riverside.
And he sits down and he just talks to the women that are there.
And he tells them the gospel. Let's look at that in the next verse. It says here.
And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us, whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended under the things which were spoken of Paul. And when she was baptized in her household, she besought us, saying, If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and abide there. And she constrained us. So now we have another person that we're told about, and we're told her name is Lydia.
And we're told what she did. It says here that she was a seller of purple. And so I've got some some things here with me.
To show and tell, I got this. It's kind of hard for me to hold up, but it's a fairly fabulous looking dress and it's purple and I've got this, and this is also a pretty fabulous looking shirt. It's a nice large size, 14 to 16, made in China.
And it's purple. And I've got this over here, this camouflage blanket. I'm not exactly sure where in the world you could wear this and blend in, but it's purple. And so we're going to put this here. And so Lydia was a seller of purple and purple was very expensive in those days. So if I came up to you and I said.
Do you want to buy this for $500? You would say no, I think what if What if I came up to you and said this shirt is only $1000?
You'd say no, no, thank you, That is out of my budget. OK, well, Lydia sold these things that were very expensive. And so she lived a pretty good life and she was a pretty nice lady. In fact, if Lydia was alive today and she walked through that door. Oh, wow. Is that Lydia?
And she walked through that door and she came in and sat down. She would fit right in, just like she will. OK, but here's something interesting about Lydia.
I understand that Lydia was a gentile.
And that she had turned from idols and in the light that she had, she wanted to be where the people of God were who were praying. And so that's what we have here of Lydia. We were talking the other day about in First Peter, and we could say this of Lydia, that there was a time before time.
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Where God the Father said that women, that Lady Lydia.
She's mine, I love her.
And then after that, I don't know how and I don't know when, because it's like the wind. The spirit blows, and we don't know where it's coming from or where it's going. But there was a point in time where the spirit came to Lydia and to her dead soul. He breathed life, he said, let there be life. But Lydia had never heard the gospel of her salvation.
She had never heard the good news from God that concerns his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. But there that day, there at that river, the apostle Paul came, and he sat down.
And he spoke unto her the words of life.
And this is what it says.
This is oh man, I lost my place, but this is really incredible. It says here in Acts chapter 16 and it says, and the Lord opened her heart. Let me read exactly how it is whose heart the Lord opened that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul. And so the Lord did a work there and He opened her heart.
Later in the chapter.
We're going to find.
That God opened the doors of a prison and he used an earthquake to do it, and that was a miracle.
But here he opened her heart, and that was a miracle too. In fact, it was a bigger miracle for God to open the heart of Lydia than it was for God to open the doors of that prison. And I'm not a Greek expert, but if you look at the words, the one that's used for how God opened the heart of Lydia is a stronger word than the word that is used for when God blasted the doors of the prison cells open with an earthquake.
And so every single one of you, if you have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, you are evidence that miracles are real.
Well, we have in this verse and it says and it came to.
Verse 15 And when she was baptized in her household, she besought us, saying, If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and abide there. And she constrained us. And so we see here the obedience of faith in two things. The 1St is that she got baptized, and the 2nd is that she shows Christian hospitality.
And so it's good to see when the Lord changes a heart that it changes the way we live. So I've got some more cookies to give out if I have some more questions that get answered. Who opened the heart of Lydia?
Yes.
Yes.
Now, and were you the other one who answered? OK, we'll give you both a cookie.
Spread some of the joy around.
All right. Now here's another question. This one's harder again.
How did Lydia show the obedience of her faith?
By obeying. That's very good, but more specifically.
She was by a river.
What do you think she did?
She did listen.
All right, someone who has a Bible, I think it's the 15th verse. Read it for us.
Where did my Bible go?
This is what it says. And when she was baptized and her household, she besought us, saying, if you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and abide there. And she constrained us. OK, that was a that was a hard quit. All right, it's a hard question, but let's see if you can get it.
Yes, that was one way that she showed her obedience and the other one was through baptism. So we'll we'll give you another cookie. That was a hard question. Now we are running out of time, but we've got lots more of this chapter to cover. And so I have a question for an adult here. This city of Philippi was the site of a famous battle.
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Who knows the generals that fought in that battle?
This is a stumper.
No historians among us.
Well, I get a cookie then.
This was the site of the battle between Octavian Mark Antony against the generals of Brutus and Cassius.
That ended the civil war in 42 BC and started the Roman Empire as we know it following the assassination of Julius Caesar.
But here's what I want you to know.
There is another battle that takes place at that city that is just as real. No, it's more real than the battle that took place in 42 BC. And it's not between men with swords. It is between Satan and his servants and God and his servants. You and I live in a spiritual war, and we see that in these next verses.
All right, so let's read them. This is in verse 16.
And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination menace, which brought her masters much gain by soussing. The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the Most High God, which show unto us the way of salvation. And this she did, and this did she many days. But Paul being grieved, turned and said to the Spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.
And the Spirit came out the same hour.
We have a young girl who has talked about here. We're not told her name, but it says that she's a damsel. And if you look up that word, what it means is she's a slave. Now, she was a slave of some men who owned her by Roman law, but she was also a slave of Satan. And it says here that she was possessed by a spirit of divination.
And that means that an evil spirit controlled what she did.
And what she said and these men that owned her, they used her to make money because whether it was real or just fake, I don't know exactly how this would have worked, but she had at least people thought some ability to tell the future. And so they would come to her and they were willing to pay to have their future told. And she it says in this verse, she followed Paul and Silas and she cried out saying these men are.
Of the Most High God would show unto us the way of salvation. Now there's two very interesting things about this I want you to know. I was on the plane flying here to Denver and I was sitting in my seat and I opened up my Bible and I was reading this chapter and I was thinking, what am I going to tell the kids at Denver about this chapter? Now there was a man who was sitting just beside me. It was like if if we were in, if I was.
Seat here. He would have been in this seat right here. That's how close we were. And do you know what he was doing? Does anyone have a guess what he was doing?
Yes, reading my Bible. No he was not reading my Bible. Anyone else have a guess what he was doing?
What would you do if you were on a long plane flight?
You'd open up your Bible. That's very good of you. Well, this man was not opening up his Bible. This man had a tablet.
And he was watching a movie, and the movie that he was watching was inappropriate. What that means is the people in the movie were doing bad things that this guy should not have been watching. And I thought about that. Here I was with my Bible, and here he was with his tablet, maybe 18 inches apart from each other. And the Bible was as different from what he was watching as you could possibly be.
And here we have this damsel was following Paul.
Inside of her was an evil spirit, and inside of Paul was the Holy Spirit. And every step that she took as she followed Paul brought her one step closer to him, and it brought the Holy Spirit one step closer to the evil spirit. And can't you just think of the difference?
Between these two things.
That were so close you could read a child and touch and she cried. These men are servants of the Most High God, who show unto us the way of salvation. Now we've got 5 minutes left, so let's see how fast I can talk. God does not want His gospel to be preached by evil spirits. He wants his gospel to be preached by those of you who are saved.
00:40:25
And so at the point in this story.
Paul, he drives out, he says in this verse, it says, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And that Spirit had no choice at the name of Jesus Christ. He had to leave that young woman and now she had no more ability to tell the future. And now those men who owned her had no more way to get money and they were not happy about that.
And so they took two of the four men.
Remember, there was Paul, there was Silas, there was Timothy and there was Luke. And it appears they took the two that were Jewish. They didn't think that they had any right as Roman citizens because a Roman citizen, he was allowed to have a court case where you had to prove he was guilty before you could punish him. But that wasn't true if you weren't a citizen. And so they brought Paul and Silas and they said these men are Jews.
And they teach us customs that we can't observe, being Romans. You know what the magistrates did? They had the clothes rent from Paul and Silas, and they took rods.
And they beat Paul and Silas.
You know, Mr. Clark read in the first reading meeting from Second Corinthians. Paul had on his back 195 scars from the beatings he received from the Jews. But Jewish law said you could not beat a man more than 40 times.
Roman law had no such restriction.
And so when they beat Paul and Silas there with rods, it's without number. That's the thought where it says it beat them many times. And so there Paul and Silas were brought, their backs torn from the beating that they had received, and they were placed inside the deepest part of the prison. They went past one jail cell after another. And if you didn't know what Paul and Silas had done.
You would think that these two men were the most wicked criminals that had ever walked the face of the earth, but what had they done?
They had done nothing. They had done better. They were right, but they had done better than nothing. They had helped free a young woman from the power of Satan, and for that they were put in jail. Well, we have this.
I really wanted to get to this. We're not even going to get to our verse, really.
But this is what it says they did in the innermost prison. And I'm going to read it from the Darby translation. And I know that this might be kind of hard for you kids to think about, but pay attention.
Because if you understand this, this will help you so much. It says in 20 verse 25 and at midnight Paul and Silas in praying were praising God with singing and the prisoners listened to them. Did you get that? Let me read it again.
At midnight, Paul and Silas in praying were praising God with singing.
There's a man called Kelly, and this is what he says about that.
He says the praying and the singing are not two different things.
That the prayer they prayed was a song of praise and the song they sang was a prayer.
And so.
How beautiful it was that Paul and Silas there in that prison.
Could pray.
A song of praise and they could sing a prayer because they were thankful, even though their backs were bleeding, that they had been allowed to suffer for the name of Jesus and that that even at the moment they were singing.
There was an earthquake and it broke open the doors of the prison cell, and there was a man inside there, and he was afraid that the prisoners had escaped and he was going to kill himself so that he would escape the punishment of the Romans. And Paul says stop, don't do any harm to yourself. And that man was so afraid that he took a light and he came in and he was shaking.
00:45:24
And he asked them, Sirs.
What must I do to be saved?
And they said.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
Let's just pray.
God and Father, how thankful we are for this 16th chapter of Acts.
We think of what was accomplished there in that little city, how it started, and how these two men, Paul and Silas, were faithful to share the gospel, even if that meant their back would be beaten. We thank you for their faith that they could sing a song of praise to you, even in their pain.
We ask this in Jesus name, Amen.