Children—Steve Hall
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So why don't we start with some hymns? On the back of our hymn sheet, there's some children's hymns.
Who has one?
Raise your hand in the front row, Art Ted, go ahead #47.
#47 when he come.
Up to make U is you.
Always do.
The morning and right now, I'm sorry.
I can give you a bright and far and brown.
I can't fart in frown.
Let my children, let no children.
Who are everything? Her heart.
And in love.
Time.
Have a lot of seats up here in the front that are empty. Any children want to come up here in the front?
OK, we'll have another hem, go ahead #14.
Kylie wants #14 Jeff.
Have you been to Jesus for that?
You've only dressing in his brain in the fire you watch in the flood of land.
Nsnoise.
00:05:27
Who in the front row likes stories? Anybody like stories?
Oh good, We have a few people that like stories. I have a story to tell you this morning, and it's a story about me, so I'll apologize for that. But after we sing a few more hymns, we're going to have some memory verses.
And in the front row here, if you're willing to say a verse, that doesn't have to be anyone in particular.
We would love to hear you say your memory verse. So who has another one?
Right over here #44.
Into a tent where a gypsy boy lay.
On top of his family, everything.
Nobody ever found calling to me.
However, I guess that way I can.
Then he's gonna be out for a little boy.
Sat unto me, thou good fighting thumb joy.
Need I not merry my handwritten?
Oh, nobody ever. The stories of all.
Never mind and tell them that I can.
Well, I can say all that children of them, no one did ever have so many people.
So I have a question to ask you kids in the front row here. Does anybody know what a connection is? Anybody know what a connection is?
That's a kind of big word.
A link. Yeah, a link. So I wanna talk about connections this morning.
Because I think connections are really, really important. So I want you to think about connections, but I want to talk about connections in a little different way than normal. Normally we think of maybe a link in a chain, right? So that connects the different parts of a chain together. But I think we've all had the opportunity this weekend to make some connections between US and other people.
And that's something that I want to talk about this morning.
So I want you to be thinking about that. Who else has a hymn that we can sing this morning? Violence. What? Number 4?
00:10:33
No, I didn't say no. I am fine, happy and dusty by spring.
Say by my blessed reading.
This is the same for me.
Nsnoise.
Zodiac Ziggy came from Goddard Mountain to replace me.
Now there is no condemnation.
That is, let's say your party.
They don't understand.
That I think about taking another side thing.
Yeah, but for my wrath and thumb, let's let's not say your father meaning.
All right, before we go any further, let's bow our heads and we're going to ask the Lord for his help this morning. Our gracious, loving God and our Father, we thank Thee for all these children that are sitting here in this front row, and we thank the that they're here to hear about thy beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
We thank Thee that He is the Savior of sinners.
We thank Thee, our God and our Father, that Thou hast provided a means that we can.
Have fellowship with Thee. And so we just asked for a blessing on this time. We pray that the word spoken might be simple and easy to understand, and we pray that they might glorify Thee and thy beloved Son, our Savior. We ask this in his worthy, precious name, our Lord Jesus, Amen.
We're going to sing some more after a little bit, but I think it would be a good idea to say some memory versus.
So do I have a volunteer in the front row? Very good.
So what I'll do here is I'll just start here and if you want to say your verse, just raise your hand and we'll let you say your verse.
He said, hears my word, and believes on him that sent me as everlasting life, and shall not come unto condemnation, but His path from death into life. John 5/24.
Billy will send you the ugly choice Joy shall be under.
The present.
The Angels.
I want to know that repent is.
Good job, Good job.
Very rarely I say unto you, He that hears my word, and believeth on him that sent me shall hast everlasting life, and shall not pass into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life. John 5/24.
00:15:11
Hey, John, anybody else?
The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost. Like 1910.
Very good. I know it's kind of hard with this many people. Anybody over here any takers?
God so loved the world that He who gave His only begotten Son should not perish, but have everlasting life.
7016.
Not by bricks of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his riches He saved us. Titus 35 Very good. Anybody else?
Very brave enough.
Hello, good.
Anybody else OK?
You want me to come back OK.
See that here is my word, and believe us on him that sent me hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but his past unto from death unto life. John 5/24.
Is that the one you had? You wanna say it?
See that the Here's my word, and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life, and shall not come in on a nation that is passed from death into life.
On 5/24, good job.
Acres. Any takers? Island.
And then?
The wall of all the boys home. I won't say the first.
I command you, be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. Thus for one night.
Switch on.
Just one minute, one second.
524 good job. Anybody else?
OK.
I would say as you might have and and I see what I have is another world. And what's the world with me? And there's a human place and there's a big landfill on my cell phone. And the world is my father. Love me and I make our own life and I teach it again.
Ketchikan. Anybody else? Anybody that I miss, There we go.
Really really assigned to you he that heareth my world and believeth on him that sent me.
Show of everlasting life.
But umm, and she'll not come into condemnation, but it's passed from death unto life. John 524. Good job. Anybody else?
You did a great job, Thank you.
So let's sing another. Well, can I have somebody?
OK, that's fine.
Does somebody have a hymn?
Questionnaire #39.
What a friend we have.
00:20:01
In life all our friends and great to bear.
Water when you carry.
Everything to die in France.
Oh my God, he's pretty hot and falling.
Off.
And so we're going to have a.
May I have the serial number of any treasure?
And we find.
Our.
$2.00 I have to do 3 days.
And they give out the money and pressure.
Again, I want to thank each one of you children. I know almost all of you, probably all of you have a memory verse that you know, and it's kind of hard to stand up in front of a big crowd like this and and say the verse. So I want to thank you. It's really, really important that we hide the word of God in our hearts. And I want to encourage you every week and every day.
To make sure that you hide the word of God in your heart. So I'm going to read the first story that we have.
In the Word of God, because I think it illustrates.
Part of the subject that I want to talk about this morning, and so if you'll bear with me, I'm going to read from Genesis chapter 3. I'm going to read the first part of this chapter. I know you children all are familiar with this story, but I want to read it from the Word of God, Genesis chapter 3 and verse one. Now the serpent was more subtle than any of the beasts of the field.
Which the Lord God had made, And he said unto the woman, Yeah, hath God said, he shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden.
God hath said, You shall not eat it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day.
Ye thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave unto her husband with her, and he did eat. And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sowed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons, And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden.
In the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves among the present from the presence of the Lord.
00:25:02
God among the trees of the garden. And the Lord called unto Adam, and he said unto him.
Where art thou?
And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.
And he said, Who told thee that thou was naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree? Where I whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman, whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me.
And I did eat.
This story is the story of how sin came into this world.
Because God had told Adam and Eve that they could freely eat of all the trees that were in the Garden of Eden, with the exception of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and Eve listened to Satan.
And she took of that tree and she ate and sin came into her life. I have a story that happened to me about 13 years ago.
At that point in time, we lived in Walla Walla and my mother lived over here in the Seattle area, a little bit South of here.
And we had a van and we like to come over and visit my mom and if you guys like to go to your grandmother's house and have a visit.
You guys like to go see your grandmother. I think most everybody likes to go see their relatives. And so we on this particular time, we were paying a visit to my mom and.
As often occurs in Lord's Day afternoon and we had to go home because we had school and work and whatnot.
And so we hopped in our van and we got on the road. But I don't know if any of your parents are like this, but I know sometimes we get talking and we get doing this and that and the other thing. And sometimes the the clock keeps on going and it gets a little late. And this time it got a little late. So we didn't leave over here until.
Probably around 5:00, five or 6:00 in in the afternoon on the Lord's Day afternoon. And so we hopped in the car and it had been a pretty busy weekend.
And we started driving. See any of you kids ever fall asleep in the car?
I know our kids, they usually would fall asleep pretty quickly. But if you slept for a little while and then you wake up, what happens? You can't go back to sleep very well, right? Usually that's the case. We were driving along in our car and I got pretty tired and so I turned to my wife and I said, sweetheart, could you drive for a little while? Because I'm just getting really sleepy.
And she said sure.
And so we pulled over.
And we had a little baby, he's now 15 years old, umm, that was sitting in the, in his car seat. And every time we slowed down and stopped, he would start to wake up. And, uh, so he almost woke up the other kids, uh, when we switched drivers and, and we were kind of concerned about that. We got back on the road. Thankfully, they all went back to sleep.
And we're driving along and.
Pretty soon, my wife says. Hon, I'm getting really, really tired.
Can you drive? And I said, well, yeah, I can drive. And we were over by the Rogers house by that point.
And so we hatched a plan. We had a minivan that had two captain seats in the front, and we thought that we would switch drivers really, really quickly. So I took my seat belt off and kind of crouched behind my wife and she came to a stop and put it in park. And then she hopped out of the way and I hopped in the driver's seat and we took off.
Almost.
So I have a, uh, something that happened here to me that I want to show you guys.
Do you guys like cars? Any boys like cars?
I have a piece of that car.
And I want to talk about this morning. I saved this.
00:30:05
This is probably the most expensive object lesson you'll ever see for Sunday school.
So we decided we were going to change drivers really, really quickly, right? And I hopped in that seat.
And I was putting on my seat belt and I decided that I would put the car in here and we would take off real quick so that the kids wouldn't wake up.
And I put my foot down on what I thought was the brake.
I happened to have my foot on the brake and the gas pedal at the same time.
And the engine revved up.
And then I threw it in gear.
And I heard a thanks.
And then and we didn't go anywhere.
I'm pretty sure all of you children came this morning in a car, right?
Do any of you guys know what are the major components of a car?
You have an engine, right? You put gas in the gas tank and the gas goes into the engine. The engine makes power. Where does that power go from there? Anybody know?
Goes into the transmission. The transmission is what makes you go fast or slow or backwards.
And then the transmission takes that power and puts it into the wheels and you go right, This happens to be the front end of the transmission.
And this is what hooks into the engine. And if you'll notice, there are two different parts. They're not supposed to be two different parts.
This is what's called the input shaft of the transmission, and it broke. It's supposed to be connected right here.
So we had a dilemma. Interestingly enough, the kids didn't wake up.
So we sat there on the side of the road and the engine ran just fine.
But we didn't go anywhere because there was a broken connection.
And children.
Adam and Eve in the garden. They had a broken connection if we turned back here to Genesis chapter 3.
I want to talk about this first broken connection in Adam and Eve's life. You see in verse 9, the Lord came to talk with Abraham, with Adam and Eve, and I think that this was something that happened every afternoon. We read in other places that the Lord wants to talk to you and me.
And yet.
When Eve took of that.
Forbidden fruit.
The connection that Adam and Eve had with the Lord God was severed, it was broken, and it was permanently broken.
Want to ask you a question.
Brylane, do you know anything about super glue? Pretty strong. Do you think I could reconnect this part to that part with super glue? Would it work?
I don't know if he's here yet, Andrew.
Uncle Andrew way back there, he's a material science guy. He's pretty smart.
No, yeah. So the question bef before the answer was, was is there any glue that we could use to connect this to that and make the car whole again? The answer is truly no.
There's nothing that I could do. You know, my son has been learning to Weld.
And welding is when you put two pieces of metal together and make them one piece of metal.
Or try to. You know what it doesn't even work to try to Weld this part to that part and machine it back. It will never ever work.
So for us to have a working vehicle again, we had to go to a shop and we had to purchase a brand new part.
And children, our connection with God has been forever severed, has been forever ruined because of sin.
Scripture says that we are born in sin and iniquity. That means every single person in this room has the stamp of sin on their lives. Even the smallest little baby has been born in sin and our connection with God has been permanently and completely severed. You know, it didn't matter what year I put that vehicle in.
00:35:24
We did. We weren't going any direction.
And I could push on the gas pedal as hard as I wanted and we were not going to go.
Any place.
Because the connection to the transmission had been broken.
You know, there's a little more to that story.
Umm. That I think illustrates another point.
So I'm pretty resourceful.
And my wife and I, we looked at each other and.
And we said, well, now what are we going to do? And I said, well, I think there's a gas station over on the other side of the freeway there.
I'll just run over there because that was before we carried cell phones. I'll run over there and I'll I'll call my father-in-law and he can come get us. We'll be fine, right?
He's actually here someplace there he is over there. So I ran over to the gas station and asked to use their phone and picked up the phone and I called Uncle Walt said dad, I need some help. Ironically, we were taking a toe Dolly, umm, from my mom's house back to our house because my mom didn't need it anymore. And so we had.
The means of towing a vehicle.
Sitting right behind our car.
Couldn't go anywhere so I called him up and I said dad we need some help, can you come help us?
Another person that is here kindly jumped in the car with dad. They brought a pickup and a car because we had kids and everybody wouldn't fit in the pickup and they came over and we hooked onto the tow Dolly and put the front end of our van up on that toad. All in, towed at home. All good, right?
Not really.
That van happened to be an all-wheel drive van.
And we ruined the rest of the transmission by towing it home without disconnecting the drive line.
And the reason I tell you that?
Your children is We have a tendency to think that we can do something to improve our condition.
If I'm really good, maybe it will help and it doesn't help.
Because the stamp of sin is upon each one of us, and our connection with God has been broken. And it doesn't matter how much we try to improve things, we're only going to make it worse. And that's the case with that van. You know, I think the, the shop told me that it would have been, I don't know, $500.
If I hadn't towed the van from that location, but instead it was 1500.
Because I towed the van home.
I made it three times worse because I thought I knew what I was doing.
And dear children.
There's only one way that our situation between US and God, our connection between US and God, can be fixed.
Part of it we read about earlier and I'm going to get to that, but turn with me to John chapter 3.
You see, there was.
A gentleman by the name of Nicodemus, and he wanted to know how to get right with God. He wanted to know how his connection to God could be.
Restored. And so he asked the Lord Jesus.
And this is the answer the Lord Jesus gave him, John chapter 3, verse three. And Jesus answered and said unto him, verily, verily, or truly, truly, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.
You and I have to have a new life for us to have a connection with God.
00:40:04
And the way that we get that new life is found down in verse 16 that somebody already quoted for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. We have to have a new life. And the way that we get that new life to your children.
Is believing on the Lord Jesus Christ and the work that He has accomplished, believing that He has forever settled the question of our sins, that He has taken the full punishment of our sins upon Himself?
And made us free from that penalty.
Earlier I spoke of the fact that there's other connections in our lives, and I wanna demonstrate that a little bit. Can I have a couple of volunteers? Go ahead, I'll take these two. You guys help me.
So I'm going to go way, way back in time. OK, we have a communication device here. Have you ever seen one of these?
So Loki, if you can take that over there, can you hold this here?
So if anybody knows anything about communication devices, umm, this certain communication device will connect Luke and what's your name? Ezra. He'll connect Luke and Ezra if they pull the string tight, right? And you guys can communicate, umm, between this. So I'm gonna ask you.
Ezra.
To read a verse here and we'll see if Luke can Luke, he can, uh, get the message.
So I want you to read verse 9.
In the contest. So could you hear that?
Only heard the first part. Let's try it again. Try to try it louder. You got to speak right into it. Pull it tight. Pull it really tight.
And to.
Oh.
That happened pretty quick.
Did anybody see what the sign was was that he was holding?
Said sin. And dear children, thank you.
I have another string, we can try it later.
The illustration and I had to give my son way, way too many signals there.
Sin hinders our communication between us as individuals. I want to turn back to that. I'm going to read that.
And this is the solution to our problem as well. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and justice to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Verse seven. If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ.
His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
Earlier, our brother Matt Richards Hagen was telling a story and I don't know if you children picked up on that story, but he was talking about a child, a child, and it could be any one of us that was told not to have any cookies.
You guys remember that story?
They said that there was a a kid that that was told he he couldn't have any cookies and he went and took a cookie.
And after he took that cookie, do you think he wanted to go see his mom?
No, his connection to his mother.
Was broken because of sin, and that's true of all of us when we allow sin in our lives.
Whether we're saved or unsaved, when we allow sin in our lives, it destroys, It breaks our connections with other people as well. Not only does it break our connection with God, but it breaks our connections with each other as well. And dear children, we have the solution here. It says if we confess our sins.
00:45:20
He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
And to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, and that is so very important for us to have connections with other people as well as with God, we need to confess our sins.
That's absolutely critically important. If I may, I wanna talk just a little bit about your children's heads. I don't wanna talk real briefly to the young people this morning. We live in a society.
Where everyone has one of these things, cell phone.
And we live in a society where you can take a picture.
And splash it across this world.
In just a matter of seconds.
And you can text somebody and you can.
Communicate in all kinds of different ways.
Ironically.
In this world that we live in that has so many methods of communication.
Our connections with other people.
Are suffering dramatically.
And I wanna encourage young and old.
And I'm speaking to myself as well here.
The connections that we have with other people and with God are so vitally important.
Studies show that.
The average American feels more disconnected than ever before because relationships.
Take hard work.
Relationships.
Require trust.
And they don't occur.
Very well with texting and Snapchat.
And Facebook and all these other methods and as you children grow up.
And you older, young people.
I want to encourage you to cultivate godly.
Connection.
There will be a blessing in your life.
The tools that we have available to us do not necessarily promote that.
In fact, they're directly against it most of the time.
And sometimes it's difficult. I remember when I was a teenager.
And I was afraid, honestly, to invest in relationships because I was afraid that those relationships would be broken.
See, I had suffered death in my life.
And death is one of those things that permanently severs our connection with someone else, at least as far as time is concerned here on Earth.
And it's only been in the last.
I'd say 15 years that I have developed deep connections.
With others and it's been an immense help and a blessing to me.
As you grow up and as you move forward in your lives, your children, their young people, cultivate those relationships with others.
There what gets you through the bad times.
When you have someone that you can call up and you can say, you know, I'm really suffering today.
That's an immense value, but if you haven't built that relationship, you don't have that opportunity.
Again.
Sin severs the relationships that we have in our lives with God.
And with fellow man.
I know it's hard.
You know, as young people, as young people, interacting with other people takes a whole lot of energy.
00:50:04
Believe it or not.
I struggle with that myself.
I don't do well in a crowd.
I don't have any problem standing up here and talking.
But to sit down with someone who is a stranger and to develop a a deep relationship is difficult.
The dear young people.
We have a wonderful resource in this blessed book.
And as much as it's difficult to develop those relationships in our lives, when we base those relationships on this blessed book, it makes it so much easier.
When we can open this blessed book and talk about the things that we've learned and the things that we've enjoyed, it gives us a common bond, a common connection.
Scripture says a three fold cord is not easily broken.
Dear young people, that threefold cord is us individuals and you and God.
If we have all three of those in the equation, we have a common bond, a connection that is incredibly valuable, and it was is not easily broken.
Dear children.
The way that you develop that is to open this precious and precious book and to read it every single day of your life.
I won't share who.
It is.
But a few years ago, I challenged the children in the Wall Wall assembly to read their Bible every single day.
And to mark it down on a calendar.
And then come to me once a month and I would give them a reward.
And one of the children that did that.
Actually didn't come and get the reward most of the months that we were doing that.
But over the course of six months, I talked to some other people and they said that that the countenance, the attitude, the personality of that person changed dramatically because they were reading the Word of God every single day.
They went from someone who, quite frankly, was not very approachable.
And was relatively sullen in their features to someone who is joyful and happy and a delight to be with.
Dear children, read this blessed book every single day of your life.
It will change you from the inside out and it will give you the ability to make connections you never thought were possible.
And it will make a lasting effect on your life. I can tell you that from experience.
And I want to speak to those that are older.
You know, sometimes accountability is a really wonderful thing.
And I want to encourage those that are older to figure out ways.
To encourage our children to read the Bible, whether it's by a reward or whatever means it is.
It's so very worth it.
Again, children, just to recap because we're almost out of time.
We have a broken connection with God and no matter what we try, we cannot restore that connection. We have to be made new.
Just like this piece of transmission, this input shaft.
We couldn't glue it together, we couldn't Weld it together.
We had to have a new part.
Each one of us individually children have to have a transaction with God.
Where we say individually, I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, I want to be saved. I want that connection restored, made new. And if we do that, we're going to find that the Holy Spirit comes and dwells in our heart and helps us. And dear children, if you're saved, and I thank God for that, keep short accounts with God.
00:55:16
Confess your sin to him.
When we sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ and we need to go to him and confess our sin and it says he is faithful and just to lends us from all from all unrighteousness. He will make that connection new again.
And dear young people, cultivate the godly relationships in your life.
Spend that time and energy.
It's going to reap eternal benefit.
We'll close in prayer.
Our gracious, loving God and our Father.
We thank the.
That thou has given us a new life in the Lord Jesus, if we'll accept it.
We pray for these children, We pray that their hearts would be touched and they would desire that ultimate connection with the our God and our Father through Thy beloved Son.
We pray our God and our Father that there would be a reality in each one's life here.
And Lord, we know that sin interrupts our connections with.
Thee and with.
Those around us and we just pray that that would help us to be willing to confess our sin.
We thank thee that thou has promised that thou wilt restore that fellowship.
We ask for Thy blessing on Thy word. We thank Thee for Thy goodness to us. We thank Thee for the sweetness of the time that we've had here this weekend. We pray for continued blessing and the worthy and precious name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.