Children—Andy Buchanan
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I'm gonna have I have something up here. We're gonna use a lot today and today I'm gonna you can get them at the store, but they're not called this. But today we're gonna call them encourage mints and.
I'm going to share this with anybody that wants to come on up here and, and we're gonna do some things today and we're gonna use encouragements. And in fact, if you don't mind, I'm gonna have one too because, well, just because I get nervous too. So I'm gonna have an encouragement and if anybody else wants to come up.
In fact, you know, I'm just glad you guys could come so.
You know, I had a, a professor in, in school, they like to give out candy during class and, and they said that, you know, it helps. Oh, you're welcome. He, he, they said that, umm, it helps, uh, focus, you get a little bit of sugar and helps you listen so.
Sounds like a good idea to me. All right, so let's start with some singing. Does anybody have a song I'd like to like to sing this morning?
If you don't use the same sheets at home, the children's songs are on the back. But you know what, All the songs in here are really good. So, and if there's another song that you like to sing that's maybe not in this book, you know, just tell us what it is and we'll see if we can work it out. They may have a song they want to sing.
Let's see.
You know the song, I was thinking maybe we could sing it twice today. Maybe. How about if we started off with Wide, Wide as the ocean at just just the chorus? That helps us to stretch a little bit and, uh, like to talk about that a little bit anyway, so let's sing wide. Wide is the ocean. I think we all know it.
Uh, bringing sales meeting?
Inquirer. Oh, that's good. OK.
Any other song? What would you like to sing this morning?
It's wonderful to sing about the Lord Jesus and His love. He loves us very much.
And I have more encouragements if you need them.
29 Thank you.
A ruler wanted to give us by an hour into our sins no way out of each other and burned the standard daytime Sir, It works through the unplanned.
Give mom beautiful, one of my goddesses.
Is it gonna be a good one? I don't know. I'm feeling more hard and I get it. Feuding by anything more than I can't get it by. Barely. Never sleep. Carry on to the sea. To hear my heart healing all of my life again.
He should come down there and I can't give some words. So, so lonely under five years of the Lord and blessed not this mercy to you being married.
Before when I get.
All the night careless.
00:05:18
35600 godren. I barely barely hang out until the security. You're irritable.
From the mouth again.
OK, who else has a song?
Oh, OK, 4343.
One and yeah, it's not a darker too. It's high and I'll die on waste. I never hear you. But no, I'm only blind. And yet I decide I stood. I am on the end by a great side of you.
That's a really nice song and I'm I'm glad we could sing that this morning. I'm on the inside. On which side are you? It's a good question.
OK, who has another one? You know what? Oh, good. All right, Number six.
Shine.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Go ahead and play my life again the most.
In the night, in the night, in the world, water shall rain.
Appreciate him and my father.
'S grilling of the grave.
Yard.
I, I I I don't think.
You're over there for a long time, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. It's raining, right?
Umm.
I can.
Because my life where one swell rain.
And every night will alone be much pride in his Lord alone.
00:10:15
Well, I'm glad we sang that song too, but there are three words in that song that we sang several times that we're going to talk about in a little bit. So that's that's good. We'll get there. But the three words.
God is love. Just a few letters.
This short words and they're wonderful words. I'm glad we can sing that song. OK, who else has a a song we'd like to sing today?
Who else? And if you don't see the one you're looking for in the sheet, we can OK.
#39.
What a friendly happened to me?
All our sins and great sickness.
Who are not pray for us relationship and breathe.
And bring his name to God. Impressive. Oh my. Excuse me up and for your family.
Oh God, please do it now, again, every day.
Every day to God in prayer.
I really thought of them.
His son's Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's. And it's crossed. Well, I think it's what I never had to do fully so I can have a better opinion. This is.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now the blood, everything's right and everything.
And we find yourself friends. So Faye falls for the Lord of the railroads on the road to Cherry and everyone he didn't hear.
My son's daughter every week.
Taking to the Lord in prayer.
And there's a lot of water in prayer.
Do you like Francis by tortillas?
Of water and bread.
And bread with him's eyes, till they can change the rhythm of the beast.
Thou wilt find the stone.
OK.
You know what, some of you kids came in after I explained what these mints are. I'm calling them encouragements because, uh, sometimes it takes a little extra courage to sit in the front row or to say something, maybe say your verse or answer a question at a conference. And so I, I just want everybody to, uh, feel welcome up here in the front row. And so I'm gonna share these minutes. I see this young lady just came in. Would you like?
You can have a minute.
OK, who else has a song? We can still sing another song or two here.
I think I see a hand up in the very back there.
Does Emily have a song she likes to sing?
47.
00:15:27
Umm, he will have No, he's going to have another bike jumps on the water hill. See, you know, all the same one called the prized one. Give us and give him a lot of the stars of one morning in his frying from the Dorking.
There's no shining his giving me pride and can't start hidden from.
OK.
Able to stop right there for a minute.
You know what I think what we wanna do next is just to ask the Lord Jesus to help us today. We need lots of help, and he loves to help us. And so we're just gonna ask, we're just gonna stop singing for a minute and we're gonna ask Lord Jesus if he would help us with the Sunday school, the children's meeting this morning.
Dealer Jesus, thank you so much for your great love. How much you love each one that's sitting here this morning. We just thank you for that, Lord Jesus. And so we bow before you and ask for help with this meeting. We pray that.
Each one of us might hear and take in more of your love and we just pray for a message from yourself, Lord Jesus.
We pray too for help for the kids as a, perhaps a verse if they want to. And so we just ask for help with that too. And, uh, just thank you for this little time together and thank you for your by, for the word, for, for the Bible that tells of your love. And so we pray this in your name, Lord Jesus, Amen.
Now I see there are several kids here today that are from this meeting and I see a couple kids here from where I go to meeting. I happen to meet my girls and either I see some other kids. I'm not sure exactly where you go to meeting. And but the reason why I say that is I can almost guarantee that I'm gonna do something that's different than what you're used to. And I hope you'll just bear with me as we have.
A little time here together. This is the children's meeting though, so this is a time for you and so.
We wanna give you an opportunity, if you'd like to, to say a verse now.
I've got these encouragements here, and if you'll be willing to SH to share a verse, especially if you're willing to share in the microphone so everybody can see it, I'm glad to give out some more of these mints. Does anybody want to go first? Anybody have a verse they'd really like to share with everybody? Any volunteers?
I don't bite.
Anybody. Oh good, we gotta volunteer down here so we can get it.
OK.
John, 1513.
That the Sunday school paper verse.
Just out of the word greater, greater love has no man than this, than a man lay down his life for his friends. That's fantastic. Thank you very much. And and you know what? Since you have the courage to go 1St and Speaking of microphone, take a couple there. OK. All right. Does anybody else have a verse that you'd like to share? Oh, good. OK.
Jan 1513.
Greater love has no men in this that remain. Lay down his life for his friends.
00:20:04
That is excellent. Thank you very much. Does anybody else have wanna say a verse? No pressure here. It's just if you want to I see some hands down here, we'll go down this side.
John, 13 Fort.
Is it the Sunday school paper verse this week? Greater love that one. OK, Greater love. Greater love.
Hi, Snowman.
Then this.
Sign in.
Lay down his life for his friends. Oh, that's good. Thank you. There you go. Now did I see another hand down here? OK. Greater love.
Has.
Any no man.
Zendesk.
Then that man.
Laid down his life.
For his friends. Very good, thank you. Anybody else? Do we have any other takers?
Everybody shy.
OK, greater love has no better this than badly doubt his wife for his friends draw thir 5030 good thank you.
Anybody else?
OK.
I wanna read part of a verse that was I believe the first verse read in this conference. There was a prayer meeting Friday night and I didn't even have this particular verse on my heart to talk about today.
But when we read this verse, I thought, wow, that's it. That's exactly.
That's what I'm thinking of. It happens to be in the book of Psalms chapter 27.
And I'm just going to read part of verse four and I may be just skip some parts in here, but but that's all right. This is Psalm 27 four. It says one thing have I desired of the Lord?
That will I seek after.
To behold the beauty of the Lord.
To behold the beauty of the Lord. By the way, you guys all did a good job on your memory versus this morning.
I'm glad.
And I look around the room and I see boys and girls that probably.
Learn Bible verses at home too, not just for the conference and.
I don't know, but I I think that maybe at your house your mommy and daddy read the Bible to you.
And you talk about Jesus at your house probably isn't that wonderful? And I'm so glad for that.
But today I wanna just focus on those 3 little words that we talked about while we were singing God is love. Oh, I love that. It's so wonderful. You know, I was thinking about that. How many people like birthday presents? By the way? Anybody ever had a birthday present that they liked? They're kind of happy to get a birthday present.
I have.
I love that it's fun to get a birthday present, isn't it?
But if I could have something today, that would be even better than the best birthday present I've ever had.
You know what it would be?
I want each one of you while you're sitting in your seat right here to really.
Think about the really God loves me. He loves you while you're sitting right there in your seat. It's so wonderful If I could have just something to be better in a birthday present is that when you wake up in the morning, you'd say, oh, so glad that God loves me. And before you go to bed at night, you think, oh, that was maybe it was a hard day.
00:25:03
Maybe I had some hard things happen. That's OK, because God loves me. Each one of you can say that as you're sitting in your seat. It's so wonderful.
It's so wonderful and we have lots of verses in the Bible that tell us that.
And I'm so glad that we learn our verses and we go to Sunday school and mom and dad, they read the Bible for us. And I just want to make sure that each one of us understands and just takes it in. It's good for me. God loves you and you and you and you and you.
And this you and you right on down the road, each one as you're sitting here, you can just.
Thank God.
Loves me, and it's so wonderful to be able to think about it for myself and to just realize that he's a person. The Lord Jesus is a man.
You know, we go our lives and you know, we think, oh, I wish that I could have been one of those children that sat on the Lord Jesus lap. Has anybody ever man that would have been pretty neat to be able to sit on his on his knee. We read about that happening in the Bible and he put his his hands on some kids on their heads. Wouldn't wouldn't that be wonderful when and but we can't do that today, but he's a real man.
And we can talk to him today and we can listen to what he has to say to us.
So that's what we wanna talk about today. We wanna talk about how that God loves us, each one of us. He loves me and he loves you while you're sitting right there. And that's that's what we wanna talk about now.
I'm going to do a little experiment here and I'm wondering if there are.
I prefer this to be girls that would do this. Are there 2 girls that would be willing to volunteer for an experiment? I need somebody that's good at math and uh, something is good at sitting still.
And so I'm wondering if there's two girls that'd be willing to volunteer and I see one hand down here, is anybody else, any other girls be willing to just help me out here just for a few minutes?
Good. Now you're Courtney. Right now, Courtney, are you good at math? Are you good at sitting still?
Good at sitting still, all right? And Ellie's good at math. So what I need Courtney for you to do is just, I want you to come sit right here.
Alright, and and remember they'll be encouragements for this, so we'll we'll do that. So Ellie, what I need you to do, I want you to come up here.
Just real quick here.
Uh, I'm just gonna talk, but if you would just, umm, count her hair while we're doing this, OK, That's your job. I want you to just see how many hair she has.
And so here we have a verse I would like to to read. It's in Luke's Gospel, chapter 12.
By the way, girls, I know it's impossible, so you can sit down. It's all right.
But it's a, it's a real lesson. I want us to really think about that. Courtney, you have a lot of beautiful hair, but there's a lot of it. And I think I could probably let Ellie do that all day long and she'd have a hard time coming up with the right answer.
All right, Luke's Gospel, chapter 12.
We'll start reading. Actually, I'm going to read 2 verses here, and we're going to start with verse 6.
Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings? 2 farthings is just just a really small amount of money, really cheap.
Aren't two sparrows cheap? And not one of them is forgotten before God? So God doesn't he. He doesn't forget even a tiny little bird. We've had some tiny little birds at our house that fell out of a nest and Ellie had fun trying to trying to help them out.
But God didn't forget about those little birds when they fell out. But anyway, it says.
But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Your hairs are all numbered now. That's different than counting them.
00:30:09
He says your hairs are numbered.
Now sometimes we go to a store and we buy a, buy a product and it comes, it says on it some assembly required. And so we open, we get a home and we open up the box and we really hope it's got good directions and it'll say part number one attaches to part number two or something like this, right? Part number 17 plugs into part #43.
And so we come up with a product at the end of the day, hopefully.
That's numbering. Each one of those parts has its own number. Can you imagine that God has a number for each one of your hairs on your head?
I don't know which number I'm hold. I'm holding several right here. I don't know which number they are. God knows which numbers those are.
It's interesting, isn't it, that he has a number for each hair on our heads?
Now I was thinking about that.
You know, sometimes.
We is it. Has anybody ever had somebody just oh, I just can't. I want to get something that I there's something in mind and.
And you just can't stop thinking about it. You're really interested in something. I'll tell you an example. At our house, there was a young lady who was really interested in a puppy. And that meant that if there was an opportunity, why we'd look up, well, what kind of what breed of dog should we get? Or I wonder if this kind can handle the heat in Arizona.
Or I wonder if this kind is good with?
Kids.
So we're doing research and we'll look on the Internet and we'll see, try to find some information.
But that didn't lead to a puppy right away. But that's all you can think about is that thing that you want. And so you're researching it and you're checking it out. Has anybody ever, anybody else done that? I've done that. I'll raise my hand. Anybody else done that? No, nobody in the front row will admit to it. That's all right. I've done that. And you just think, oh, I, you know, that would be really cool if I could get that thing. And, and so I'd like to learn about it.
And try to learn as much about it before you get it, so that when you get it, you you're familiar with how it works and.
And whatever that thing is, you can make it, make it work, right, Right. You just, you just enjoy it. You just think you're really going to like it.
Of course, the problem is here in this world, things after we get them, they aren't as interesting. But that's not the point today. What are we talking about? God numbered your hair because he loves you and he wants to know about you, about me. And so he said, I'm gonna, I I'm so interested. I can't wait.
I can't wait for you.
To get to heaven, to be with me in heaven. I can't wait.
I know every single thing about you and I love you.
You know, sometimes I think, oh.
If somebody knew every single thing about me, they wouldn't love me very much.
But that's not how God is. God is love and He knows every single thing. He knows what you did last night and what you dreamed about. And he knows what you did last week, what you learned in school, what you were thinking about the last time you went to Sunday school. What did you learn about? When was the last time that you thought about the Lord Jesus? You know some of those things he writes down when we think about the Lord Jesus. Imagine this.
He writes it down in a book. Isn't that neat?
He loves us so much that he keeps track of that. He wants to know about what we're thinking about. He wants to know everything about you. And so he numbers our hairs.
You know, I was thinking about that a little bit though.
Sometimes we just.
We can know a lot about something. I don't really appreciate it or so.
How many of you just raise your hand up here in the front? How many of you know the difference between a square and a circle?
00:35:04
Now.
I'm going to ask you a question. Do you just like man, I can't wait till I find out the next thing about a square or a circle.
Does that keep you up at night thinking about squares and circles?
No comment? All right, How about somebody else? Does anybody else just love squares and circles and can't wait to learn the difference and appreciate them?
You know about squares and circles, don't you? Do you really think. Do you spend much time thinking about it? Do you? Well, I think. OK, that's good answer. All right. Who else? Anybody else? I saw you put your hand up. Do you spend a lot of time thinking about squares? Yeah, I have to admit I don't really either. I think I can tell the difference between them usually and. And. And really, that's enough for me now. I. Yes, you'll learn about them later on in school and there's some important.
Things and so on. But but you can know all about squares and circles and I think there are probably some people that study those squares and those circles.
For a long time and they learn lots of math about it, and they enjoy drawing special math problems.
Find the area of a circle or circumference or or this kind of thing. And that's important. We have to know how to do that, but.
We don't really. At the end of the day, we don't really care that much about squares and circles.
So I think it's fair to say, at least in a simple way, that we can know a lot about squares and circles, and it really doesn't. We really don't care, right?
Oh my, God knows a lot about you and He really, really cares. Oh, that's what I want to share over and over today. We're just going to keep saying it. God loves you and He loves me. He really cares and He really knows every little thing about you, and He loves you and He wants you to be in heaven.
You know, I'm going to read a little bit of a a verse in Song of Solomon.
You know what, this is a verse and then we can read it a lot of different ways, but for today we're going to read it that this is the Lord Jesus and He's talking to you. We're in chapter 2, Song of Solomon chapter 2 and verse 14.
And the first thing he says is, Oh my dove. He calls us a dove. Now, doves we think of as being.
Nice birds with their loving and so we can think of that Lord Jesus calls us a dove in the cleft of the rock and the secret places of the stairs. Now this is the part I'm thinking about right here. This is the Lord Jesus talking to you and to me this morning. He says, let me see thy.
Countenance. Oh, that's a big word.
We'll talk about what that means.
Countenance, do you mind if I just read this a little different? I'm gonna, I'm gonna paraphrase what this is saying. This is the Lord Jesus talking to you this morning, he says.
Let me see your face.
Let me hear your voice.
For sweet is your voice and your face is comely nice looking.
He wants to see our face, He wants to hear our voice because he loves us.
Oh, I wanna lose my notes.
OK.
Isn't that amazing?
Now I look here this morning and everybody's got their nice clothes on today and we.
Recently bathed and hairs nice and combed. Everybody looks real nice today.
But you know what? That verse is also there in the Bible after we've been playing outside and.
Maybe we get in a fight.
Get a few scratches, get some bruises. Maybe we haven't been talking very nice to our.
00:40:04
Friends.
Family, whomever.
It still says that the Lord Jesus still wants to see our face and to hear our voice.
Isn't that neat?
Why, why, Why does he want to hear my voice? Why does he want to see my face?
Because he loves me. Because he loves you.
Well, we just have a few minutes left. I want to do another experiment here.
You know, recently I was talking to some other children and we talked about how big things are. We ever talk about how big something was to our friends. And so we use our hands a lot, don't we? And so I want us to use our hands.
And.
How many of us how? Show me your hands how big. Using your hands, how big is your heart? Show me how big your heart is.
Anybody have any idea how big your heart is? Any ideas? I saw a little circle here. Is that is that your guess or you're just OK? It's a good guess. How about we gotta not sure, OK?
Well, we have a doctor.
Here, and hopefully I'm not overstepping my bounds to say I believe that our heart is this big.
Is that OK to say that, Mister Frost?
Pretty good. That's close enough. We'll say that's close enough if you ever want to know how big your heart is supposed to be, or about how big it is.
You make a fist and you know that's probably about how big your heart is.
We're going to jump ahead. How big is a whale's heart? Any ideas? Show me with your hands. Show me with your hands. How big is it? We got a fist here. OK. Going to be a lot bigger because it's OK. This is what I was looking for right here.
Those arms out there, that's good.
I think it's something like the size of a car and 1300 lbs is what I remember right? What I remember, but this is what I was looking for this big.
OK.
Why? Why am I looking for that? Well, that's a good question. So. Oh, wait.
Let's see who answered questions. I forgot I'm I'm behind on this, so we'll, we'll do that later. Yeah. Afterwards, if you answer the question, you can get a why are we looking for the arms out like this? Sometimes we use that when you talk about.
Uh, a fish that we caught is that big, or maybe it's this big or maybe it's this big. It's real big. Sometimes we do that.
But I like to ask.
Kids, how big something is and so when you're describing a house or a car, that's all you can do that that's the extent of how you can show with your hands. All you can do is stretch your hands out because it's bigger than that, isn't it? And I think it's kind of like saying it's just super huge, right? It's really, really big and so.
You know what that makes me think of?
That makes me think about the very person who we've been talking about today, the very one who knows how many hairs are on your head, the very one who knows what we've been doing and and what we've been learning in Sunday school. The Lord Jesus Christ had his hands out like that when he was on the cross. And we've been learning yesterday and we've been learning all our lives how much the Lord loves us so that he would.
And die on the cross for you. And I remember somebody telling me, I remember the first time I heard somebody say.
That if that's what it took for the Lord Jesus, if if he had to come back and die again just for you, he'd do it now. I'm so glad to say that that work is all done. We don't have to worry about that doing that again. But that's how much he loves you that he would die on the cross again if that's.
What He had to do, He would do it because He loves you so much and He wants you in heaven with Him. And so as he was there on the cross, his arms were open up like that. And I just think of that verse.
That the Lord Jesus said, he said, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I'll give you rest. Come to me. I want you. I love you. I want you to come to me today.
And that's why we sang that song at the beginning. We sang why? Why does the ocean just get to stretch your arms out wide? But it talks about God's love for us. And so maybe we can sing that. Well, I guess we're out of time, so we won't sing it again.
00:45:13
But he's pleading with you today. If you haven't come to him, come to him today and just say, Lord Jesus, I'm so glad you love me. Will you please? I, I, I just want you to come into my heart.
But I also want you because I think there's a lot of boys and girls up here that no Lord Jesus as Savior, I just want you to go home realizing how much He loves us, that he's a real man, that He really cares what happens to you. There's gonna be bad things that happen in life, but he really cares about them and about you and what you're going through. You know, there's a verse in the Bible that tells us that he takes our tears and puts them in a bottle.
Kind of an interesting thought, isn't it? Ever been sad enough to cry? I have.
Lord Jesus cares about that too.
And he loves us. OK, well time is up, so let's just thank the Lord Jesus for how much He loves us.
Lord Jesus, we just bow as we think about your tremendous love for us. Thank you for dying on the cross because you love us. Thank you for the Bible that you shared it with us because you love us and you want each one of us to be in heaven with you, and we just thank you for that.
And so we just pray for each boy and each girl in this room, and we just pray that you would help each one of us to hear your love to us today is thank you and your precious name, Lord Jesus, Amen.