Children—Jeff Lunden
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Let's pray and then we'll say the verse, the memory verse. In this week, you'll have a little talk.
Our loving God and our Father. We thank you for this opportunity to have the Word of God open before us and to look at a few simple little lessons from the word of God. And we thank you for the good news of the gospel that's going out. We thank you that we can say that everyone here in this room is heard the gospel, and we just pray that it's true as we're just saying that everyone can say Love lifted me.
We would pray for anyone who might be in this room tonight and today who has not taken the Lord Jesus as our Savior, but they would realize.
The place that they stand, the importance of knowing the Savior and the jeopardy in which they stand. So we pray for your blessing on the word of God as we speak from it today. We would make it good to our souls. That would be simple and clear. We look to you for help. I thank you for this time and we pray in Jesus name. Amen.
So.
How many of you learned the memory verse and how many of you were too busy with camp to get practice?
Nobody's raising your hand about either, so let's all say it together. I'll read it first and then we'll all just say it together. It's part of two verses, part of one verse, but part of it's missing. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, but His long-suffering to us. Word not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Let's all say it together.
The whole group. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, but his long-suffering with two muscles not willing, the nation cherish all.
Just so I know what my audience is, this is a Sunday school, so I'd like to see a show of hands of everybody who would be in school. If school is in session right now, that means homeschoolers. Public schoolers, college kids, high school kids. Let me see a show of hands. I need to know who I can ask questions to. No, put them down. OK, All right. That back here there are a lot of people not raising their hands. That should be. I know that.
OK. We'll ask the hard questions back there.
So I want to ask a question here.
What part of creation did the Lord make with his fingers?
Nobody knows.
No, not man.
Adam.
Ready. No.
I was hoping somebody would give an answer that would be not correct.
No naive.
In in Psalms it says about the heavens right.
Let's just read that verse. I want to make a point.
We're going to look at a few verses. There aren't exactly what they seem, Psalms, 19, says.
Psalms, I'm sorry, Psalms 8 says. We, I thought we probably had would talk to who would have talked about this. In fact, I know people did talk about their creation since we're out here in the in the woods and many people have mentioned about how the creation that we've enjoyed around here that God had made.
It says.
In verse 3 When I consider Thy heavens the work of Thy fingers.
But did God make the heavens with his fingers?
What do you read in Genesis? How did he make the world?
He spoke them into existence, didn't he? He just said, and they were.
Isn't that amazing? Isn't that something? Let's read a verse in Psalms 19.
I want to talk about hands and I want to start with this verse, verse one of Psalms 19. The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Who knows what handiwork is somebody back there?
Some electrician back here.
What's handiwork? Skill. Yeah, it's the things we do with our hands, right? Sometimes people say, oh, that guy's handy. He can do stuff. Uncle Ernie's handy. He can make all kinds of stuff with his hands with almost nothing. Almost no tools, right?
00:05:13
So what does this mean? Did God make the world that says the firmament? That's the heavens.
Shows his handiwork in the word of God. Sometimes we use word pictures.
So we get the idea.
When he talks about the hands, about God's hands, what it really means is what he did. Remember that little song that says be careful, little hands, what you do right Handiwork is what God did. So we use the the idea of hands for what God did.
Now when we go to the New Testament, where the Lord Jesus is actually here, we can read about his hands and we can see what he did. And you know, when we see what people do with their hands, sometimes we can understand what they're like.
How skilled they are. He used the word skill. And you know, if if you saw me paint something and then you saw Mark Debue paint something, you could tell which one was the professional painter and which one wasn't, because one of them would be better paint job than the other.
So we can see and we can learn about.
What somebody does by how they do their work. So when we look at the handiwork of God, what do we learn about him? We learn that he's very, very wise and he's very, very powerful. Can you imagine somebody just saying and things happen, things become there was nothing And then God just said let there be light and there was. That's incredible power, isn't it, To be able to just say the, the, the Latin word is ex nihilo.
Out of nothing, he just said it and it was. That's incredible power. But not only was it there, but it all worked together the right way.
That's amazing. What wisdom to?
Let's turn to the New Testament, though, where we see the Lord Jesus working and we learn something else. Not just power and not just wisdom, but we see love too. We see love working. So let's turn.
To some places where the Lord Jesus is working with his hands.
Let's look in Mark.
Mark, Chapter 2.
I'm sorry, Mark, Chapter 10.
Since this is a Sunday school, I thought would be a good place to start.
You know this story. And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them. And his disciples rebuked them, those that brought them. And when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased. He said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not for such as the Kingdom of heaven of God.
Verily I say, Auntie, or whosoever shall not of God as little child, he shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms, and he put his hands on them, and he blessed them.
These, I think was probably their parents brought these young children to the Lord Jesus. And I think what he wanted to, they wanted him to do was do this, put his hands on them and bless them. You know what that means.
You know what blessing is and somebody blesses you. They want something good for you, right? They want they want you. Maybe they wanted the Lord Jesus to pray for him and say that this boy would grow up to be a a wealthy man, or maybe a most likely a happy man. I think if we would could say that every parent who brings their children who has children wants them to be happy. In fact, I think that's why your parents bring you here.
Because they want you to grow up and to be happy most of all.
And so they bring you here to learn about the Lord Jesus, because they know that.
The most important thing that you need to know is to know the Lord Jesus to be happy.
And so these parents brought their children to the Lord Jesus. And I like to see what he did with his hands. Not only did he touch them, not only did he, He didn't just do this. He went far beyond what the parents wanted. He took them up in his arms. He put them right here, I think, right in the place of affection.
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Because the Lord Jesus wanted to show that his love, these hands that he had wanted to display the love of God. So he picked the children up and he put them in his, put them in his arms and put them to his chest, I think. And he also blessed them as the parents requested. You know, children is OK, It's good. It's very good to come with your parents to meeting and to learn about the Lord Jesus. But it's especially good to be in a place of affection with the Lord Jesus, to know him as your savior.
And to realize his love for you personally, not just to listen to your parents tell you about it, but to know the love of God for yourself. And so I mean, I I'd like to use this also as an example for us, if we want to be the hands of the Lord Jesus.
We can reach out to others, you know, in this verse, in this little story, the stern disciples, what did they do with the children? They tried to send them away. He's too busy. He doesn't have time for children.
But there's no one that the Lord Jesus doesn't have time for. Maybe we think, maybe there's some people that you know that.
They need the Lord Jesus, but you don't have time for them. Maybe you should take the time to share the Lord Jesus with them too. And then you can be the hands of God in this world, showing love to those people who need the Lord Jesus. Let's turn over to Mark 10, Mark One.
And we'll read about another.
Person that the Lord Jesus touched with his hands.
Verse 40 of Mark One there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to touch to him. And he said, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.
And Jesus moved with compassion, put forth and and touched him, and said, I will be thou clean. As soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed. You know what leprosy is? You've probably heard about leprosy. You've probably heard about it in meeting a sickness that makes people.
Soar all over and back. In the time of the Lord Jesus, the people who were lepers, they had to stay away from everybody else, had to stay outside of the city and live all by themselves. And nobody would touch them because they were afraid that if they touched them then they would get leprosy. Can you imagine never being touched? What if nobody ever hugged you or or touched you and showed any affection? Can you imagine that? And then when they went anywhere, they had to say unclean, unclean. Imagine how awful that would feel to be.
Not wanted by shunned by everybody. Not wanted by everybody. And have to say I'm unclean. That's a picture of sin in this world. That's the way you and I are. We're sinners before God. We're unclean.
You know, touch is an important thing.
We all need it. We all need to be touched. My my daughter volunteers at a hospital she works in. She volunteers where they have preemie babies. You want preemie babies are about the size of. I've seen some girls. Do you know what they are? What are they?
Not just born small. They're born too soon, right? Little tiny babies. Incredibly tiny babies. And so the hospitals have these special.
Incubators that are the right temperature and the right air and the right everything, and they check the babies all the time, make sure they have the right food and medicines, and they're somebody paying attention to them. Each one of them all the time, 'cause they're too little to go home. They can't go home with their moms and dads. They're just wee little babies. But one thing that they've figured out is that babies need to be touched. They need to be held by somebody, otherwise they don't grow very well. And so this hospital where my daughter volunteers.
They have people come in and they just hold babies. That's all they do. They sit in a rocking chair and they don't feed them. They don't. They just hold them and the babies grow much better because they have that touch, this poor man.
This poor leper would probably not touched by anybody, but it says, and he says he has faith. He says to the Lord Jesus, I know that you can make me better if you want to.
And so the Lord Jesus was moved with compassion. That means he cared about that man and he showed his love, that his love with his hands he reached out and he touched him. That's the first thing he did, is he touched him. People didn't touch lepers. The Lord Jesus, that man. And then he said, I will be thou clean. You know, there's no one too vile, too much of A Sinner for the Lord Jesus to save them. Maybe sometimes, You know, last night we heard.
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Mark was talking about people who are respecters of persons. Maybe sometimes we think, oh, that guy, that guy at school, he he he misbehaves all the time. I don't think he could be a Christian. He he uses bad language or he doesn't obey the teacher or whatever. I I don't even think I should bother telling him about the Lord Jesus. I don't think he there's nobody that's too bad to be saved, is there? The Apostle Paul says that he was the chief of sinners.
And so.
You know, I don't think we should hang out with people who are misbehave all the time at school. But we can be kind to them and we can odd to them. And maybe we would have an opportunity sometime to tell them about the Lord Jesus. Then we could be the loving hands of the Savior too. Let's look at one more in Matthew 14.
The two we've talked about were people who you might say were outside. Here's one of his own, and this is about Peter when he walked on the water. You know that story.
Peter walked on the water. And what happened to him? Do you remember?
He started to sink. That's right, he started to sink. Let's read it a little bit.
Matthew 14.
Let's start with verse 25 and the 4th watch of the night. Jesus went unto them walking on the seed. This the disciples were in a boat. And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were troubled and saying it's a spirit and they cried out for fear. But straightway Jesus speaking to them saying be of good cheer it is I be not afraid.
And Peter answered him, and saying, Lord, if it be, thou bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, Come. When Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water to go. But when he saw the wind was boisterous, he was afraid, beginning to sink. He cried, and immediately stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said to him, Oh thou little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?
This is the Lord the Lord Jesus reaching out his hands to preserve one of his own when their faith failed them, you know.
I think we could say if Peter, he had faith. The Lord Jesus says here that he had faith, but it doesn't look like very much faith because the Lord said it's me, I'm out here on the water. And Peter said if it's really you, that's that doesn't sound like very much faith. We might say Peter didn't have very much faith, but he says if it's thou bid me come unto thee. And you know the Lord Jesus says come, he'll take any little bit of action of faith on our part.
He encourages us. Maybe you are exercised about doing something for the Lord Jesus, but you're afraid you might fail.
You might like Peter get looking around and go, oh man, I'm going to sink in the water. The Lord Jesus said don't bother Peter, you're going to sink into the water. But he didn't, he said Come, he said come to me. He encouraged him to exercise his faith and I'd like to say.
For all of us here, if you're exercised about something, if if in fact in a meeting, you feel exercised to speak, to give out of him, to exercise your priestly.
Responsibility. Jesus has come. You should be exercised about that.
And you should act on your faith. You might fail, but the Lord Jesus was there immediately it says to help him. He reached out his hand to save him. Isn't that nice? He was there immediately.
So those are three examples of the Lord Jesus hands in action. Now I want to look at the Lord Jesus hands as a message to us.
Let's turn back to Isaiah 49.
Yeah.
Isaiah 49 and verse 16.
Behold, I have graven thee.
Upon the palms of my hands. Thy walls are continually before me. Where's the palms of your hands? Let me show me. Show me your palms.
Palms of your hands. This is the palms of I think we can say this is for the, for this example, this Sunday School, the palms of the Lord Jesus hands.
So it says I have graven thee who knows what graven means, and it has nothing to do with gravy. What does graven mean?
Let's take the UN off the end of it.
What's a grave?
Come on.
00:20:01
Your grandpa digs grave sometimes.
A thing where you put dead bodies. That's right, a hole in the ground, right? How do they make it? How's your grandpa? How did he make graves? What's he use? Shovel. And I think he uses a backhoe, actually, especially in the winter time when it's really frozen.
And they dig a hole in the ground where they put the casket, right with the body in it. So a grave is something that's dugout. Usually they're about this deep. I was in a grave. I'd have to jump up to see out when they put me in the grave. I won't be jumping in all that.
So something that's dug.
So this verse is kind of strange. It says I have.
Dug the into the palms of my hands.
Let me show you an example of what I think the writer was saying.
About 40 examples of this right here.
There's something graven.
This one's free. Who I think.
It's dug in.
Why would somebody dig a name in like that? Let me tell you a little example of why I think they would. Where I used to work, there was a guy named Greg, and he would come to me every morning and he'd tell me what he was going to do that day. He was responsible. I was responsible to tell him his jobs. He didn't come in and tell me what he's going to do. And then I'd have to remind him of, well, Greg, make sure you check the filter on this or check this or that. And at first, when he started working for me, he didn't carry a notepad with him, so he'd take a pen. He'd write on his hand filter.
Oil or whatever. Sometimes you'd have to come back to my office and go. What was that you reminding me about? I said, well, you wrote it on your hand. Yeah, but I washed my hands and the message went away.
This is put here so it's permanent.
So.
If you know the Lord Jesus, you're permanently engraved on his hands. Isn't that nice?
There's three things I'd like to say about this. One of them is the name is permanent. That means it never goes away.
If you know the Lord Jesus as your savior, you're permanently one of his. That means forever. You can't lose your salvation. You're forever His.
Now the next thing is it says I have graven thee. That's you personally. It doesn't mean just in general people. It means you personally, You know, a great preacher see it, Spurgeon said of this verse. He said. It doesn't mean just your name. It means everything about you, your hopes, your dreams, the things that you worry about, the things you're happy about, the things you're interested in. Everything about you is there in the palm of his hand.
Isn't that interesting? Everything he knows all about you and it's all there in the apartment of his hand and I think the third thing.
Is instantaneous. And I'm, I'm sorry to use this example, a modern day example for something so, so precious as this, but have you ever seen anybody who?
Was using Instagram and talking to their friends somewhere. Sometimes this happens at our in our meeting. I see people walk out and they're going like this and then they look like that, and then they look like that and they want to talk to somebody there. They're talking to somebody and they're answering back and forth and it's going back. Hello Walla Walla, you know? And then back and forth like that, you know?
Do they have it in their back pocket or in their coat pocket or they leave it in the it's right there all the time. You know the Lord Jesus when Peter was thinking what does it say when after Peter said Lord save me, what's the next verse immediately.
The Lord Jesus has you in front of him all the time. Immediately, he answered. Immediately He's interested. He pays attention to your life all of the time. Before they call, I will answer. And while they're yet speaking, I will hear. There's three things. Permanent, personal, and instantaneous. Isn't that nice? Now I have these for everybody here. I think that has.
That had their name on the list.
When I made them up. And if you're missing, I could make you one. And you're welcome to have, you're welcome to each take one. You can come up here after Sunday school's over and get yours. But I want to ask you a question first.
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Is your name actually engraved in the Lord Jesus hand?
This is kind of like that first verse that we were talking about about making this heavens with his fingers. It's kind of poetic license. That's what they say. It was said one way so we could understand the idea. But what Mark is really in the Lord Jesus hands, Russell, what Mark is really in the Lord Jesus hands is your name written in his hand.
What is the actual mark that's in the Lord Jesus palm of his hand? A nail print? That's right.
I didn't put nail prints in these. I couldn't figure out how to do it. When you take this home you can nail it on the wall if you want. Then it would be more realistic if your mom or dad would let you do that. But if you're the Lords, then your name is associated with the nail prints in his hands.
Let's read about.
Thomas in John 20.
You know, believe that the Lord Jesus had risen from the dead.
And he said to the disciples.
Except I see the the Prince see in his hands the Prince of the nails, and put my finger into the Prince of the nails and thrust my hand into his side. I will not believe. And so when the Lord Jesus appeared, the Lord Jesus said, put your hands here, I'll show you the nails. I I'll show you where I was nailed on the cross and suffered for you. And what did Thomas say? I don't even know. And Thomas answered and said to him, my Lord and my God.
You know.
If you would take one of these and you're not the Lord Jesus and it's just your name on a board.
But you should be exercised about you should think about the fact that you're engraved on his hands.
Because of the nail prints that are there, he took the nails for you and for me.
And so you when you look at this, you should think.
Do I believe that? Do I believe?
That he suffered for me. Do you believe that? Are you his because he took the nails in his hands and suffered on the cross for you.
I think that's a good thing to think about and I want that's why I made these so that you would think about that. And then if you are the Lords, you can appreciate the fact that you're his because he suffered for you.
Let's pray.
Loving God and our Father.
Our Savior, the Lord Jesus.
That he displayed the love of God in this world, especially when he went to Calvary's cross and gave his life for sinners. We ask your blessing on the children here today. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.
So you can come up.