Children—Steve Hall
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Loves me, my Bible tells me so.
You believe that it's my dream of Wi-Fi.
And the wakes will make me one way to hold me in heaven.
She wants me, yes. She's not as long as he.
Can see that loves me.
God, I forgot me so.
Very good. Who? Who else has a song?
Anybody.
#10.
Let's sing #10.
Say.
Wow.
I.
Breathed with me, proud to die as proud as I was.
All right. Do we have another one?
Somebody has to have a favorite.
#8.
OK, we'll do #8.
We can grind the sun.
00:10:06
And my death in Christ.
Our eyes shall we hear the sacred, all of us, during smoke beyond the sky.
Yes, we'll grab the right Scars name.
Hey, do I have snow?
All righty. We're going to take a break from singing for a little bit, and if we end early, we'll sing tomorrow, OK?
So I know it's not.
Totally common, but does anybody have a memory verse that they want to say this morning before we get into the lesson?
You got one.
We love.
With brown vapor bags.
You got to like a Sunday school lesson with a brown paper bag.
I always thought those were the best.
I'm going to take a big risk here and I'm going to do something that I've never heard of done.
In a Sunday school lesson at a conference. Is that all right with you guys? So I want to play a game.
You guys like games?
You love games. Good. I'm.
This is going to be a special game, so a lot of us traveled a long ways to get up here.
To Regina. And so I was thinking about a game that I know my kids played a lot.
When we would go on long trips.
And the way that this game works is someone me thinks of a word.
And I'm going to use it in little sentences.
And I want you to just raise your hand. If you think you know what that word is. I have a bunch of different sentences that I'm going to use this word in. I'm not going to actually say the word. It's going to be a blank. And I don't want you to yell it out. OK, If you know what it is, I don't want you to yell it out. You just raise your hand and then I'm going to come and you can whisper it in my ear.
00:15:24
And if you get it right, you get something out of the bag, OK.
And we're going to do I have AI have a bunch of these little sentences. And then when we get done with all those little sentences, we're going to open the word of God and we're going to look at what the word of God says about them. Does that sound fair? You guys got got this down. So if you know the word, just raise your hand, OK?
All right.
The first one is blank. Is a decision.
And we'll let some of those that are just a little bit older play as well. So blank is a decision.
I'm going to guess that.
Even the folks in the back row probably are going to struggle with this one. You got an idea? OK, come here.
No good. Good guess, good guess. Anybody else want to take a guess?
And there's no.
Come on, no.
No.
You want to take a guess.
Who whispered in my air?
No.
OK, well, we'll go on to #2.
This one's a lot. Well, I think I'm going to, I'm going to skip #2 and #3 We'll come back to those. I got to make this hard to begin with.
Blank is first mentioned in the Word of God in Genesis chapter 22.
A little bit a little bit easier. No, you can't look it up.
Well, I mean, there's a lot of words in Genesis chapter 22, so.
You don't count. I think you got it now. Yeah. So we have one person maybe in the room that has it. Adults can raise your hand, too. I got enough candy. You're going to take a guess.
You don't need the candy.
All right, we got one, one person that knows. All right, we're going to go on.
This one should be a little bit easier.
In Revelation.
In the.
First part of revelation the Lord speaks to some of the churches in the church in ephesus was.
Rebuked because they were missing this.
Or they left it.
Is you got a guess.
No really good. Good guess. Really good guess. Anybody else?
You got a guess.
You don't know it yet, OK.
Good. All right.
All right, maybe this will be a little bit easier.
Without. Without this, even if I had enough faith to remove a mountain, I would be nothing.
OK.
All right, we got to take her in the front row.
You get.
Anybody else?
Should have memorized that first a little better.
Go ahead. Come on.
No close.
00:20:01
No, you gotta. You gotta whisper it in my ear.
Nope.
Anybody else?
No, not quite. Get another guess.
She said tell me a word.
Still don't have it? OK, that's fine.
All right.
#2 blank is kind.
Very good.
There are chocolate bars in the bottom.
Oh, we got OK.
All right, very good.
Just a SEC here. We'll get to the go ahead.
Good job.
Sure, there's there's chocolate bars in the bottom.
Good job. Go ahead. I got lots of candy.
Good job.
We've got to take her back here.
All right.
Good job.
All right.
Just a second here. The next one, number three is it's a fruit of the Spirit.
I think you were supposed to raise your hand first. Did you get what your sister said? OK.
I think the cat got out of got out of the bag.
Yep, all right.
So if anybody didn't hear.
Let's see here. It never fails.
You already know it.
You already got one too, didn't you? Or you didn't, OK.
Yep, that's another word for it that works.
Get it?
Nope.
Didn't understand what you said.
No, Umm.
The next 1 #8 says we have known Blank because he laid down his life for us.
Does that ring any bells?
Yeah, you get it.
Next one.
Says blank, not the world.
You're right.
Get it?
Not yet. Yeah, go ahead. OK, this one you all should get for God. So blank the world.
What is it?
God so love.
It's love. You're getting candy. Did you hear that? You know what it is?
Go ahead.
Now you can have one anyway.
All right, did anybody in the front not get a piece of candy you can come up afterward?
You know what it is?
For God.
So what is it?
Yep, you got it. Very good. There's a couple more.
God is love, right? OK.
We'll deal with the rest of the candy afterward.
00:25:04
He first loved us.
We love him because he first loved us. That was the verse, I think, on the Sunday school and there's No Fear in love. So I'm going to turn to some verses and let's read about this. So the first one.
Love is a decision.
Let's turn to Romans chapter 5.
Romans chapter 5 and verse 8 says.
But God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Children, I wanted to talk about love this morning.
A little bit, and sometimes we have an idea in our minds of what something is, but it's not really supported by the Word of God.
In this verse here God commendeth his love commendeth is a really big kind of difficult.
Word, and I would like you to think of it this way. God decided to love us. God commended His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Love, especially God's love, is a decision.
But I want to, I want to help you children understand love and, and I hope that the questions that I was asking you, the game that we just played got you to think about this subject love a little bit.
And I've been thinking about this subject, love, because I've been to a lot of weddings and I'm still going to go to several more this year. One of them happens to be the wedding of my nephew, who's in the room.
So.
That means I get a pick on him a little bit.
Love is a decision.
I want us to change our thinking because I think most people, if you ask them what love is, they would say that love is an emotion.
And I don't believe that Scripture tells us that. I believe that scripture shows us that love is a decision.
And it makes a big difference, children, when love is a decision instead of an emotion.
The reason that that matters is because we are called on to love others.
When emotions just don't work.
And so the first thing I'd like you to remember, children, out of my talk this morning is love is a decision. It's not an emotion. There's motions associated with love, but love is a decision, OK?
The next one we had, and I'm going to go in the order that I wrote them down, we're going to turn to 1St Corinthians 13. And I suggest you hold your finger there because if you know your Bibles very well, First Corinthians chapter 13 is often referred to as the love chapter, and we're going to have a lot of verses.
From First Corinthians chapter 13.
First Corinthians chapter 13 and verse four says charity or that's the old English version of love. Love suffereth long and is kind.
Love envieth not, love vaunteth not itself.
It is not puffed up.
These are descriptions of what love is.
And I think it's really helpful. And we're going to come back to this chapter a number of different times, but love.
Is kind.
And children, that's one of the things about love that I want you guys to remember if possible.
As love is kind.
00:30:03
Love is kind.
The Lord Jesus in his kindness towards us.
Came and became a man, and that was something that.
You might say he couldn't undo. He became a man forever.
So that he could go to Calvary's cross, so that he could display his love toward us in a way that we could understand.
Love is kind. We're going to go over to Galatians Chapter 5.
For the next one, hold your place in First Corinthians.
Does anybody know this first by heart? Anybody willing to quote it?
The fruit of the Spirit is.
OK, I'll read it. The fruit of the Spirit. This is what the Spirit of God acting in our lives produces in our lives. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.
Against such there is no law.
With the fruits of the Spirit.
Yeah, that's good.
Good, so the fruit of the Spirit. It's what the Lord creates in our lives and children.
One of the things about love and we have it in the Sunday school verse that was, that was the memory verse for some. We love him because he first loved us. If we're going to love others, we need to enjoy the love of God ourselves. And so the fruit of the Spirit creates in US love towards others.
Let's continue on. I don't want to delay too much. Let's turn back to Genesis chapter 22. This is the first time.
Love is mentioned in the word of God.
We know the story. Your children probably know it pretty well.
Abraham was tempted by God and God did tempt Abraham in verse one and he said to Abraham, Abraham and Abraham said, Behold here am I. And he said God said, take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou love us.
And get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there is a burnt offering. On what of the mountains that I will tell thee of.
The first time we get a word in Scripture, it's defined for us and in this case.
I believe that we find out that love is also associated with sacrifice.
Abraham was asked to take his son and to offer him as a burnt offering.
God was using that as a picture to us so that we could understand His love.
If you remember, and we won't take the time to read the rest of the story, but Abraham was stopped.
He took the knife in his hand and God stopped him, and he provided a ram that was caught in a thicket by his horns.
But in part of that, when Abraham and Isaac were walking up the mountain to go to the place.
Isaac said.
And I'm going to paraphrase here, Dad, there's wood for the fire and fire.
There, But where's the lamb?
And Abraham said God is going to provide a lamb.
And so we can Fast forward to the cross. The Lord Jesus came as the Lamb of God. John said, behold the Lamb of God. He came as the Lamb of God to wash away your sins and mine. He had to die. He had to be that perfect sacrifice. And children, if you don't know him as your Savior, I know you've heard the gospel many times.
00:35:09
Don't neglect that.
That's the greatest display of love. I believe that that's the next one.
Umm.
That's one further down. We'll turn to that first John chapter 3 and verse 16. This is one of the John 3 sixteens.
Beautiful verse.
The other love chapter is First John.
3:00 and 4:00.
One John 316 says Hereby perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us. I'm going to read that in the new translation because I think it's a little better. Hereby have we known love.
Because he laid down his life for us, we would not know anything about love.
If God had not sent his beloved Son into this world to die for our sins.
We would not know anything about love. We understand.
A little bit about love because.
The Lord Jesus laid down his life for us.
Let's go on.
A few more. In Revelation chapter 2, verse four, we have a verse.
There Revelation chapter 2.
This is speaking to.
Ephesus. Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
The church in Ephesus loved the Lord, but they had left their first love or their.
Energy of love.
They had gone, grown cold in their hearts.
And you know what? Sometimes we can grow cold in our hearts.
We can have.
A situation where we are so used to talking about love.
So used to talking about the Lord's love that we don't.
Enjoy it and we lose the freshness of it. I think that's what this means.
They had lost their first love. They had lost their love for the Lord Jesus and.
Again in first John.
The memory verse was first John 419 We love him because he first loved us Now if we find ourselves that we're.
We're not enjoying the Lord's love, it's because we have lost sight of what He's done for us.
We've grown cold in our hearts and we need to be reminded of that yesterday we were talking about.
Umm, a loaf and a cup.
And in about an hour we'll have the opportunity to sit around a table up here in the front and there's going to be a loaf and a cup.
And we're going to remember the Lord Jesus in his death for us.
And the reason for that is so that our love doesn't grow cold.
We need to be reminded of the Lord's love.
For us, there's a couple more verses that I wanted to touch in on in First Corinthians chapter 13. We'll go there as we're leaving first John four. We all know the verse God is love.
We perceive the love of God that He sent his Son.
So we understand a lot about love because of what the Lord Jesus has done.
And I'm going to go back to First Corinthians chapter 13. I don't want to go too long here.
00:40:02
I'm just going to read verse 4 through 8.
And then I want to read you a poem as we finish up.
Says Love suffereth long. Love is kind. Love envies not. Love want us not itself is not puffed up. Love does not behave itself unseemly.
Love doesn't seek his own.
Love is not easily provoked.
Love thinketh no evil.
Love rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth. Love bears all things.
Love believes all things. Love hopes all things.
Love endures all things.
Love never fails.
Verse 13 now abideth faith, hope and love these three, but the greatest is love. I want to read.
A poem in closing.
That I came across a long time ago.
And it really struck me.
I hope it is something that you enjoy. He would not sit still long enough to have his portrait done.
His heart was set to move his life at twice the speed of love.
An artist who who tried to freeze his style on canvas or in stone.
Found that real life isn't still life, even when life's alone.
A traveling artist known as Paul.
Painted truth with words. That truth, he saw, was burning love.
That comforts and disturbs.
Each year he grew until he knew the portrait couldn't wait.
And without a sound, the man sat down, and he began to paint.
Love is patient.
Love is kind, never jealous, free of pride.
Love will not be confined. Love will abide.
Love is hopeful. Love is not blind. Love is faithful. Every time.
Love is someone.
And when you open your eyes, you'll find that love is alive.
Now Love's going to stand the test of time and time, and stand when time is spent.
Just look at the portrait painted.
It's the son the father sent.
He is patient, he is kind.
Never jealous, free of pride.
He will not be confined.
He will abide.
Love is hopeful. Love's not blind.
Love is faithful every time.
Love is someone and if you look in his eyes.
You'll find that love is alive.
That portrait is First Corinthians chapter 13, and it's a portrait of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Their children.
Love came as a man.
Came here for the purpose of demonstrating to us.
What love is about?
He decided to love you and me when we were not lovable, when we were sinners, sinners when we were His enemies, when we were lost and undone.
And he gave his life for you and for me.
And he suffered.
More than we'll ever understand, so that we could understand a little bit about love. Let's pray.
00:45:05
Our great.