What Are You Worth to Jesus?

Matthew 10:29‑31; 2 Corinthians 4:7
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Children—Tim Totems
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In the swimming pool, I counted over 25 kids this morning. I see 123456789. There comes 1011121314. We're about missing half of them.
We have a good number of children. Let's start our Sunday school, go to the very Backpage and I'm going to.
Pick the first song and I'm going to then ask some of you boys and girls to pick the next several songs.
#44.
Into.
The Salvation.
Story, repeat or endorse.
Uh, L9 Can't say of the children of men. Nobody ever has told me before.
Yeah, he thought me up for little boy sent unto me the good times a joy. Need I not perish? My hand will be hold nobody.
Ever the story I told.
And again.
Tell it again.
Salvation story reaped more and more.
09/10 say of the children of men. Nobody ever has told me before.
No, I can't say I'm not children. I can't. Nobody, ever.
Matthew, do you know how much time we have for this Sunday School?
On the little card, do you know how many minutes we have?
He thinks an hour. No, it's less than an hour. Lane. 5 minutes. 45 minutes. That's right, 45 minutes. Do you think it takes 45 minutes to tell someone the gospel?
No, I don't. I don't think it does either. In fact, umm, my parents put on a a camping trip at our lake one day. One night and as I was sitting around the campfire I heard a boy about some of you boys age. They were playing behind me and one boy said to another boy, do you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior?
And that probably took less than 5 seconds to say. And that's not the whole gospel, but.
The other little boy said MMM, MMM, no.
And then they kept on playing. So anyway, it doesn't take long. OK, let's sing another song. How about a a girl?
And we need some more girls up here. I know we have some around. Like I said earlier, I counted over 25 swimmers last night in the pool and we have about 14 kids up here. So please feel free to come on up. I know it's scary.
Guess who's the most scared here this morning?
OK, how about a girl with a song on the Backpage?
Which one? Which 142? Thank you.
42.
00:05:02
A little child.
Far away.
I believe I'm right by the right by the side.
OK.
#47 Thank you. 47 when he coming.
All his dreams.
That and him on when the stars of the morning.
His bright brown adorning.
60000200.
Little gel brown.
OK, either a boy or a girl this time for another song.
OK #5 would you look on the very back page and pick one from the back the the way back?
How you how you use this one?
Pick one from that side.
44 #44 Actually we, we started with #44 take another one.
Jesus loves me.
OK #40 Jesus loves me. Umm, as we sing, Jesus loves me.
I would like all the grandfathers to sing the first chorus the first time. Just grandfathers on the chorus the first time.
That's me. I'll. I'll be helping you.
And on the second verse, all the grandmothers sing the chorus.
All the grandmothers sing the chorus on the second verse and then we'll just continue verses 3-4 and five like normal. OK, first chorus is grandfathers and 2nd chorus is grandmothers #40 Jesus.
Let's do him belong. They are weak. By the height we've got, he is strong.
She does love me though. I'm bad and he went to make me glad. Way to hold me in his arms.
Hits me safe from every arm. Yes. Jason Clark, please.
Yeah, 2005 me.
Yes, she's a plastic. The Bible tells me so.
Shining plains on high. Come to watch me where I lie.
Yes, she's a lovely.
Yeast is I love me.
Yeah, let's see that. I will tell me so.
Nsnoise.
Yes, Jesus of me.
The Bible tells me so.
All right, let's do one more for right now. One more song, Lane.
41.
#41.
Around the throne of God in heaven.
Are all forgiven? Well, heavenly hands and brains taking glory.
Glory, glory face through God and life.
00:15:26
OK, we can set our hymn sheets down for a few minutes and let's do close our eyes now and look to God for something for our hearts.
I want to talk to your children this morning about value.
On the table here you see.
A little cardboard box.
With two Styrofoam cups turned upside down and on top of the Styrofoam cups you see something stuck in the cups.
What do you see?
Paul.
Dirt.
He's right.
He sees he sees dirt stuck in these cups.
What value does dirt have?
How much is this dirt worth, Paul? Do you have any idea?
I see some boys over here telling secrets to one another.
What are you thinking, Kevin?
Nothing. What did you say?
Here's the other cup it has.
Thicker piece of dirt.
When I went outside this morning to get these pieces of dirt.
I thought about.
Me and one of these days I'm going to die and I'm going to become.
Dust or dirt, That's what the Bible says that.
Dost thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Umm, some of you have Bibles, Let's see if I can pick on you. Uh, Michael, would you read for me Psalm 139?
And four verses here. Psalm 139, verses 14/15/16 and 17.
Please.
Actually, would you read the next verse also please?
Thank you, you read that nice and clear.
Clearly.
When you.
God created Adam and Eve.
Umm, He made them from the dust of the ground, and then he breathed into them the breath of life, and there was wonderful togetherness, God and his new creature, Adam. And then a little later he made Eve from one of Adam's ribs.
And we know how Adam and Eve sinned, and it was just a little sin of disobedience. And yet it that one sin has plunged the entire human race into estrangement.
From God.
Our minds are against God. We do not believe that God is good, and so that one sin has plunged.
00:20:03
Boys and girls, and eventually men and women into sin.
Well, these two pieces of dirt.
Have inside of them something of value and I'm going to put that one in the water and put this piece of dirt in the water.
And I'm going to.
Slosh it around a little bit here.
When I was trying to make it stick, it wouldn't stick and now it won't come off.
OK, there. It's coming.
What? This young lady here? What do you think I could have hidden inside this one piece of dirt?
Maybe a ring? OK, that would be something of value. It's not a ring.
What do you think it might be? Money. Ah, that's that's it. Oh, here's a little silver one. How much is that piece of money worth?
$0.10 OK, he's got it. That one's a dime.
Alright, we'll, we'll put this dime up here in that cup and we have one more piece of money and oh, I told you what it was.
Sometimes it takes quite a bit of work to get us clean, you know, when we're, when the Lord is looking at us and we don't want to come and oh, there's kind of some scrubbing and.
Umm, it was kind of cute to me this morning. I was beckoning to.
One of the children in the back row and I was trying to encourage them to come up to the front row and this child.
Turned around and looked behind them to see who I might be beckoning to.
Well, there's nobody else behind them. They're in the very back row. I wonder if God is pointing his beckoning hand at you and you're.
Looking to see somebody else that he might be talking to? Is he talking to your heart this morning to come to him? Oh, look at this coin. Here's a bright shiny one.
A pretty copper penny here.
How much is a penny worth? 1 cent?
You know when I was you kids his age I could buy a piece of candy with one cent. I was in the store 2 days ago and it would I could only buy one piece of candy with a dime. Now a pack of gum that has.
I think 14 pieces cost $1.49. That's $0.10 per stick.
In a way I want to tell you that.
You are worth.
You, you are. You are at least worth the face value of these coins.
If you have not accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior, you have marvelous intellect and bodies. I, I've seen you kids run and, and splash and play and thankfully you have you, you're not paralyzed or, uh, you're, I don't see any blind children here this morning or deaf children. You have marvelous capabilities of, of doing things.
But there is something missing if you don't know the Lord as your Savior.
Though you are very valuable to him, there's a something of more value that you're missing.
And so these coins here are worth 1 cent and $0.10.
Now I'm going to trade these coins. I'm going to take this penny off. I'm gonna put a different penny on.
It's not quite as shiny as this first penny.
And I'm going to take this dime off and put a different dime on.
Again, it's not near as shiny as the 1St.
Dime.
And I'm also going to give each of you children.
One of these, uh, similar Dimes and pennies. So let me do this quickly.
00:25:00
You're welcome.
OK, I gotta go back around now and give each of you a penny.
Take a look at your coins.
And see if you can find a date on them.
Look for a date, it will say 19 something.
Do you do you see a date on any of your coins? What does it say?
1945 OK, that sounds, that sounds close, sounds right.
1943 is 1 here.
1942.
1944 hey.
Anybody here, uh, born in 1944? Oh. Doug Buchanan.
Wow.
Here, young man, here's a penny for you.
Uh, how about 1942?
Oh, over here, 19420 back there.
These are what we call antique coins.
Where you going?
OK.
There's a little pile of.
Pennies and a little pile of Dimes. I bet there are some people in this room who have never seen a dime with this picture on the front of it. Is that the Mercury Mercury dime?
It's worth $0.10. Take it down to the Walgreens and I believe you can buy a piece of gum if they sell them individually. You can buy a piece of gum for $0.10.
I don't know what you can buy with this penny and they call this a a wheat scent because on the backside of it.
Is a picture of some wheat heads. They don't make these anymore.
The wheat scents and the mercury dime.
They're worth a penny for face value and $0.10 per face value.
And I didn't look in my coin collector book because I don't really keep up on coins, but for antique value and you kids might.
Wanna look in an antique book? I don't know what I gave you. It's possible that one of your coins is worth, uh, $50,000, although I doubt it.
Those have been picked through, but there is a nickel out there, the 1913 nickel. If you ever find this particular nickel, I think it's worth thousands of dollars and some people I've heard try and take a 1918 nickel and erase, couple the marks of the 8 and make it look like a three.
To try and trick people, but.
These coins, now that you have have a different value than just the face value. They have an antique value. They're kind of rare. You probably have never seen one of these coins before and.
If you put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.
You're not antique, but you are rare. And so you have an additional value that I want to encourage you to cultivate because Christians in this world, umm, every now and then you see one of them.
OK, you go to meeting every week with Christians, but sometimes at school you see somebody do something very kind.
Very thoughtful.
You see somebody.
Who doesn't react in a mean way with other children and you think?
I wonder if they're a Christian, Don't you?
OK, uh, let's have another verse here. How about, uh.
See you have a Bible. Would you read Matthew 10 verses 29 through 31 for me please?
Matthew 10.
Matthew 10, verses 29 through 31.
00:30:21
Thank you.
You are of more value than many sparrows. God knows about any of these sparrows that are flying through the trees and they land and sometimes there's a big flock of sparrows. Umm.
By the way, you kids watch things in nature, Do sparrows walk or do they hop?
Very good.
Do Robbins walk or do Robins hop?
I think Robin's hop. Do crows walk or do crows hop?
Crow's Walk.
It's interesting some birds walk.
I got that mixed up. Some birds hop.
Even just for a short distance, they hop to the next spot and they hop to the next spot. God has created these little animals with their own unique things. And the little sparrows we read here.
Every now and then we hit one with our car. I don't cry about it. I don't even go back and pick it up and bury it. I just, I just leave it.
We are of more You children are of more value than many sparrows, the very hairs of your head. And I like to think of you dear girls, whose mothers uh.
Curled your hair this morning and brushed your hair. Your mothers don't know how many hairs are in your head, but God knows he has a very intimate knowledge about you.
Have you? Have you come to the Lord Jesus and.
Let him search your heart and.
Find out those hidden sins that you have. Have you seen him dying on the cross for your sins? And you come and ask the Lord Jesus to be your Savior, to take your sins away.
One of these songs that we sang this morning, you, some of you kids have heard a little child of seven. That was a little song that exercised me to come to the Lord.
Because I thought that someone who was seven years old or six or five is automatically saved. And then one day I turned 8 and I had not taken Jesus as my savior yet.
Anyway, I was.
I was not saved and thankfully the Lord Jesus brought me to himself.
So we have a face value and we have a a rare value. And I wanna encourage you children to look to the Lord and.
And work those things for the Lord that you don't see very often in the world. Uh, OK, I'll tell you one thing about me. Uh, I was a Christian in school and one day going in the lunch line.
Some kids were crowding in front of me and I I pushed and shoved them out and I just went inside the door and the lady said I never thought I'd see you do that.
See, she knew I was a Christian. So are there things that we are doing that?
Are not very Christian like.
Now I have pulled out of my pocket one more thing, a little package.
This is basically the way it was given to me.
15 years ago.
Who has? Who can tell me what date 15 years ago was Kevin?
94, maybe it was 14, OK.
It happened in 1995.
This also is.
A coin.
I'm going to walk around and show it to you children.
Do you have any idea how much it's worth?
It's face value. How much do you We've been talking about face value and antique value.
What's its face value?
00:35:01
He says half dollar. No, it's not a half dollar.
Yes.
This is a $1.00 coin if I took this to the store.
I could buy something for $1.00.
But this coin?
Is worth far more than $1.00.
Somewhere on this coin, it says.
One ounce fine silver.
Anybody in this room know how much an ounce of silver is worth today?
Some years ago it was worth 32 do yes.
$20 OK, so on the.
Coin collectors store.
I could at least get $20.00 for this one coin, but this coin has another value to me and I'm gonna tell you the story. And as I tell you the story, I want you to link my story with your life and the Lord and what the Lord might be doing in your life.
My wife was involved in a serious car accident that killed one of our children.
And it really beat up my wife in the accident. She had broken bones and, and, uh, internal organs that were damaged. She was in the hospital and it was very possible that she would not be able to come to the funeral for our one daughter who was killed.
Well, the Lord allowed her to get strong enough that she was able to come home. We we buried our child on our property.
It was allowed us to do that.
Kayleen was buried on the farm.
And we had the funeral and a neighbor had invited everybody over to his barn to come and eat a meal at the barn. So while everybody left from the funeral, I carried my other daughter in who was in the wreck. She was in a, she was four years old and she was in a, a, a body cast. So I had to carry her up the stairs and lay her on the couch. And then I got my wife in a wheelchair. I got her in the house.
Situated comfortably.
And then I left to go over to the barn where people were eating.
When I got to the barn.
Like a lot of our, uh, all day meeting meals.
A number of the plates were empty.
So I'm going through the line by myself, picking out a little bit of food here and a little bit of food there.
Can you kind of get the feel of how I'm feeling? I'm feeling sad. What's another word that would describe how I'm feeling?
I'm by myself.
What? Miserable. OK, thank you. Umm, that's a good word, Kevin.
Lonely. Amen.
And lonely. That was the word I was really feeling. But miserable. Yeah. And sad. And I go out into, I go out to the door and look at all these people talking and chatting and eating and I find a place at a table.
And I go and sit down by myself.
And I start to eat.
And after one of my bites, I look up.
Across the table opposite me to the next table beyond and a friend was sitting there.
And he just looked at me.
And smiled.
Well, last night as I was thinking about this, I started to cry. I'm not crying right now.
But it it brings over me a fresh flood of refreshment and joy and.
Uh, delight. Even now I can look back sitting at that table thinking how miserable I was feeling and lonely and that friend had his business with his children and, and things.
But just that look as he looked over at me.
Was of such a value to me and then a few days later he said Tim.
00:40:01
I just want to give you something from my heart to yours. And he didn't, really.
Say what it was for.
I I'm even struggling to tell you what it's for, you know?
Just a little something to encourage my heart.
Children.
I love the way you look up and look at me expectantly, expectantly had the Lord has the Lord looked at you with the the joy of his salvation and have you responded to him with.
An acknowledging look of thankfulness. Lord Jesus, thank you.
I think many of you have. I trust all of you have.
And then as you go on through life, and I know that youth is fun and frivolous, sometimes that means you forget quickly the important things in life. But are there times in your life when you really consider what the Lord has done for you? And when you're rushing into school or you're rushing somewhere, do you take the time to hold the door for someone who's not as fortunate as you are?
Do you take the time to?
Share something, even a smile and.
I really want to smile at each of you to encourage you to pass it on.
And our time is up, but just recently at Cracker Barrel.
I saw a saying about a smile.
And maybe we can all practice that a smile is something crooked that sets many things straight.
A smile is something crooked that sets many things straight.
That is.
The first place we can start and I left out one my most important verse or a very important verse.
Uh, would you read 2nd Corinthians 4? Seven for me please?
Two Corinthians 4-7 and then we will close.
Thank you.
I've been carrying this silver dollar around with me.
I have this treasure.
In my pocket. But I have a better treasure. I have the Lord in my heart, and I have the Holy Spirit in me.
If you know the Lord is your Savior, you have that Holy Spirit. Also. We have this treasure in earthen vessels.