Family Service

Let us pray.

Lord, our gracious God, we thank you for every reason you give us to give thanks to you.

! We thank you that you are a gracious and loving God towards us and that you enable us even today to gather here as a people to come and offer up our worship to you, singing praise to you and coming to hear your word together.

And we thank you that your word helps us no matter what our situation is.

Whether we come here today full of joy and happiness, gladness for all your goodness to us, or whether we come here today with heavy and sore hearts,

we thank you that in any and every circumstance that you are one who is able to provide and that we can indeed rejoice in you because you are God and Lord of all.

And we ask today that you will bless your word to us.

We thank you that it is a living word, a word that speaks powerfully to us.

And even as we think of learning it in this past week, as we think of the memory verse, thankful for your grace towards us.

We thank you that it's a word that stays with us.

We will not just have it here today or in the past week at the club,

but that your word be precious to us each and every day,

that we would seek to live by it and be guided through it.

As we learn more of who we are in terms of our sin and what we do wrong so often,

that we would see to your mercy towards us, your grace through Jesus Christ,

and that we would come to love him with all our hearts and we would come to live for him.

So we thank you for everything that you do for us.

We thank you for this past week, for all the children who have come to the club and all the families,

all who are here today, not just for the club, but for this time of worship.

We thank you that you draw us together from different places and different homes,

in different countries.

And we thank you that together we come to praise your name.

And may your name be lifted up high.

May you be glorified in all that we do.

And may we know your presence and your peace with us.

That's all we ask.

We ask for the forgiveness of our sin.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Well, it's been a great week at the holiday club.

And one thing I was missing today was actually coming in wearing this.

Because all week I had this hat on where I was dressed as a cow,

but I thought I'd better just maybe leave it off for today.

But it's been a great week just looking at not just the Wild West and being dressed as cowboys,

but looking at God's word and what God's word has to say to us.

And we had a memory verse that we were learning from the book of Ephesians.

And now what I want you to do is, and I hope you remember the memory verses,

I want you to all say it together.

To tell everyone else sitting behind you, the adults who are downstairs and upstairs,

tell them what the memory verse was.

Let's all say it together.

What was it?

For?

Excellent.

Well done.

You all remembered it.

For by grace you have been saved through faith.

And this is not your own doing.

It is the gift of God.

That's what we were looking at this week.

That verse is such a special verse because grace is such an amazing thing.

It's a beautiful word, grace.

And that's why you find some people are called the name grace.

It's a beautiful word.

And it reminds us that God loves us.

That's what's behind the word grace.

It reminds us that God loves us.

There was a man called John Newton.

I don't know if you've heard of him, but you've maybe heard a song being sung that he wrote.

The song is called Amazing Grace.

We hear it sung very often.

And what John Newton in his life learned is that even as he tried to run away from God and live a life away from God,

in the midst of a storm, when he was on a boat at sea, in the midst of a storm,

he came to realize that he really needed God's help.

That he really needed God in his life.

And as he came through that storm, he was saved in that storm.

Not just from the storm itself, but God saved him.

He came to know Jesus there at that time.

And that's what made him write that song, Amazing Grace.

But what does grace look like?

What's this?

Anybody know what this is?

What is it?

Play-Doh, isn't it?

Now, when you have Play-Doh, what do you do with it?

Just leave it in the tub.

What happens if you leave it in the tub?

It's going to do nothing, isn't it?

And over time, it's just going to go hard.

So Play-Doh, you're meant to open the tub and take the Play-Doh out and see if it comes out.

And what you do with a Play-Doh is you can do all sorts of things with this.

You can squish it.

You can squash it into different shapes.

You can make it into a ball.

And nobody was ready to catch it, were you?

You can make it into a ball.

You can pass it to each other.

You can make it into all kinds of different shapes.

You can punch it into different shapes.

Make it into a plate or a cup.

Or even put it into little spindly bits and make a little Play-Doh man out of it.

You can do all sorts with Play-Doh.

But the key is you can't just leave it in the tub.

Because if you just leave it there, it's going to be useless.

It's not going to do what it's meant for.

Well, that's a little like what grace is like.

You see, we're all like Play-Doh.

And if we just stay in that tub, we're going to be useless.

But in order for the Play-Doh to be used, someone's got to take it out and do something with it.

And that's what God does with us.

When we see ourselves and our lives and we're not trusting in God, we're just like we're confined.

We're stuck.

But God comes to make our lives have purpose.

To make us live for Him.

And He shapes us into different people.

He makes us all different to do different things.

But when we trust in Him, by His grace, we are able to do so much.

And it's all of God.

That's what that memory verse reminds us of.

By grace you have been saved through faith.

It's not your own doing.

It is the gift of God.

So just like someone has to take the Play-Doh and do something with it,

the gift of God is that He takes us and works in us and makes us useful for Him.

So grace is an amazing thing.

And we're going to look at three different things about grace in a minute.

But before we do, we're going to sing another song.

We're going to sing Psalm 103.

And you'll find this in the middle of your booklet, Psalm 103,

or on page 135 of the blue Psalm books.

We're going to sing from verse 1 to 11,

and the tune is before the throne.

And if there are any children going out to the tweenies,

they can do so during this singing.

Psalm 103, verse 1 to 11.

Psalms 103:1–11

Praise God, my soul, with all my heart.

Let me exalt His holy name.

We'll stand to sing these verses.

Praise God, my soul, with all my heart.

Let me exalt His holy name.

Forget what all His benefits.

It's praise my soul in song, no thing.

The Lord forgives you all your sins,

and gives your sickness and blisses.

Your love, your grace, from the grave,

and crowns you in His tenderness.

And crowns you in His tenderness.

He satisfies your deep desires

From this unending source of good,

So that just like the Ego's strength,

Your youth will make a history new.

The Lord is known for righteousness,

And justice to them draw Him white,

To Moses He made your best ways,

His mighty deeds to Israel's sons,

His mighty deeds to Israel's sons.

The Lord is merciful and kind,

To anger slow and full of grace,

He will not constantly be moved,

For in His anger hide His face.

He does not punish our misdeeds,

Or give our sins their just reward.

How great is love as high as dead,

Towards all those who fear the Lord.

Towards all those who fear the Lord.

Well, we're going to look at the first part

Of the holiday club theme we had this week.

We're going to read some verses

In the Gospel of Luke, chapter 11.

Luke 11 · chapter mention

Sorry, chapter 15 at verse 11.

Luke chapter 15 at verse 11.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

The children, you have it in the middle

Of the order of service.

It's the parable of the prodigal son

That we were looking at.

So we're going to read from verse 11 to verse 20.

This is Jesus telling this parable.

And He said,

There was a man who had two sons,

And the younger of them said to his father,

Father, give me the share of property

That is coming to me.

And he divided his property between them.

Not many days later,

The younger son gathered all he had

And took a journey into a far country.

And there he squandered his property

And reckless living.

And when he had spent everything,

A severe famine arose in that country.

And he began to be in need.

So he went and hired himself out

To one of the citizens of that country,

Who sent him into his fields to feed pigs.

And he was longing to be fed with the pods

That the pigs ate.

And no one gave him anything.

But when he came to himself, he said,

How many of my father's hired servants

Have more than enough bread?

But I perish here with hunger.

I will arise and go to my father

And will say to him,

Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.

I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

Treat me as one of your hired servants.

And he arose and came to his father.

But while he was still a long way off,

His father saw him and felt compassion

And ran and embraced him and kissed him.

And so on.

Wonderful story, the story of the prodigal son.

And it reminds us of the value of grace.

And the love that God shows us.

And to know this grace,

We first have to realize the trouble that we are in.

That's what happened with the prodigal son.

He realized the trouble that he was in.

And what trouble was it?

Well, there were words that we were looking at this week

As well as grace.

And the other word that we looked at first

Was a word, small word,

That started with the letter S.

Can you remember what that word was?

Shout it out if you remember it.

Sin.

Yeah.

Sin was that word.

Sin was the word that reminds us

We are in trouble.

And what is sin?

Well, sin is doing wrong against God.

Now you remember in the story

When I was doing the Bible story about it

When we were looking at it

And when Gordon was doing it as well.

We were remembering that sin can first of all

Make us feel comfortable.

As if we come and just sit down comfortably

And have a rest in a chair.

But then what happens?

What does this do?

Look at this.

What does this do when you put it around you?

It makes you blind.

You can't see, isn't it?

So sin blinds you.

And then sin makes you do things

That you wouldn't normally do, doesn't it?

So when you get a man who supports lochs

Putting on a hat that says Westside

You know there's something wrong.

And that's what sin does.

It makes you do things that you wouldn't normally do.

And then eventually what you find is

You end up stuck in sin.

Remember what happened?

We ended up tied to the chair.

Tied to what was first of all comfortable.

You end up tied to it.

And that's what sin is.

It just can grow and grow in our lives

And we end up stuck in sin.

Just like the prodigal son.

There was a man who visited Niagara Falls.

You ever heard of Niagara Falls?

Big waterfall between Canada and America.

And this man was visiting just as it was coming into springtime.

So the winter had just passed

And the snow and the ice was just starting to melt

But there was lots of big chunks of ice floating down the river

And then going over the edge of the waterfall.

And as the man was watching

He was seeing that there was birds sitting on the ice

On these chunks of ice

And they were eating fish.

But the birds were also keeping an eye out

What was going on around them.

So as they were enjoying the fish

They were always watching where they were going

And just before it came close to the edge

The bird would fly away

So it wouldn't go over the waterfall.

But then he noticed one bird

And this bird had obviously been on this ice for a long time.

Much longer than the other ones.

And it was so busy eating this big fish that it had on the ice

That it wasn't paying attention.

And by the time the bird realized what was coming

That it was coming so close to the edge of the waterfall

And he started to try and fly away

Put out his wings and started to fly away

He started flapping

A bit like Duncan Norman trying to get out of the chair the other day

But he was stuck

He was stuck in the ice

His claws had been there so long that they had frozen into the ice

And it was getting more and more in a panic

Because he was coming close to the edge

And he tried and the ice was coming up a little

But then going back down

And the bird ended up going over the waterfall

It was too late

It hadn't been paying attention

And that's what sin is like

It just makes us fall into the wrong place

And not pay attention to the danger that's around us

And we can end up stuck in sin

And if we end up stuck in sin

What do we need to do?

Well we need to think about what the prodigal son did

In this story that Jesus is telling of

There's two sons

We're thinking of the younger son

And he wanted to just go away from God

It's a story that speaks to many of us who are maybe older

But also to you as you're young as well

Because it reminds you what to look out for as you're growing up

It reminds us that it's easy for us just to turn our back on God

Turn away from God

Have no interest in him

To think that by getting away from church and God

That we're going to be free and just able to do our own thing

That's what the prodigal son did

He got his money

He went away

Lived a life

Spent all the money

He had a good time

But then he ended up in trouble

He was feeding pigs

A dirty job

A smelly job

He was feeding pigs

And he wasn't happy

He was miserable

He thought that he was going to get away

And that he was going to be happy

But he wasn't

And if we run away from God

We might think we're going to be happy too

But we're not

Because we just end up miserable

Life doesn't make sense

Nothing goes right for us

And we end up just doing our own thing

And getting stuck in sin

But the amazing thing about the story of the prodigal son

Is the father

And what we see is when the son came to his senses

He said, why don't I go back?

I can even just be a servant in my father's house

I can just have a little job

But I'll still have food

I'll have a place to live

But he didn't think the father would love him

But what do we read in this story?

When the father saw him coming

He arose and ran towards him

And put his arms around him

And welcomed him home

It's amazing that grace

Even when we're stuck in sin

That the father shows

He is calling us

He's speaking to us

To come to him

Do we see the danger

That we're in with sin?

Young and old alike

Do we see the danger of being stuck in sin?

Are you?

Maybe even stuck in this sin today?

Well, as well as the word sin

There's another word that we're going to look at

And we're going to read another passage of scripture just now

Just to lead us into that word

And we're going to read in Luke again

All our readings are in the Gospel of Luke

But our second reading is in chapter 23

Luke chapter 23

Luke 23 · chapter mention

So in the order of service

In the booklet you have

It's just the next page over

We're going to read in Luke 23

And I'm going to read at verse 39

And just a few verses down to verse 43

Luke chapter 23

Luke 23 · chapter mention

Luke chapter 23

Luke 23 · chapter mention

At verse 39

Now this is Jesus

At the time when he was put on the cross

And beside him

On the cross were two others

Who were criminals

And one of them said

One of the criminals who were hanged

Railed at him saying

Are you not the Christ?

Save yourself and us

But the other rebuked him saying

Do you not fear God?

Since you are under the same sentence of condemnation

And we indeed justly

For we are receiving the due reward for our deeds

But this man has done nothing wrong

And he said

Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom

And he said to him

This is Jesus speaking to him

Truly I say to you

Today

You will be with me

In paradise

Well as well as the word sin

The second word we looked at

Is a word that started with the letter M

Can you all remember what that word was?

Word

Starting with the letter M

Mercy

Mercy

Another great word for us

Grace and mercy go together so closely

When the prodigal son

As we read in the first story there

When he realized the trouble he was in

That he was stuck in sin

He went back to the father

And what did the father do?

He showed him

He showed him mercy

He didn't deserve it

He knew he'd done wrong

And just like the criminal here

Who was saying

We know we have done these wrong things

We don't

We deserve this

Jesus doesn't

He's done nothing wrong

And yet Jesus showed him

Mercy

Is a wonderful word

And where do we see

This mercy

Well we see it

When we look at the cross

Remember on Wednesday

What was the craft

That you were doing?

It was a picture

What was it of?

The crosses

Wasn't it?

You had the crosses

So there was Jesus on a cross

And there was two criminals

On either side

And there Jesus was showing mercy

Not just to the thief who came to him there

But to us all

Because we couldn't save ourselves

Like our memory verse says

It is the gift of God

By grace through faith

And the gift of God was giving his son

To do what we couldn't

But we couldn't

We couldn't save ourselves

From our sins

God had to send someone

To do it for us

And so he sent his son

There's a hymn called

Our sins

They are many

His mercy

Lovely hymn

And one of the verses says this

And it kind of ties in with the story

Of the prodigal son

What patience would wait

What patience would wait

As we constantly roam

What father so tender

Is calling us home

He welcomes the weakest

The poor

Our sins

They are many

His mercy

Is more

His mercy

Is greater

And it's wonderful

How it puts it in that picture

What patience would wait

As we constantly roam

As we're going away

From God

We're roaming away

And yet what father so tender

Is calling us home

That the father

Just like in the story

Of the prodigal son

Is calling us home

And that's what God is doing

As Jesus is in the cross

He's speaking to us

To say there is mercy

Your sins

They are many

Our sins

They are many

But his mercy

Is more

Imagine

Standing

In a courtroom

And you're being charged

It's a scary place to be

You're afraid

Maybe what's up ahead

What's going to happen

To me

And you're standing there

You know

You've done something bad

You know

That you deserve

To be punished

And you are told

By the judge

That you could go to prison

If you can't pay

The fines

You're going to end up

In prison

And your future

Your life

You don't know

What's ahead of you

Well that's the scene

That we had on Wednesday

In the drama

You remember

The three outlaws

Three cowboys

Were there

They knew

They had done wrong

The sheriff

Had arrested them

And he brought them

To court

And there was a judge

The judge

And the judge

And the judge heard

All the charges

Being read out

Against them

And the judge heard

What they deserved

How much they owed

And there were big fines

But what happened?

What happened?

Instead of putting the cowboys into prison

Because they couldn't pay the fine

The judge asked

How much do they owe?

And the judge was told

And then the judge said

I'll pay it

I'll pay every last penny

And they can go free

Wasn't it wonderful

To think that someone would do that for us?

Because the judge showed mercy

The judge showed mercy

And that's what Jesus did for his people at the cross

Our sin deserved punishment

But he said

I'll pay

I'll pay every last penny

For all who believe in me

I'll save them by my grace

And by my mercy

The hymn that I quoted just a wee minute ago

Another verse goes on to say this

What riches of kindness he lavished on us

His blood was the payment

His life was the cost

We stood neath a debt

We could never afford

Our sins they are many

His mercy is more

The mercy that God shows to us

When we think of the cross

That Jesus went

There for us

That's what this man

Who was there with Jesus

Came to see for himself

One just mocked him

If you are the Christ

Save yourself and us

But the other one

Looked at Jesus and said

Or looked at the criminal

Do you not fear God

Since we are under the same sentence of condemnation

We justly

We deserve this

But he doesn't

He has done nothing wrong

But then he said these words

Remember me

When you come into your kingdom

And that's what we can say to Jesus

Remember me

And what did Jesus say

Truly I say to you

Today you will be with me

He showed him mercy

Mercy

He didn't deserve it

But he received it

Because he looked to Jesus

And trusted in him

If I do this sign

You can look at me just for a wee minute

If I do this sign

I point up

And then I do this

What does it mean?

Point up

What does that mean?

Who we point to?

You

And what does this mean?

Forgive me

Forgive me

And so we're reminded there

That Jesus

Is the one we look to

When we think of everything that we've done wrong

Forgive me

That's the wonder

Of his mercy

What do we do

With this mercy though?

What do we do

With the mercy that he shows?

Well that's the last thing we want to look at

And we're going to read another passage

In Luke chapter 15

Luke 15 · chapter mention

At the beginning of that chapter

To verse 10

Sorry

Not Luke 15

Luke 19

Luke 19:1

Verse 1

To verse 10

Luke 19

We looked at a couple of people

Were transformed

And this is one of them

In chapter 19

Of Luke's Gospel

At verse 1

And there was a man called

Zacchaeus

He was a chief tax collector

And he was seeking to see

But on account of the crowd

Small of stature

So he ran on ahead

And climbed up into a sycamore tree

For he was about to pass that way

And when Jesus came to the place

He looked up and said to him

Zacchaeus

Hurry and come down

For I must stay at your house today

So he hurried and came down

And received him joyfully

And when they saw it

They all grumbled

He has gone to be the guest

Of a man who is a sinner

And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord

Half of my goods I give to the poor

And if I have defrauded anyone of anything

I restore it fourfold

And Jesus said to him

Today salvation has come to this house

Since he also is a son of Abram

For the son of man came to seek

And to save the lost

So we have seen over everything is grace

And then we saw grace in the midst of sin

Then we saw how grace and mercy go together

And the last thing we want to think about

Just for a few moments

For a few moments is grace to live

Grace to live

You remember the cowboys in the drama

There was three of them

I think somebody said only one was good looking

I'm not sure which one you can decide for yourselves

But the three outlaws were there

What did they do after the judge had showed mercy?

After the judge had paid all the fines

Did they go back to stealing?

No

What did they do?

They went to do good

Because their lives were changed

They realized that they had wasted so much of their lives doing wrong

That now they wanted to do good

Jesus going to the cross

What purpose was in that?

It was that we might have life

And have it to the full

That's what he says in John's Gospel

That we might have life in him

But does our life have that purpose?

Are we living for Jesus today?

How are you spending your life?

How many weeks to go off the holidays before you have to go back to school?

Anybody know?

Anybody know?

Two weeks

Somebody's counting

Two weeks to go

Six or seven weeks of holiday

Sounds like such a long time, doesn't it?

But it goes past so fast

You think of the holiday club

Five days on a holiday club

But it was just such a short time

What are we doing with our time?

Well, someone made some calculations

And they were looking at our lives

And if we were to live to the age of 70

What our lives might be like

If you break it down into sections

So they worked it out as an estimate

And said, if you lived to your 70

How long would you have slept for?

Anybody want to have a guess?

Are we talking days, months or years?

Everyone have a guess

If you lived to 70

How long have you slept for?

Any guesses?

No?

Well, I'll have to tell you

Do you think it's five years?

That sounds like a long time, doesn't it?

To sleep for five years solid

No, it's not five years

Thirty?

They reckon about 23 years

Imagine

Sleeping

That's if you did it all at once

Twenty-three years

You would be asleep

Work

A little less

Probably about 16 years working

That's a long shift

Sixteen years solid working

Watching TV

How long?

Twelve years

Imagine

Twelve years

Watching TV

They estimated that getting dressed

Just a simple task of getting dressed

Two years

I reckon it's a lot longer for a woman

But it's an estimate of two years

Just getting dressed

So you look at your life like that

How can I spend that much time on these things?

Twenty-three years sleeping

If I live to seventy

It seems such a waste

Well, every time we hear about the grace of God

It reminds us and asks us

Well, what are we doing with our life?

If we're 23 years sleeping

If we're 16 years working

If we're 12 years watching the telly

How much time am I giving to God?

How much time am I living for Him?

What are we doing with our life?

Even as we think of the last week of the holiday club

What are we going to do with it?

You've heard all about Jesus this last week

We're hearing about Jesus again here today

Will we go from church today and say

Well, I look forward to hearing about Jesus again at the Christmas club

Or the holiday club next year

Is that how I would look at it?

Somebody actually put in the holiday club WhatsApp group on Friday

Only another 136-ish days to the Christmas club

So the countdown is on

There's excitement already about that

But what should we do between now and then?

Do we just leave all these Bible stories that we've learned to one side

And come back to them at Christmas?

Where do we go?

We want to go on learning about Jesus

Because the more we learn about Jesus

The more we live for Him

We plant ourselves

As one of the songs said

In the B-I-B-L-E

The Bible

Because that's where we learn

All about the wonder of more and more of the grace of Jesus to us

So we looked at two people

We looked at the woman who Jesus met at the well

And her life was totally transformed

And she became so excited about Jesus

Realizing who He was

That she went back to the town which she was from

Where she didn't have many friends

But she said to them

Come

See a man who told me everything that I ever did

She knew she had done wrong

But she said

Can this be the Christ?

The one who is able to show mercy

And Zacchaeus here again

He was someone who had done so much wrong in his life

He'd stolen money from people

People didn't like him

They stood in front of him to stop him seeing Jesus

Because he was just a small man

But what did Jesus do?

He showed him mercy

And he said

Come down Zacchaeus from that tree

Because today salvation has come to your house

It's amazing what grace does

It helps us see our sin

That we're stuck in sin

But it helps us also to see where we can go with our sin

To take it to Jesus and take it to Him

At the cross where He showed mercy to us

But it also reminds us

That we need to live

Not just for a moment or a day or two

But all our days

That our lives will be transformed by Him

Grace is an amazing thing

Mercy is an amazing thing

And that's what God has given to us

So once more can we say the memory verse together

You ready?

For

For

My grace

You have been saved

Through faith

And this is not your own doing

It is the gift of God

Ephesians chapter 2

Ephesians 2:8

Verse 8

Excellent

Forget it

Keep remembering

That grace

And for those of you who haven't memorized it already

It's a great verse

The grace of God

That by faith we can know

In Jesus Christ

And His loving

More of that grace

Our Father in Heaven

Lord in Heaven

We thank you

That despite all that we do wrong

Despite the many mistakes that we make

That you are a God who has shown grace

And that in your mercy you remember us

That you came to save us from our sin

And we pray today Lord that you would help us

To remember these great truths

Even as we go from here today

That every day of our lives would be touched

By the wonder of that grace

And mercy and love

That we can have in Jesus Christ

And so help us

And that you would hold on to us

As we go from here

As we ask it in His precious name

Well we're going to conclude by singing

To God's praise in Psalm 145

Sing Psalm's version

You'll find it on page 190 of the blue books

Or on the back page of the order of service

Psalm 145

And again this Psalm just speaks to us

Of this grace that the Lord shows

The Lord is gracious and compassionate

He's slow to anger, rich and steadfast love

The Lord is good to all that He has made

And merciful to all on earth that move

The tune is even tied

And we're going to sing from verse 8 to 14

And in verse 14 we stand to sing

The Lord is gracious and compassionate

The Lord is gracious and compassionate

The Lord is gracious and compassionate

Peaceful to anger, rich and steadfast love

The Lord is good to all that He has made

The Lord is good to all that He has made

And merciful to all on earth that move

All you have made

All you have made

We'll give you praise, O Lord

Your saints will all unite

To bless your name

The glory of your reign they will declare

And your surpassing might they will proclaim

Thus all will hear

Thou black your mighty eyes

And know the glorious splendor of your reign

And know the glorious splendor of your reign, your kingdom will endure forevermore.

All, O thy pure dominion will remain.

The Lord is faithful to his promises.

To all that he has made his love is sure.

The Lord himself has also to call.

And lift up everyone who is now down.

In a moment I'm just going to pronounce the benediction.

I'm going to go to the main door.

But if the children, you'll go out the door to my left here through to the hall.

And again, just a warm invitation to everyone to come through there if you're able to stay.

We'll close with a benediction.

Now may grace, mercy and peace from God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit rest upon and abide with you all now and forevermore.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.