Children's talk 2 - Justification

Well its been quite some time since I last posted, despite my suggestion that I’d be posting ‘4 new entries in the next few days’... good intentions eh? Well since then I’ve allowed my attention to be distracted and my ‘timetable’ for study, prayer and writing has faltered. Now I’m not autistic but it does seem that I don’t cope well with change!



I had intended to use my week off last week to get ‘plenty done’. As well as having the week off work I had an operation on the 17th so had little to do but recover. My idea was to use the week constructively and do lots of reading and writing... I failed to account for the side effects of the anaesthetic and 5 practically sleepless nights. You should then be thankful that I didn’t try and post anything; it’d have read something like “Hurdy gurdy pillows... thirsty throat jam, two on Tuesdays... I like those, but anyway where’s my slippers?” My Mum came to look after me, which was no great job, though it was hardly a break from helping to look after my nieces and nephew who are all under 5. She stopped short of putting reigns on me in public.


So anyway – here is a summarised version of the 2nd kid’s talk I did.


Justification


First off a reading from one of the children - Romans 5:1 - 2

"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God."

Following a recap on last week’s repentance talk I explained briefly what is meant by justification, using examples that I’ve heard the Pastor use in the past. He has used the example before of clothing, us in our filthy rags seeking to see the King, the King won’t see us as we are. So Jesus covers us up in his spotless clean robe. That way the King will find us acceptable.


I then used an altered version of a story from a book I used to read as a boy. My parents had bought a short series of books about a little boy called Gus who gets in all sorts of situations which translate to the Christian experience. I couldn’t remember the story completely so I used poetic licence in filling in the gaps to make it fit. (Excuse the bullet pointing but it makes it easier than paragraph after paragraph of my attempted story telling).


Gus’ story


• Gus and his parents are going to a party. Dad dresses him in a bright, new clean shirt. While they’re waiting to leave Gus asks to go out to play – Dad warns him “Be careful, don’t do anything to get dirty!!!”


• Gus is careful, he sees the tree swing. Decides no I could fall and get dirty. He sees his friends playing football, but stays away even when they call him trying to persuade him to join in. He keeps trying to avoid anything that might get him dirty. This is because he knows his Dad will be really upset if he gets dirty.


• Then he sees some big fat juicy blackberries and thinks ‘No harm in having just one’. So he has one and it tastes so, so good... then he has another, then another. When he is finished gorging on these berries he looks down and sees a big dirty sticky blackberry stain on his chest!


• Gus feels panic, worry, he feels sick. He doesn’t want to go home to Dad now - Dad’ll see the stain and be so disappointed, even angry! Gus was told to very specifically to stay clean and he didn’t.


• Slowly he walks home, thinking up excuses – other people did it, they threw things at him, he slipped... he tries to think of reasons why it wasn’t his fault. If he can blame someone else then Dad won’t blame him and everything is ok. He even tries to cover it hoping Dad won’t see, holding his hand over the stain.


• Gus eventually gets home and thinks ‘Dad’ll know if I lie’.


• So he tells Dad what happened – tempted by one berry, then another and he forgot about his shirt and he got all mucky. “I’m so sorry Dad I didn’t do what you said!”


• Gus sits waiting for Dad to get angry, but instead Dad says “Thank you for being honest, thank you for telling me, you’re my son and I love you, so don’t worry! I forgive you.”


• Then Dad produces a brand new shirt – crisp and clean, fresh out of the wrapper. Gus puts it on and it is flawlessly clean, no stains, no marks, no dirt at all.


• They head off to the party –Gus went to Dad told the truth and said sorry (repented). Dad forgave Gus, Gus has new clean clothes from Dad, and the dirty old shirt covered in the filth of sin is discarded or covered (justified).


So there is justification. I did the 3rd talk on temptation but was a little dis-satisfied with it and it wasn’t sound enough to be repeated so I’ll miss that out and my next post will be the 4th – ‘The Golden Thread’.

Children's talks - don't make a mistake!!!

Repentance


Over the last 4 weeks I’ve been giving the children’s talk at Church in the mornings. Seeing as I’ve been slack on posting recently I thought I’d change them into a blog post, so with luck I’ll be posting 4 new entries in the next few days.

The first talk I did was on repentance. Now having considered the subject it dawned on me what an awesome responsibility it is speaking to children, and I say that as a teacher. When teaching/preaching to adults ‘gaps’ can be left to a degree as they can be filled in by a logical, adult mind. My point is that small slips and stumbles in speech can be forgiven, providing the overarching doctrine/theology is correct.

But with children... no such assumptions can be made. These are people who have imaginary friends, can really believe that their uncle is tickle monster and that they are indeed a superhero because they have a tea towel wrapped around their neck. If you talk about a lamb or a lion they have an image of just that – imagery and figurative speech can be dicey. All this combined with a wide age range, comprehension age and varying intelligence. I’m sure some are reading this and nodding and others are starting to worry about the talk they did last Sunday.

So anyway – repentance. I wanted to provide the children with an image of Jesus waiting for us arms outstretched waiting for a repentant sinner to turn away from their sins and to run to him when He calls their name. So I asked:

What does repentance mean?

The answer I got “saying you’re sorry”. Brilliant. I went on to describe it as the pastor has done many times as ‘an about face’, or turning completely from your sins. I also explained that sometimes those sins can be something other than an action or a ‘thing’.

• “Sometimes we aren’t sure exactly what the sin we are turning from is. It may not be a ‘thing’.”

• “For me it was a horrible feeling that there were things that upset and scared me in my life, caused by sin.”

I then told them a story and asked them to see if they could spot the repentance in the story. Growing up in South Wales we used to get told this story near Mothering Sunday as a reminder of Mothers’ love. It suited the image I wanted to portray.

One day a little boy went walking and he wandered onto the coal field. Now apparently they often used dynamite to blast large chunks of surface material away, and the boy had sauntered into an area that had been set with explosive. The miners saw him and shouted at him to move and that he was in danger. Some even tried to get to him, but the louder they shouted and the closer they got the further he moved into the danger area. The boy couldn’t see the dangers or was at least unaware of them. He was more scared by the miners shouting than anything else. (Dangers of overly aggressive evangelism?... there’s another blog!)


Eventually the boy’s Mum was called. Her solution was simple. She was terrified for him, so scared he’d get killed. But she didn’t want to scare him. So she knelt down flung wide her arms and called the boy’s name.


In response the boy heard his name, saw his Mum open armed and the concern on her face and ran to her. So the boy was safe with Mum, the dangers left behind.

Where was the repentance? Thankfully they got the answer right as you can see in the picture.

I used the story to make the following points:

• When we repent we may be able to see our sins clearly, at other times, like me, we may just get a sense that there is sin/danger in our lives.

• When you hear Jesus call your name, don’t hesitate! Don’t wait!

• Run to Him and He will give you the best hug ever and make you safe forever.

Talks to come – justification, temptation and tomorrow’s ‘The Golden Thread’.