[0:00] Let us pray. Lord, our gracious God, we thank you for every reason you give us to give thanks to you.
[0:12] ! 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.
[0:26] 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.
[0:54] 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.
[1:11] 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.
[1:25] 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.
[1:42] 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.
[1:54] 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.
[2:07] 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.
[2:18] 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.
[2:31] 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.
[2:50] 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.
[3:01] 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?
[3:12] Excellent.
[3:29] 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.
[3:39] 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.
[3:50] 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.
[4:02] 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.
[4:15] 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.
[4:36] 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.
[4:48] 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?
[4:59] 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?
[5:12] 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.
[5:23] 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?
[5:34] 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.
[5:47] 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.
[6:00] 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.
[6:14] 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.
[6:29] 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.
[6:40] 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.
[6:52] 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.
[7:11] 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.
[7:25] 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.
[7:37] 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.
[7:47] Psalm 103, verse 1 to 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.
[8:09] Let me exalt His holy name. Forget what all His benefits.
[8:21] It's praise my soul in song, no thing. The Lord forgives you all your sins, and gives your sickness and blisses.
[8:41] Your love, your grace, from the grave, and crowns you in His tenderness.
[8:54] 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.
[9:27] 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.
[10:01] 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.
[10:27] He does not punish our misdeeds, Or give our sins their just reward.
[10:40] How great is love as high as dead, Towards all those who fear the Lord.
[10:53] 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.
[11:12] We're going to read some verses In the Gospel of Luke, chapter 11. Sorry, chapter 15 at verse 11. Luke chapter 15 at verse 11.
[11:23] 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.
[11:35] 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.
[11:50] 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.
[12:03] 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.
[12:16] 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?
[12:31] 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.
[12:43] 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.
[12:59] And so on. Wonderful story, the story of the prodigal son. And it reminds us of the value of grace.
[13:10] 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.
[13:24] 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.
[13:38] 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.
[13:50] 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.
[14:02] 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?
[14:13] 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.
[14:24] 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.
[14:36] 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?
[14:48] 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.
[15:02] 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.
[15:14] 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.
[15:31] 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.
[15:43] 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.
[15:59] 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
[17:00] 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
[18:01] 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?
[18:36] 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?
[18:52] 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?
[19:22] 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 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 chapter 23 At verse 39 Now this is Jesus At the time when he was put on the cross
[20:24] 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?
[20:35] 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?
[21:24] 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?
[21:54] 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?
[22:35] 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
[23:36] 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
[24:39] 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
[25:40] 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?
[25:57] 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?
[26:16] 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
[27:19] 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
[28:22] I point up And then I do this What does it mean? Point up What does that mean? Who we point to?
[28:35] 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?
[29:05] 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 At the beginning of that chapter To verse 10 Sorry Not Luke 15 Luke 19 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
[30:09] 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
[31:11] 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?
[31:33] 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?
[32:00] 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?
[32:15] 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?
[32:26] 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?
[32:39] 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?
[32:51] 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?
[33:13] 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?
[33:26] 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?
[33:41] 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?
[34:08] 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?
[34:38] 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?
[34:55] 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?
[35:06] 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?
[35:21] 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?
[35:39] 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?
[35:57] 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?
[36:59] 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?
[37:20] 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
[38:24] 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 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
[39:27] 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
[40:29] 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
[41:35] 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.
[42:39] All, O thy pure dominion will remain.
[42:51] The Lord is faithful to his promises. To all that he has made his love is sure.
[43:13] The Lord himself has also to call. And lift up everyone who is now down.
[43:35] 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.
[43:48] 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.
[44:01] Amen. Amen.
[44:21] Amen.