Thursday, January 7, 2010

Sin Ruins Everything!

YEAR 3 – Talk #2 - SIN IS REAL

HALF GALLON OF SOME KIND OF ICE CREAM, PREFERABLY NOT VANILLA, BUT SOMETHING LIGHT
CONTAINER OF DIRT
SPOON AND CLEAR BOWL, Table
SKITTLES

Last week in council time, we played a game show called Who do You Believe? We had 2 special guests up front . Do you remember what parts the 2 persons played? Right, the Creator and the customer.

When I asked you who you believed, you all voted to believe the one who made the invention – the Creator. Why did you choose the creator?

I read you from Psalm 139 where your Creator – God – the one who made you – says this about you – you are fearfully and wonderfully made. We also looked at Genesis 1 where God makes the world, and who remembers what God says at the very end as he looks at everything he has made?
(that it is very, very good).

Great!


When God created the world, he made human beings good. The Bible tells us God made a man and a woman – Adam and Eve. God put them in a wonderful, beautiful world with all they needed. They never got sick. No flu, no colds, no chicken pox, no throwing up from a bad stomach ache! Imagine that! Life was wonderful. They loved God, and they loved one another and they obeyed God.

But something changed. One day, Adam and Eve chose to disobey God and that was a very dangerous decision. When they disobeyed God, they brought into the world all the problems and sickness that people now have, including death itself. Adam and Eve lost their close friendship with God and from that time on they were called sinners.

If you did your start zone this week, you learned what sin is – does anyone remember?

Sin is disobeying God’s laws. Here’s another way to understand sin (CEF definition) – sin is anything we think (point to head), say (point to mouth) or do (stretch out hands) that breaks (use hands as if you are breaking a stick) God’s Law. Let’s say that together – Sin is anything…

So what God made so very good, changed.

So let’s imagine that this container of ice cream is you and me. I really agree that Thomas Sweet’s ice cream is wonderfully made! And it’s good. Now I’m going to scoop out this ice cream – doesn’t it look good? I bet it tastes great, because the person who made this ice cream – the creator of the ice cream - knew what would make it really delicious. It is fearfully and wonderfully made!

But just like Sin turned something God created very good into something that was now ruined, this container of dirt (slowly mix dirt into ice cream) ruined the ice cream. Sin ruins people.

Now look at this bowl of ice cream and dirt. You all don’t seem to anxious to eat it anymore. So how could I fix this ice cream so you could eat it?

Maybe I could just add more new ice cream – would that make it good?
Maybe if I just tried to take out every bit of dirt with a spoon…
Maybe I could just eat around the dirt…
It’s just plain impossible. This ice cream is ruined.

Just like Sin ruins everything! (put ice cream away)

Now I want you to check me – am I telling you the truth as God tells it?

Get out your Bibles and let’s go to Romans 3:23:
Can someone read this for us?


This verse tells us that all have sinned. All means everyone! This is pretty bad news, isn’t it? Because we are sinners, we do things we shouldn’t do like fighting and lying and taking things that don’t belong to us. Maybe you have done some of those things.

Like Adam and Eve, sin has broken our friendship with God too. Unless this sin is taken away, we can’t ever be friends with God and sin will separate us from God forever. Like the ice cream, we are ruined.

But here is some very good news! God has found a way to do the impossible – to get the sin dirt out. And that way is by believing that Jesus came and died to take away all your sins.

When we believe in Jesus, he takes ruined sinners and forgive our sins and make us clean.

Boys and girls, maybe you have never understood that you are a sinner and tonight God is helping you understand this for the first time. If you have never asked God to forgive your sins, you can do that right now by telling God you are a sinner – we all are! – and asking Him to forgive you. And that is a very, very sweet thing.

Since I can’t give you ice cream, I do want you to understand that believing in Jesus is a very sweet thing, so leaders, can you pass out one Skittle for each clubber, and clubbers, I want you to hold onto that Skittle until after we pray.

Close in prayer on the sweetness of God.

Game scores.
Final song?

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