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March 2024
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Nativity Rat at the Manger

RAT: So compared to the Creator of the Universe and all things good and amazing, humans and rats are almost on the same level. But God loves us anyway. God loves the ratty and the tattered. God loves us even though we are small and mean. God loves even the rat.

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The Greatest

Can someone tell me, in the eyes of God, who of all these people is the greatest? Is the king the greatest? Is one of the dukes the greatest? (Wait for answers.) In the eyes of the Lord, the servant is greatest of all. I’d like for our servant to come up here to the top step to stand above everyone. (Have the servant come to the top step at the front of the church or provide a stool draped with a rich-looking cloth for the servant to step onto.) In God’s kingdom, the lowliest servant is the greatest.

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World Community Communion

You will notice that you can no longer feed yourself. In a community, if people are only concerned with feeding or helping themselves, the community will not be healthy. Some will be hungry or lonely or left out. But if you concentrate on feeding or helping the other first, then it works. (Encourage the volunteers to feed a cracker to each other.) When we help each other, everyone in the community will be fed.

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Giving Up the Grudge

Children’s sermon from August 2015 at Lake Nojiri:

Swatting vs. Sympathy

Sympathizing is better than swatting. Jesus sympathized. He did not swat. Jesus listened and loved and shared the Good News of God’s love.

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From Abraham to Jesus

God can see our whole family of faith, connected by birth and connected by our love for Jesus. Even though we can’t see the whole picture of God’s plan for our lives and for our family, God can see it.

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Long Fuse

Do you think God has a short fuse? No, our God is very patient. In the Bible, it says that love is patient and kind. God is love and he is very patient. And this is what Nehemiah 9:17 says, “You are a God of forgiveness, gracious and merciful, slow to become angry, and full of unfailing love and mercy” (nlt). God is slow to anger. God has a very long fuse.

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Loss or Gain

The jewel that you treasure and want to keep is your life and the plans that you have for your future. Your life is very special and unique. Each one of you shines like a jewel. Jesus asks each of us to live for him and to give up our lives for him. But when we lose our lives to Jesus, what do we find? We find that Jesus gives back to us a life full of joy and love and thankfulness. For a single jewel, we have been given a splendid crown of many jewels. When you give your life to Jesus, it is not losing, it is gaining.

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Connected to Divine

In the book of John, chapter 15, Jesus tells us that he is the vine and we are the branches. It order to be truly alive and in order to do great things with our lives (which is like producing fruit) we need to be connected to Jesus. We need to be praying and reading the Bible and listening to God. Jesus is holy. Another word for holy is “divine.” It’s easy to remember that word, because He is divine and we are “de branch.” But we need to stay connected to the holy or “divine” if we want to be really alive.

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Listening for the “Love”

Baabara: But why did Jesus have to die in the first place? Me: Well, if the disciples had listened carefully, they would have understood that Jesus was going to die on the cross to save the world from sin and death. By dying on the cross, Jesus, the Good Shepherd, was saying something very important to the whole world. Baabara: What was he saying? Me: Jesus was saying, “I love you.”

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