The Children's Sermon.com

As I was getting ready for church today I put on my shoes - and I tied them all by myself!  Nobody had to help me - because I've known how to tie shoes since I was little.

Do you need help tying your shoes? (Raise your hand if you can tie them all by yourself.)

You might not need help tying your shoes anymore, but you used to. We all have things we need help with - even as grown-ups. But usually help isn't something we need for very long.

The trick is to get just the right help at just the right time. After that, we often don't need it anymore.
In today's Gospel story Jesus has confused some people. They've noticed that even though Jesus tells them that it's important to follow God's rules, he seems to spend a lot of his time with people who don't follow those rules at all!

Do you see why that might confuse them? What do you think Jesus tells them?

He explains that those are the people who need his help. He doesn't need to spend his time teaching God's rules to people who already know them. That would be like someone helping me to tie my shoes! He's taking his help right to where it's needed most.

This is one of Jesus' very important lessons. He wants us to find people who need us - and he wants us to give them the help they need.

After church today, why don't you talk with your family and see if you can think of someone who might need your help this week? Will you do that? Good.

Let's pray.

Dear God,

We all need help - both from you and from one another. Help us to share our gifts with those who need us the most.

Amen.

Copyright 2008 - The Children's Sermon.Com

Genesis 12:1-9

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. ²I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. ³I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

⁴So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. ⁵Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan,

⁶Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. ⁷Then the Lord appeared to Abram, and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. ⁸From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord. ⁹And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb.
 

Psalm 33

¹Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous. Praise befits the upright.
²Praise the Lord with the lyre; make melody to him with the harp of ten strings.
³Sing to him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.
⁴For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness.
⁵He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.
⁶By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.
⁷He gathered the waters of the sea as in a bottle; he put the deeps in storehouses.
⁸Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.
⁹For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.
¹⁰The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans of the peoples.
¹¹The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations.
¹²Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage.
¹³The Lord looks down from heaven; he sees all humankind.
¹⁴From where he sits enthroned he watches all the inhabitants of the earth—
¹⁵he who fashions the hearts of them all, and observes all their deeds.
¹⁶A king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.
¹⁷The war horse is a vain hope for victory, and by its great might it cannot save.
¹⁸Truly the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love,
¹⁹to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine.
²⁰Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and shield.
²¹Our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name.
²²Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you.

Romans 4:13-25

For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. ¹⁴If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. ¹⁵For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation. ¹⁶For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us,

¹⁷as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”) —in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. ¹⁸Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become “the father of many nations,” according to what was said, “So numerous shall your descendants be.” ¹⁹He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. ²⁰No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, ²¹being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. ²²Therefore his faith “was reckoned to him as righteousness.”

²³Now the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were written not for his sake alone, ²⁴but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, ²⁵who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.
 

Matthew 9:9-26

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. ¹⁰And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. ¹¹When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” ¹²But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. ¹³Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

¹⁴Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?” ¹⁵And Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. ¹⁶No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak, for the patch pulls away from the cloak, and a worse tear is made. ¹⁷Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; otherwise, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed; but new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”

¹⁸While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader of the synagogue came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” ¹⁹And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples. ²⁰Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, ²¹for she said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” ²²Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well. ²³When Jesus came to the leader’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion, ²⁴he said, “Go away; for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. ²⁵But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. ²⁶And the report of this spread throughout that district.