As the morning service progresses we will all see just how much truth there may be in that statement for me today…
We begin today with words from the Psalmist - Psalm 92:
It is good to praise the Lord and make music to your name O Most High,
Proclaiming your love in the morning and your love at night, to the music of the ten-stringed lyre and the melody of the harp.
For you make me glad by your deeds, Lord;
I sing for joy at what your hands have done.
How great are your works, Lord, how profound your thoughts!
‘My Jesus, My Saviour, Lord there is none like you.’
Now, I’m talking mainly to the children and young people, but the grown-ups can listen in too.
I’m not very good at drawing, but we’ve got a new easel upstairs in the Nursery and I’ve been desperate to have a go! So, on Monday, when the Nursery was closed and there was no-one around, I sneaked in and had a go (Don’t anyone tell Angelique though!) I cleared everything up after myself so no one would know I’d been there.
I decided I would paint a picture of my house. I had so much fun and I’m really pleased with my picture. I tried to get everything right. So.... This is my house, with its front door, the grass outside, the tree next to my house...
Even though it wasn’t very sunny on Monday, I thought it would look better in sunshine, so I’ve put the sun in...
What do you think?
Are you sure it’s in the wrong place? But I thought I’d got it right. Maybe I’ll do better next time etc.
Sometimes, no matter how hard we try you don’t get everything right. Sometimes we get a bit mixed up. But that’s okay. God gives us as many chances as we need to get things right, so long as we are trying to do the right thing and trying to live as he wants us to live. When we get things wrong, we always have the chance to do it better next time because God is patient
Father God, we often make mistakes and we ask for your forgiveness. Please help us to do better next time and to be the person you want us to be. Please bless these precious children. Amen.
I shall take my masterpiece home for my lounge wall – it will be the centrepiece replacing the old Rembrandt!
Now for those a bit older
This morning I would like you to consider yourself as a paint pot…
Upstairs in the Ark we do a lot of art and craft activities. One of the wonderful things about coming to nursery is that you get to do all the messy exploration that you’d get into awful trouble for at home.
As a staff team we are usually pretty considerate of each other; we are fair in the division of yucky jobs, and we clear up after ourselves when we use ‘The Messy Room’ but in the run-up to last Christmas, it became ‘every man for himself.’ It was survival of the fittest and if you snooze you lose!
With 45 children each making 10 different items to take home for Christmas, paint, glue and glitter were the order of the day... clearing up was not a priority!
We have a vast array of paint pots that have built up over the years (the good old ones that were made to last are still around from the early days,) we have tall pots, small pots, pots with lids and brush holders, broad based pots, narrow based pots... you name it, we have it, around 40 or so altogether.
As Christmas approached, one by one the paint pots were used up; some for paint (in every rainbow colour,) some for paint and glitter mixes, others for paint and glue glazes, others that you really couldn’t be entirely sure what they contained.
There came the inevitable point where EVERY paint pot had been used, many of them more than once, with layers of paint or glue that had dried out and the pot then refilled with something else.
I needed a paint pot. I needed it for white paint. (Even with the artistic licence of a 3 year old a snowman has to be white.) I hunted high and low – there must be a pot somewhere that hadn’t been used, or something I could use to put paint in? (No-one had wanted to be the one to wash them so everything that could be used had been used!)
No. There was nothing else for it. I was going to have to tackle the paint pot mountain and it was a daunting prospect.
So, should I start with the pots that looked the easiest to get clean? The ones that had been used in the past couple of days, that just had one layer of paint to remove and that hadn’t had sticky glue mixed in. They didn’t look like they would take too much scrubbing to come clean.
Or should I get the really bad ones out of the way first? The ones with several layers of hardened paint dried on, with added glue and glitter, and even some with stray pom-poms that were destined for Christmas cards but hadn’t stuck.
I filled the sink with hot soapy water, threw in a random first assortment of pots, and started cleaning.
It was interesting. It wasn’t how I’d anticipated it. (It was a lot messier and a lot more fun for a start!)
Some of the pots that I’d thought would be easy to clean just refused to cooperate. The stain from the colour they’d previously contained just wouldn’t wash off. Even with frantic scrubbing they wouldn’t come clean. The stain clung on tightly, as if it had sunk into the plastic of the pot itself.
At the other end of the scale, some of the pots that I thought would take ages to clean up, if they ever would, gave up their stains willingly? In fact, the sticky glue that I’d envisaged would make the job so difficult, actually made it easier to clean; the paint and glue just cleanly peeled away! Leaving a stain-free pot! Just what I needed to put my white paint in – I didn’t want any left-over stains contaminating my white paint.
Some of the paint pots had ridged sides, with nooks and crannies that made the job a little more tedious, (thankfully they were all round rather than square, and therefore had no corners to get into...)
Whilst I was washing them, my mind was wandering and wondering - If we were all paint pots what would we look like?
Have we gathered layers that have hardened over the years? Are we stained from some of the things we’ve done or said? Hurts that haven’t healed? Situations that have never been dealt with? Have we masked a colour or an episode we didn’t like with another painted on top? Do we have some hidden nooks and crannies that harbour old resentments?
Sometimes we look at ourselves, or at others, and wonder how or if we can ever truly be made clean?
The stains of our sins can’t be removed by washing: As we can read in the Book of Jeremiah, chapter 2, verse 22, there is no ambiguity, ‘Although you wash yourself with soda and use an abundance of soap, the stain of your guilt is still before me," declares the Sovereign LORD.’
The wonderful thing is that, as Christians, we can be washed clean. We are washed clean. Jesus made it so. By dying on the cross in atonement of our sins, we are clean. All we have to do is claim His cleansing.
In the words of a Herbert Booth song : (Song 415)
“From every stain made clean,
From every sin set free;
O blessed Lord, this is the gift
That thou hast promised me.”
and in the words we sang before:
“Lay aside the garments, that are stained with sin,
And be washed in the blood of the lamb;
There’s a fountain flowing for the soul unclean,
O be washed in the blood of the Lamb!”
We heard that this is confirmed in 1 John Chapter 1 verses 5 to 7, when John bears witness to his actual encounters with Jesus, both in human and divine form: As John read to us earlier, he writes,
“This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”
Even knowing that Jesus has washed us clean, as humans we don’t always accept his cleansing and let go of old stains, so I urge you today; give up your old stains, and be a clean vessel, ready to be used as God chooses.
The Salvation Army
(Armee Yn Taualtys)
Douglas Corps
Isle of Man UKT
Douglas Corps
Isle of Man UKT
I'm truly heartened when I read such an easily explained and comprehendible message of being washed cleaned - pristine purity simply by asking.
ReplyDeleteWe need more well qualified young people coming forward.
Retired officer
UK