Sunday School Service

The next hymn will be sung by the children up at the front, after which there will be the recital of the memory verses. So I'll hand over to the children for the next hymn on the hymn sheet. It springs afar, and time of pain can never tell. It goes beyond the highest tower and reaches to the lowest hell.

For the empty bell, bowed down with care, Rich and pure, how measureless, free and strong. Richer the red, and more angel, than saints and angels combined. When fears of time shall persevere, ♪ And earth be blessed and kingdoms full ♪ ♪ By men they live, their fears in vain ♪ ♪ On rocks and hills and mountains full ♪ ♪ Most of secure shall still endure ♪ ♪ And central peace shall be strong ♪ The saints and angels sung. We are God, high, rich, and pure, and measureless and strong. We shall forevermore endure the saints and angels' song. day, the ancient day, when with the skies of parchment laid, where every stone on earth had bared, and every man a scribe by trade, to write the law of God and man, ♪ Shed light ♪ ♪ O'er good and strong ♪ ♪ And take the fall ♪ ♪ As death comes down to start ♪ ♪ O'er good and strong ♪ ♪ And take the fall ♪ ♪ As death comes down to start ♪ ♪ O'er good and strong ♪ This shall forevermore endure, the saints and men.

We have been learning about the friends of the Lord Jesus in Acts chapter 4 and 5. They love to tell people about the Lord Jesus. Neither is there salvation in any other for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby he must be saved. Some people did not want to listen and told them to stop They answered for we cannot, but speak the things we have seen and heard. Some of the prince were put in prison, but the angel of God came down by night, opened the prison doors, and born forth. They kept telling people about Jesus, saying we ought to be God rather than man.

When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom of Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put into his own heart. And while he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight.

And while they looked steadfastly towards heaven, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven shall so come like manna as ye have seen him go up into heaven.

And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go towards the south, unto the way that goeth down towards Jerusalem, unto Gaza, which is desert. And he arose, and went, and behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority, and a Candace queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to worship, was returning, and sitting in his chariot, read Isaiah the prophet. And the Spirit said unto Philip, Go now, and join thyself to the chariot. And Philip ran thither unto him, and heard him read the prophet Isaiah, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest?

And he said, How can I, except some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him. The place of the scripture which he read was this. He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb done before a shearer's, so opened he not his mouth. In his humiliation his judgment was taken away, and whom shall declare his generation, for his life was taken from the earth.

And the eunuch answered Philip, and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this, of himself, or of some other man? And Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus. And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water, and the eunuch said, See, here is water, what doth hinder me to be baptised? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. and he answered and said i believe that jesus christ is the son of god and he commanded the church to stand still and they went down both into the water both philip and the eunuch and he baptized him and when they were come up out of the water the spirit of the lord caught away philip that the eunuch saw him no more and he went on his way rejoicing but philip was found at astos and passing through he preached in all the cities till he came to caesarea you Let's all pray together.

Our Lord and our God and our Father in heaven above, Lord, we gather together for the purpose of thy worship this, the Lord's day, the day in which we remember the conquering of the Son of God over sin and death and hell and the empty tomb, our risen Saviour.

So Lord we pray that each of our hearts would be put in that right position to bring that right worship before Thee. And Lord, we come confessing that we are but sinners. Lord, our hearts by nature are dark and black and stained with sin. And yet we come to Thee because Thou art the only one that can forgive sin. And so we pray that each of us will be given faith in our hearts to lay hold of that forgiveness, which is found in Jesus Christ, and that we may have our hearts washed in the blood of the Lamb and find peace and forgiveness and everlasting life in Thee.

Lord, we have much to give thanks for. Lord, we give thanks for the presence of the children in our gathering today. Lord, we give thanks that we are able to teach them week by week from the Word. Lord, we pray that those scriptures that they have been learning may be placed in their hearts like that good seed, and that it would in time, by the work of the Holy Spirit, flourish and bring forth fruit, and that they would each come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Lord, we pray for our church. Lord, that it may be increased. We pray for our Pastor James, help him as he leads our worship today, especially in the preaching of the word. Lord, we pray that it will be with power, that Christ may be lifted high, that we each may look and live. We pray also for Keith and David as they rest from their labours today in the ministry. Lord that they would be refreshed and encouraged and they may in time return to their labours and that they too would see fruit for the glory of God. Lord we pray for the church throughout the world as they too will be gathering for worship. Lord we pray especially for those who are Gathering under persecution, having to gather in caves and barns and woods, Lord, increase their faith.

Lord, make our faith like theirs, that we may stand in the day of trouble. So Lord, we pray for our nation, Lord, as we have descended a long way from when it was considered a Christian nation, the land of the book. And Lord, we long to see a great revival, the work of the Spirit in souls that they may turn from the kingdom of darkness and be added to the true church. And yet, Lord, we do see glimmers of hope in this respect. And so we give thanks for it and pray that there may be a continued moving of the Spirit in this land.

Lord, we Pray for those that rule over us, we pray for the King, Lord, in his great confusion, in his adoption of paganism and all manner of little gods and other faiths. Lord, we pray that his eyes may be opened to the one true living God, that he may fall before thee and return and then lead our country as one appointed by the Lord, that he might be blessed with living faith, him and his wife and his family. Lord, we pray. We pray also for our government in great turmoil at the moment. Lord, we pray that we may have steady and strong and Christian men raised up to rule over us. Lord, that the wicked laws may be stripped from the books and that the law of God may be upheld, we pray.

We pray for the people of Hastings, Lord, around us, even this day. Lord, as they pass by our chapel building, perhaps they have taken scriptures from the box, perhaps they have read the verses on the posters. Lord, we pray that they may turn in, that they may hear the word of God being preached and that their hearts will be opened and that they may be born again. Lord, we give thanks that we have visitors with us today. We pray that they may fill one with us.

And Lord, as we have our time of fellowship and lunch afterwards, that we may be united in Christ. Lord, we pray for ourselves as individuals in the various pathways in which we walk. Some in high pathways, some in walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Lord, in whatever situation we are in, we pray, Lord, be with us, walk alongside us, carry us, we pray, provide for us at every step. Lord, conform us each to the likeness of Christ. Lord, teach us and help us to love God and to love our neighbour.

And so, Lord, give help throughout the rest of the service, we pray. May our minds be cleared from the things of the world, and may be enabled to focus on the word, and that we grow in grace, and we pray. And so we pray, forgive anything which we have asked to miss, and cover us all with the righteousness of Christ, as we ask all in the name of Jesus, amen.

Now sing our third hymn on the hymn sheet. Hymn number three, wide, wide as the ocean, high as the heaven above, deep, deep as the deepest sea, is my savior's love. I, though so unworthy, still I'm a child of his care, for his word teaches me that his love reaches me everywhere. Hymn number three. High as the heavens above, deep, deep as the deepest sea, His love is in His blood. I was born blind, still I'm a child of His hand. For His hand teaches me that His love reaches me out. Thank you children for the recitals, you all did very well. singing of the love of God, our prayer is that you may come to realize the true extent of the love of God that is shed abroad in the hearts of sinners through the Lord Jesus Christ.

And though nobody can fully grasp the love of God, it is what is a long word, it is incomprehensible. that man can never fully understand the love of God because our minds are so corrupted by sin that we cannot fully realize that God, who is so holy and so righteous, is able to stoop down and make a way for sinful people to be reconciled to him. those that hated him he makes love him and that is the incomprehensibility of the love of God and so with the Lord's help I would like us to turn to the chapter that we read together 1 John chapter 4 and verse or the last part really of verse 8 it says and he that love is not knoweth not God for God is love. Sometimes in our minds we can have a very imbalanced view of God. We can think more of the anger of God, more of the justice of God, rather than the love of God.

But the Bible tells us that God is love. Yes, the Lord God is many, many other things. He has many other different characteristics that are in him, yet the very core, his greatest attribute is love. Everything that we know about God flows out of his love for us. And the hymn that the children sang to us, it speaks of the love of God.

And it was written, well the first two verses were written in 1890 by a man called Frederick Lehman. As he was a young man, he was at a church camp. And there was an evangelist that was preaching, and no doubt he was preaching the gospel and explaining to people about the love of God and the way by which God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.

And at the end of his sermon, the preacher quoted the last part of that hymn. which goes, could we with ink the ocean fill? And were the skies of parchment made or were the skies made of paper? where every stalk on earth a quill. If you remember in the olden days, they used to write with feathers. And he said, if every bird shed its feathers and we were able to use every feather as a pen to write the love of God, if every man a scribe, if every man was able to be able to write all that he knew about the love of God, it would drain the ocean dry. nor could the scroll contain the whole though stretched from eye to eye.

And so he was touched, so touched by this verse that he went up to the preacher afterwards and asked him if he could repeat it again so he could write it down. And then he asked him where he got it from. Where did you get this verse from? But he got the verse, as the story goes, from the wall of a cell.

If you remember, in the olden days, they didn't have mental health facilities like they do nowadays. They used to lock people up and put them into prisons where they would stay. And one day, a man in the prison, in this mental health facility, passed away. And as they collected his body, they noticed some writing on the wall. And the writing on the wall was this verse. And so it was written down and copied.

And so it seems that in some moment of clarity, that this man is suffering from a mental health condition, was able to write down something of the love of God. And as he sought to comprehend the love of God, he realized that if I was to gather all of the oceans and make them into ink, And then I was to gather all the pens that are upon the face of the earth and every person upon the face of the earth and tell them to write down about the love of God. All of that ink in the ocean would not be enough. All of those men would still not be able to fully grasp the love of God. But as history went on, and research was done into this verse, they realized that this man was not the person who composed this poem.

It was somebody else. It was a Jewish writer, some over a thousand years ago. As he meditated upon the love of God, he composed these verses. And they were this verse, and it was written down. this man Frederick, after he had written this verse down, he put it into his Bible and he left it there.

And some 27 years later, when he was a pastor of a church and he had had some success in business and some of his business ventures were doing quite well, suddenly the market crashed. And he lost a lot of money. And his investments were no longer able to support him. His church wasn't able to support him. And so he had to go to work. He had hit rock bottom.

And the work that he had was packing lemons. As he sat on a box, one afternoon waiting for the lemons to be sorted and placed into the boxes so he could put them into the lorry, he began to think of this verse once again. And he began to add verses to the verses that he already had. And so he began to compose these other two. And I thought, you know, what a profitable thing to do. A man who was at the top of society, a wealthy man, having investments and those investments making him money enabled him to pastor a church, enabled him to live with his family in a nice house and to provide for his family.

Suddenly everything collapses. Suddenly his life becomes extremely difficult and he has to go and pack lemons in a factory. But he doesn't hit despair. What does he do? He focuses upon the love of God. The verse that he has in his mind is brought back to him from 27 years ago when he was blessed by that verse about the love of God and so he begins to write. The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell. It goes beyond the highest star and reaches to the lowest hell.

The guilty pair bowed down with care. God gave his son to win. His erring child he reconciled and pardoned from their sin. And so what did he do? He looked to the love of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. He goes right back to the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve.

If you remember Adam and Eve, they disobeyed God. God told them that they were not to eat of the tree and they disobeyed God and they ate of the tree and sin came into the world but God, the Bible tells us, demonstrated his love towards us and while we were yet sinners, Adam and Eve deserved the punishment of God.

Sometimes, no doubt, you children, when you're disobedient, you are punished by your parents. Maybe you've been too long on your phone and they take your mobile phone from you. So maybe you've been rude and they tell you, go to your room and consider your actions. And so when we are disobedient, we are punished. and God punished Adam and Eve.

There were consequences to their sin, but God demonstrated his love to them. The guilty pair bowed down with care. God gave his son to win. Right there at the Garden of Eden, God provided a way by which those Adam and Eve, they could be saved. He tells them, that the seed of the woman is going to conquer, the seed of the woman is going to overcome the curse that has been placed upon them. And that seed of the woman was the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so in his trouble, in his, Frederick, in his difficulty, as his life takes a turn for the worst, he focuses upon the love of God. He sees that love as an unchanging love. He sees that love as a constant love. Even in his difficult circumstances, he looked to the love of God. And you children, you know you can do that. When times are difficult and things are changing, you can always look to the love of God. For the Bible tells us that God is love and he does not change. And so God is love.

If I was to show you this, would anybody be able to tell me what it is? No? But if I was to do that, could you tell me what that is? Yes, yes I? It's a heart. So when this one was hidden, we were not able to understand what it was, were we? Because it's hidden. The other part is hidden. And that's just like our view of love. Our view of love is not clear. We're not able to fully grasp what love is. As we looked at last Sunday, we saw that our view of love is often selfish. We consider ourselves more than we consider other people. And this is what happened when Adam and Eve sinned against God. They became sinners. They became selfish.

And so the Bible tells us that God gave his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to bring us from our sin, to redeem us from our sin. And that helps us then to fully grasp what love is. Sometimes you see, don't we, people say they draw a picture of their heart and they say that I love you and this has become the symbol really of love. But if we look at the true symbol of love it is found here. What is this? Yes? The cross. The Bible tells us that this is what true love is, not the cross itself, but what took place upon the cross. What took place upon the cross was the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He became a substitute. If you remember last week, we read that greater love has no man than this, than a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends. If you do whatsoever, I command you. And so we have two different types of love. We have the love of man, which is easily broken. which we are not fully able to understand, but then God sets before us what true love is. The true love is sacrificial, it is not about ourselves, it is about other people. And so God is love. So love is not just a part of who God is, but it is who he is.

If you think of a diamond, sometimes ladies, they wear a diamond ring or they have a diamond necklace. And if you look at it, you find that it sparkles in the light. The faces of that diamond, they reflect the light. But God's love is not like a reflection of a diamond. A reflection of a diamond comes from the different faces that are there on it. But God's love is the diamond itself.

And every reflection that we see, his holiness, his justice, his mercy, his grace, and his faithfulness are all reflections from this diamond, his holiness. and his justice, that God does everything that is right, that he deals with people in a perfect and a correct way, a way that they, in some senses they deserve and in other ways they don't deserve, in that he deals with them in mercy and in grace, but also he is faithful, that God is faithful, that what he says is what he does. God is also angry. The Bible tells us that God is angry with the wicked every single day. But this anger is a right anger. It is the anger based upon the fact that people have sinned against him.

They step over the line. Sometimes if you go into the park, especially now at the moment when they fenced off the cricket areas, there's a sign that says, don't step on the grass. What do some children do? kick their ball over onto the cricket area. They read the sign, it says don't step onto the grass and yet they run across to get their ball.

Well God says that we also step over the line, sin is stepping over the line, it's going where God has said you can't go. And that is called sin. And God is allowed to be angry with sinners. He is just, he is right when he is angry with sinners. If the man who owns the cricket pavilion, if he sees you on the cricket square, he's gonna be cross with you if you run across it. And he has a right to be because he's told you, please don't step onto the grass. And so God's anger with sin is a just anger. It is a right anger but it is an anger that flows from his love. It is us who stopped loving God. Adam and Eve sinned against God.

They disobeyed him, they stopped loving him, they stopped holding him in high esteem and they became selfish. but God remained loving towards them. It is him who provided a way for them to be reconciled to him. It is him who provided them with a covering. It is him that chased them out of the garden and guided them and directed them through their lives.

And so it is us who don't love God, but it is God. who loves us and the Bible tells us as we have read together herein is love not that we love God but that God loved us and gave him himself for us Verse nine, and this was manifested the love of God towards us because that God sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we are also to love one another.

And so in his time of trouble, Frederick, he focused upon the love of God in Christ Jesus. He focused upon all that the Lord had done for him in the Lord Jesus Christ, that he gave his son, that his erring child, he came to reconcile him and to pardon him from their sin. And he declares that the love of God is rich and pure, it's measureless. and it is strong, and it shall forevermore endure, and it will be the song of the angels in heaven.

So God gave the Lord Jesus Christ to be the sacrifice for our sin. The Puritans, the men, maybe in books you've seen them, they used to wear big hats and long gowns many years ago, but they were great scholars of the Bible. And they said of the Lord Jesus Christ that the Lord Jesus Christ is God's love in flesh or in a body. That God sent the Lord Jesus Christ as a demonstration of his love for sinners.

And so God is love. And we see that love as the gospel is preached and salvation is applied to individuals, that individuals receive the love of God in their hearts. And as we saw, as the children recited about the eunuch, we saw that then once the love of God is shed abroad in the heart, that somebody comes to realise who the Lord Jesus Christ is, then there is a response to that love.

We love him because he first loved us and that love that we have for Christ causes us to want to walk in obedience to him. Obedience. shows that we love God. Obedience shows that we love our parents. If a child is constantly rebellious, we can question whether they have any true love for their parents. But true love humbles the heart and gives the child a desire to want to walk and obey their mother and their father.

And so the child of God, when they are born again, when they come to realize that God so loved them, that he gave his son for them, they have that desire. to walk in obedience, they want to please their Heavenly Father, they want to please the Lord Jesus Christ and they want to live a life of obedience to Him.

So this brings us to the life of a believer as we spend our time considering the love of God. As we look within ourselves, we come to question, could ever God dwell here? We look within our hearts and we see sin. Yet the extent of God's love towards us is that he dwells with us and in us. and that he continues to cleanse us from our sin. And as we look at ourselves, and like the Apostle Paul, he says, O wretched man that I am, yet the Lord continues to shed his love upon us.

We cannot grasp the extent of that love. We declare that it is incomprehensible. We declare that we cannot begin to write or to bring just words to account to describe the love of God. Now children, if you were to have a piece of paper and you were to write down and to describe the love of your parents, what would you write? I know there are some children that find it difficult to express love and I'm sure there would be something that you could write about your parents but there would come to a point when you would exhaust your vocabulary had come to a point where you could say well yeah I love my my mum and dad here but here I find them difficult, here they're falling short.

When we focus upon the love of God we will never find anything negative because even when the Lord disciplines his children never does it in an unrestrained angry way. He may be angry with them because of their sin but he chastens them with the hand of love. The rod that he uses, and he uses many different means to discipline his children, yet it is all held by the hand of love. Never does God cease to be loving towards his people. His correction is done in love.

As we looked a bit last week we saw the vine and with the vine dresser he must cut back that vine. I remember dad doing it when we were younger. He would cut back his vine right down nearly to the ground and that vine would drip the sap Yet it was done with a purpose. It was done because he wanted his vine to produce more fruit the following year. And so the dead parts had to be cut off.

It was done in love, in order that the vine produced more fruit. And so the Lord works on each of his dear people. As your parents discipline you, they do so, hopefully in love, so that you are made better. And so God disciplines his children in love in order to make them better, in order to enable them to produce more fruit. Sometimes you may look out at the night sky and you may see the moon.

The moon has no light of itself. It is a reflection. of the light of the sun, even though you can't see the sun, yet it is reflecting on the moon which is then reflecting upon the earth. That is like really the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. We have no real love of ourselves, we have no real supernatural love, a love that can build bridges, a love that can overcome others' sins, and yet we are to reflect the love of God like the moon that we have received of Him. Sometimes we look into the sky and we don't see the moon. We just see part of it. That is how we are. In times of difficulty, our love may wax and wane. It may grow hot and cold. People may see part but not the fullness.

If you think of that man who wrote, when peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll. as he lost his child in America. Then he lost, after the fire in Chicago, he lost his businesses. Then he lost his child in America. And so he sends his four daughters and his wife over to England. And then on the way there, the ship sinks and his four daughters drown and his wife is taken there back to England. And she sends a message, saved alone. So he gives it up and he sets sail to England and he's invited by the captain of the ship to come up onto the bridge and he tells him, you know, this is the exact place where the ship went down.

The man, he goes down into his cabin and there he meditates on the love of God. There, in his grief, He's able to look beyond the grief to the love of God that is found in Christ Jesus. When sorrows like sea billows roll, he has taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul. You see, if we can have faith like these men, men that have gone before us, and they're able to pass through extreme difficult situations, painful situations, situations that are described as sea billows.

And yet look to this one thing that we have, a one thing that can never ever be taken away from a believer, it is the love of God. It shall forevermore endure. We're not able to understand it, but it's also inexhaustible. We can never drain it dry. God's love for his people can never be drained dry. And we will never ever be able to drain the ocean dry by continually writing of the love of God. For every day, every moment of every day, we are reciprocants. We receive that love. Children, every day, your mother or your father, they provide for you.

You get up in the morning, you don't have to think about breakfast. You don't have to think about lunch. You don't have to think about dinner. You don't have to think about your clothes. You don't have to think about the electricity, the water or the gas. You don't have to think about going on holiday. Mum and dad, they provide all of those things for you. Why is that? Because they love you. They love you and they want to care for you.

But where ultimately do those things come from? Where does your breakfast come from? Yes, it comes through the hand of your parents, but ultimately it comes from God. Wherever that breakfast cereal may have come from, it comes from the Lord. Wherever that milk came from, it comes from the Lord.

And so every single day, we are reciprocants, we receive. the presence of the love of God, but most of all, the greatest love that God has demonstrated to us is not that he provides our breakfast or our lunch or our dinner, is that he gave his beloved son, the Lord Jesus Christ, as a sacrifice for sinners, not because we were good enough, he says, while you were yet a sinner, Christ died for you.

Well may each of you come as you have sang about the love of God. Our prayer is that you come to know that love, that love in the Lord Jesus Christ and that you are cleansed from all of your sin. Amen. In closing let's sing the fourth hymn on the sheet, hymn number four. More holiness give me, more strivings within, more patience in suffering, more sorrow for sin, more faith in my saviour, more sense of his care, more joy in his service, more purpose in prayer. The fourth hymn. ♪ Will you redeem me ♪ ♪ Of strivings within ♪ ♪ Of patience in suffering ♪ ♪ Of sorrow for sin ♪ ♪ Of faith in my saving ♪ ♪ Of sense of despair ♪ O joy in excellence, O purpose in prayer, O gratitude give me, O trust in thy good, O sing of his glory, O'er the limitless wide, O'er the tears flowing summer, O'er the night that is green, O'er all weakness and trouble, A strength to overcome, A freedom from mistakes, A longing to run, A flit for the kingdom, A youthful ideal, ♪ Oh, President Rooney, most high can I be? ♪

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