Sixth Sunday of Easter (5)

The warmup is a quiz where people have to guess the name of a Mr Men or Little Miss You could invite a few people to come forward and form two teams or you could set up some competition by inviting one side of the congregation to compete against the other side.

The purpose of this warmup is to introduce the concept of sin, so choose six characters that characterise a particular sin,

Link: Have you noticed that none of these Mr Men or Little Miss characters are very nice people?

They are rude, lazy, grumbly, greedy, jealous or naughty.

One day when Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, the Pharisees brought a woman who had committed a sin before him.

They wanted to know what he thought should be done with her.

Let’s see what happened. Reading 1:

The reading is John 8:2-11

2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught being unfaithful to her husband. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

11 “No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

Talk 1: This talk needs the following props: a stone, arrows, and a target.

It is easy to believe that we are good people isn’t it when we compare ourselves with others?

We know that we would never murder someone or rob a bank or commit some other evil crime,

and so, we can be tempted to think that we don’t need to worry about sin because we are OK.

The Pharisees and teachers of the law in Jesus’ day believed that they were good people, especially when they compared themselves with the woman that they had made to stand in front of Jesus.

She was a sinner.

She was someone who had broken the law she had sinned so should be stoned to death. (Hold up a stone) But Jesus rather turned the tables on everyone didn’t he?

Instead of agreeing with the Pharisees and teachers that the woman was a terrible sinner and deserved death, he challenged them to look at their own hearts and see if they were sinless.

And as John tells us, when each person in the crowd looked at their own hearts, they realised that they weren’t sinless and so, they put down their stones and walked away, probably feeling rather embarrassed.

If Jesus invited each one of us here today to look at our own hearts honestly, we would realise that we are not sinless either.

In fact, the Bible tells us in Romans 3:23 that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”So what is sin?

To help us understand I need someone to come and help me. (Volunteer comes forward and you give them three arrows. Position the target so everyone can see it)

You can I have a target here and I need you to shoot three of the arrows I have given you so. that they hit the target each time. OK you go and stand over there and I’ll stand here, When you are ready, please shoot one of your arrows and see if you can hit the target.

Bad luck, try again.

Have one last try.

Oh dear none of your arrows hit the target….. In fact, they didn’t even get anywhere near the target.

That little illustration might help us understand what sin is.

We could say that sin is missing the target of not living the way that God created us to live.

Some of us might wonder what the target we are aiming for is.

Jesus tells us in Matthew’s Gospel that the target is to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and to love our neighbours as ourselves.

So, imagine that the target represents the command to love God and love others.

Please pick up your three arrows and please shoot your first arrow again.

Sin is when we fail to love God.

Please shoot your second arrow. Sin is when we fail to love our neighbour.

Please shoot your last arrow. Sin is when we always put ourselves first.

We are all guilty of sin because none of us has perfectly loved God or perfectly loved our neighbour.

It isn’t simply those who commit murder, or rob banks that are sinners, we also are sinners according to the Bible.

The good news is that Jesus has done something about our sin so let’s stand and sing again.

Songs

362 Lord, the light of your Love. SoF 1

Talk 2 Water in 3 glasses half, threequarters, nearly full.

I have got some water hear is anyone thirsty?

The issue I had was the water ran out but not to worry I got some out of the toilet, don’t worry I flushed it first.

I’ll top it up, who wants a drink?

OK I understand but I have another glass this has more water in it.

Who wants this? Just a minute I’ll top it up.

Do you still want it?

Now this glass is almost full I’ll just add a little bit of water to it, I don’t want to offer a glass that’s not full.

So, no one wants it.

That’s like our lives, as we grow up, we get more and more stuff on us we call it sin.

Firstly, sin STINKS! If you come anywhere near, you will realise that they don’t smell very nice!

Although we cannot really smell sin with our noses, It is like a bad smell!

If you have ever been close to someone who constantly uses bad language or is always grumbling or bad tempered, it isn’t very nice is it?

Secondly sin STICKS! If you talk behind someone’s back, you’ll find that eventually no one will trust you. It makes a mess of your life.

No matter what we do, we cannot get rid of sin ourselves.

It is a permanent STAIN on our souls.

And thirdly sin does is SEPARATES,

Sin separates us from God. he is holy and can’t come anywhere near us while we are covered in sin.

That means that we can’t have the relationship with Him, and so our lives can feel empty and meaningless.

Not only that but our sin makes our God very sad because He loves us and wants us to be part of His family. Who can help us with our sin problem?

The sin problem that STINKS, STAINS and SEPARATES us from God,

Listen to this:

Reading 2: 1 John 3:4-5

“Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, But you know that Jesus came so that he could take away our sins.

And in him is no sin”

Talk 2 Jesus is the One who can help us with our sin problem.

He doesn’t condemn us for our sin, like he didn’t condemn the woman in the first reading.

Rather than condemn us, he did something about our sins that cost him everything over two thousand years ago.

Having lived a completely sinless life himself, Jesus was arrested and nailed to a cross by people who wanted to get rid of him.

But Jesus’ death wasn’t an accident. When Jesus died, in some amazing way he was taking the punishment that our sin deserves.

On the third day after Jesus was crucified on the cross, He rose again from the dead and is alive today, reigning as King with His Father in heaven.

So, we are now offered the possibility of a fresh start, like the woman. If we come to Jesus and ask Him to forgive us our sins, he takes our dirty life and gives us a brand-new one. Produce a fresh glass.

Song

664 Beauty for Brokenness SoF 2

We can now enjoy a relationship with our Heavenly Father. Not only that but we are given a special gift called the Holy Spirit,

Who lives inside us and helps us to live lives that are centred around loving God and loving others.

Learning to live in a different way takes time and occasionally we will sin.

When we do, we simply need to come to Jesus, turn away from that sin and pray: “Forgive us our sins” and He will.

Confession: Tell people that you are going to give them the opportunity to ask Jesus to forgive them and cleanse them from their sins.

Pass around red circles of card 4 and pens / pencils. (You may prefer to give these out at the beginning of the service. Pray a simple prayer inviting the Holy Spirit to show people the sins that they need to confess. Then invite them to either write those sins on the red card or draw a picture to represent them. During this time, you might like to have some quiet reflective worship music playing in the background for example the song, “What can wash away my sin?” At the appropriate time, invite people to come and either lay their red cards at the foot of the cross, or pin them to the cross (with the writing facing inwards so that it is not visible), as a symbolic way of saying that they are sorry and that they don’t want to carry on sinning. Invite them to pick up a piece of white wool from a bowl full of pieces of white wool at the foot of the cross and tie it around their wrist as they go and sit down. Absolution: When everyone is back in their seats

God says to us from the book of Isaiah: “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.” (Isaiah 1:18) “Thank you Father for the generous gift of forgiveness, won for us through the blood Jesus shed on the cross. Please fill us with your Spirit so that we can say, “no” to sin, and “yes” to you this week. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

Summary: We have discovered that sin is missing the target of loving God and loving others.

The problem with sin is that it stinks, stains our souls and separates us from God.

Also, we can see in sin there is an I in the middle.

Jesus came to set us free from our sins when he died on the cross for us.

Because of what Jesus did, we can pray, “Forgive us our sins” and we will be forgiven. Prayers:

Three or four simple prayers would work well asking for God’s mercy for a situation caused by sin:

Powerful God,

You hold us and everything you have made in your loving care.

You are in the whole universe and in every tiny creature.

Pour out on us, God, the power of your love.

And teach us to care for life and for beauty.

For the World

Fill us with peace, so that we do not harm others,

but love them all like sisters and brothers.

God, we know that people who are poor are very special to you

and you want us to love them too, so they are not forgotten.

We ask you to change us so that we protect your world, not destroy it.

Change the hearts of people who only care about themselves and money,

instead of caring about people and the Earth.

Show us how even small things matter,

help us see that we are all connected to each other and to the earth.

We thank you God for being with us each day,

fill us up with wonder and light,

and help us to bring peace to our beautiful world.

Amen.

In the nation

We think of our country as we move forward,

That decisions made are of benefit to all.

For the Children of this country, who are our future.

That all may feel safe and secure.

At School and Work,

We pray for the teachers who educate our young,

For school friends and friends who we have fallen out with.

Help us all to be the bigger person and bridge the gap in our relationships.

Help us to see things from other’s point of view.

Help us to allow you into our lives and show it through our actions.

At home

We pray that we can be happy at home,

That parents can provide a loving environment.

To nurture and grow our young ones.

That they can grow into the best they can be.

Amen

End with the Lord’s Prayer.

Song

743 Great is the Lord SoF 2

Blessing: As the Lord has forgiven you out of His great love, go from here to use your freedom to love God and love others, And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be among you and remain with you always. Amen.

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