You Are Special

By, Max Lucado

In honor of national children’s day we are going to do something a bit different this morning. I want to invite the children from pre-school thru 5th grade to join me up front here in the front benches.

You are going to be up here for the length of this sermon

Read the Book

This morning we are going to read together a book- You Are Special, by Max Lucado.

How many of you have read or had your parents read this book to you?

Here is the thing that I love about this book. It’s not just a book for children. The lesson that we are hoping going to learn this morning is also for the grown ups.

So when we are done reading you’re going to help me teach your parents about the meaning of the story.

Read the Book

What do we learn? Questions?

We have two character groups in this story

We have the Wemmick’s- Who do the Wemmick’s represent in this story?

We have Eli, the woodcarver- Who does Eli represent in this story?

What do the Wemmick’s do all day?

Do we do that? Give out stars and dot’s to each other

We do- How does it feel when you get a star from someone?

It feels good- Like the Wemmicks “every time they got a star it made them feel so good! It made them want to do something else to get another star.”

It feels good when I get a star for preaching a good sermon, or for having a nice yard, or someone likes the clothes I wear, those are maybe some grown up stars we five out

But I can remember when I was your age and someone wanted you to be on their pick up team for football because you were good at football, or because you could run fast, or that pretty girl you liked gave you a compliment.

It felt good and like the Wemmicks it made me want to do more things like that

There is nothing wrong with this, in fact I would encourage you to be generous with your compliments of each other, if you see something good say something good.

As we will learn here we need to be careful that we don’t start living only for the stars or allow the stars to become our identity

Because on the flip side as good as it feels to get stars how does it feel to get dots…have you ever felt like Punchinello, some times we do.

It hurts to get dot’s and if we get enough dots then we might feel like Punchinello- “I’m not a good Wemmick.”

Let me let you in on a secret, the thing that I dislike the most about myself is the size of my nose. You know why I don’t like my big nose, because when I was your age I used to get dots, because I had a big nose, it made the shape of my face funny, and I can still remember 25 years later a dot that someone gave me in the cafeteria at BMS.

And I began to believe maybe I do have a big nose, a funny shaped face.

Fortunately, there was a pretty girl who kinda liked guys with big noses, I’ll let you guess who that pretty girl was

Stars make us feel good and dots make us feel bad but both are equally unhealthy for us if we allow them to stick.

Lucia, the sticker less Wemmick,

But there was one Wemmick who didn’t have any stars or dots- What was her name?

Why didn’t the stickers stick to her because “every day I go see Eli.”

Let’s Go See Eli,

Remember who Eli was? He was the wood carver, He made all of the Wemmicks.

When Punchinello learn when he went to Eli? Why did visiting Eli keep stickers from sticking to Lucia?

“Because she has decided that what I think is more important than what they think.”

Why does it matter more what Eli thinks than what the other Wemmick’s think?

Because “I made you and I don’t make mistakes.”

The same is true for us. Do you know that God made you, he did, and he doesn’t make mistakes either.

He is waiting every day for us to come to his “workshop,” there he can remind us who we really are, there may be some mending or fixing that needs to be done also but if we don’t go to visit God, what begins to happen?

The stickers begin to stick, we start to believe we are or are not special because of the things we can or can’t do instead of understanding that regardless of the things that we can or can’t do we are still special because the one who made us thinks so.

King David was considered a man after God’s own heart, I think He probably got that title because of how much time he spent in God’s “workshop.”

David wasn’t perfect, he did some things that would probably earn him a few dots by our standard, but here is what says about who God says he is and the same is true for each of us?

Psalm 139:13–16 NIV

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

David remembered that is was God who made him, knit him together, therefore he considered himself “fearfully and wonderfully made,”

The same is true for you and me- you are also fearfully and wonderfully made by God, and He doesn’t make mistakes

But if I don’t spend time with God each day I begin to forget that truth and it begins to get replaced by the things that others say about me, good and bad.

Stickers:

So, as a reminder of what we have talked about, I am going to give each of you a star sticker, because I think each of you are truly special, but remember more importantly than me thinking you are special is the truth that God says you are special and he doesn’t make mistakes. I also want you to take atleast one sticker with you that you will give to someone else to remind them that they too are special because they are made by God.