Children's Message, Sunday May 18 (Micah 6:8)

Children’s Message
Sunday May 18, 2008
Justice. . . kindness. . . humility (Micah 6:8)


Wow. I feel energized by the beginning of worship today, don’t you? Wasn’t it cool to watch the youth’s video? I am kind of biased—first off, those kids up on the screen were once kids down on this carpet, so I am automatically incredibly proud of them, but more than that, I am biased because the words of the video. . . the words of the call to worship. . . the words of our first hymn are my favorite words of scripture.

Watch and vote for our youth group video at: http://www.ymilive.org/app/teams/third-presbyterian-church/video

What does the Lord require of you? In other words, what does God need you to do?

God needs us to seek justice—to look for ways to make the world a more fair place. In the video, some kids shared what they had with someone who obviously needed a coat and something to eat.

God needs us to love kindness—or as the Bibles that we read in church and you use in Sunday school say it, to love Mercy. To be kind and thoughtful and caring. The girls who helped the boy whose car broke down did a good job at the kindness part.

And through it all, we must walk humbly with our God. Aah. . . the hardest part. We work for justice and are nice and loving to people—but wait,—we need to be humble-- we can’t brag about it all—we must remember that without God there wouldn’t be much bragging to do at all. The scene near the end with the two groups of kids is one of my favorites. . . no one thought that they were any better than anyone else. It made me happy to see them all as friends in the end.

Later in the service today, 14 of our youth will be joining the church. You have already seen some of them lead us this morning. And although they will not be promising specifically to “seek justice, love kindness and walk humbly with their God”, in fact, in some ways, they are promising to do exactly that. What a wonderful scripture.

Let’s pray: Loving God
Help us to follow your requirements
And live out your word.
Amen.