Children's Sermon

When Halloween comes often children pretend they are someone else by putting themselves inside a costume.  

The lesson we have today is about putting on armor God has made for us out of His love. 

This armor is really another person we are suppose to 'put on' as if He is our armor against the devil who wants to put all sorts of bad thoughts into our minds and try to make us think they are true.  He is a liar and tries to trick us into thinking and feeling in ways that are bad for us and for each other.  But we learn that we can hide ourselves inside of someone else who will be our armor and protect us.

That person is our Lord Jesus Christ.  We are to think of ourselves, imagine ourselves as being inside of Him who will surround us with His loving protection.

Here is how it works.

The devil tries to trick us in these ways:

1. We have not always done what we know we should have done so the devil wants us to think that we should always feel bad and not think that we are loved by a holy and good God.  Our Lord Jesus tells us not to listen to this idea because He came and is our savior and He is like a helmet to protect us against someone trying to put the bad idea in our head that we are not safe in Jesus - we hide in Him and His love for us - He loved us so much that He even died for us and took the punishment for us - this is what it means to have a Savior in whom we can trust.

2. He tries to trick us into thinking that since we haven't lived a good enough life we won't go to Heaven but our Lord Jesus lived the perfect life for us - and gives us credit for His goodness - His righteousness.  So we aren't tricked into thinking this way - we know we are in Jesus and it is His wonderful obedience to our Father in Heaven that our Father sees if we believe He loved us so much to live that good and holy life for us.

3. He tries to make us upset all the time about what we have done wrong and keeps on trying to bring these things up to us but Jesus wants us to be at peace inside - He gives us His peace, the peace of a perfect person who has nothing to be troubled about - He forgives and forgets what we have done wrong because He paid the price for us.

4. He is like a sword against the devil's ideas - and like a sword that can cut things down so His words cut down the bad ideas of the devil - we learn His good words and He is like a sword for us and keeps these bad ideas out of our heads.