The Pumpkin Patch Gospel

The Pumpkin Patch Gospel

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Welcome to Family Sunday.

I love family Sunday’s. I love seeing our youth up here leading us in worship and our kids able to come in and worship with us and for believing kids to participate with us as we commune together with the Lord. It is exciting to be together.

I know many of our kids are not only excited to be here, but also to go around getting candy this afternoon.

Last week we talked about participating in some of the events surrounding Halloween from a biblical standpoint and in regard to the freedom we have in Christ. If you missed last week, you might want to check that out online and hear why it is ok from a biblical standpoint to “trick or treat” but how we want to be cautious in regards to what we allow our kids to dress up as well as a few other things related to a Halloween.

Today, however, we are going to do something a bit different in honor of all the kids being with us. Today we want our kids, as well as our adults, to be able to hear the gospel in a way that may be easier to understand and retain as we communicate it through the Pumpkin Patch Gospel.

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How many of you know what this is? (hold up pumpkin)

Around this time of year a lot of people carve pumpkins and make faces on them and make pumpkin seeds and pumpkin pies and pumpkin bread.

How many of you have carved a pumpkin this year?

Our family did last week.

Show picture

Did any of you go out to the pumpkin patch to pick your pumpkin?

When you get your pumpkins from the pumpkin patch often they have a lot of dirt on them.

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You pick them and you have clean them off when you get them home and then they start to look nice on the outside. But even though they look nice on the outside, if you have ever carved a pumpkin you know that they have all kinds of yucky gunk on the inside still, don’t they? (open up pumpkin and pull out gunk)

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We are a lot like a pumpkin.

We can put on nice clothes and get all gussied up but that is only really cleaning up our outsides. What is it we look like on the inside, in our hearts, in our spirits?

The Bible tells us we have bad stuff inside us.

It says our hearts are wicked

Jeremiah 17:9 - The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.

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Romans 3:10-12

"There is no one righteous, not even one;

11 there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.

12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless;

there is no one who does good, not even one."

We want things

Have you ever seen something that you would like to have like money or a toy or something that to you was valuable and the thought comes into your mind, “I could just take that!”

We may not do that, because we then think to ourselves that it would be wrong, but that thought entering in shows us that our heart is a lot like the insides of this pumpkin…kind of disgusting.

So here we are all cleaned up on the outside, but with all this yucky stuff on the inside.

What do we do?

Well the sad truth is, is that we can’t clean our insides up by ourselves.

Because our insides our gunky and full of sin, we need someone who isn’t all gunky on the inside and full of sin to be able to do it for us.

We need Jesus to clean out the gunk and sin in our lives.

But, we have to open ourselves up to Jesus.

(Take top off of pumpkin)

Jesus says in

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Revelation 3:20 - Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.

Are you open to Jesus coming into your life and cleaning out the gunk, the sin in your life that makes you dirty on the inside?

Do you believe that Jesus is able to clean you?

The Bible tells us that when we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9)

Do you believe that?

Are you willing to open yourself up to Jesus and let Him clean you?

If you are, the Bible tells us that

Isaiah 1:18 - "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow”

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Jesus removes the seeds of sin