Sermon
Purity
Theme
Keeping ourselves pure for God
Object
Any book from a public library
Scripture
And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Romans 12:1 (NLT)
Many of you are old enough to go to the public library and "take out" books. When you take out a book, it means that you are borrowing a book from the library that you will have to return. The book does not belong to you. So you must treat that book with care so that when we return the book, it is in good condition.
You will hear people in church say that everything belongs to God, well that is true--including our bodies. And just like you must return your library book back to the library, some day we will return our bodies back to God. God is not only going to ask us on the day of judgement what we did with the things that he gave us, he is going to ask us what we did with the bodies he gave us.
So we must take good care of our bodies such as get enough sleep, eat right, and exercise. But there is another thing God wants us to do to take care of our bodies, it's called "purity".
Just like there is junk food that can effect our bodies condition, there is other junk we see and hear that can effect our soul's condition. When we see and hear certain things it effects our mind in a way we think and act. When we hear and see good things, we are more likely to think and act good. When we hear and see bad things, we are more likely to think and act bad.
This kind of junk that I'm talking about can be found on the TV, radio, and in books. And now that we all have computers in our homes, there is a lot of junk that can be found on computers that is not good us. Your parents can help you avoid the kind of junk that I'm talking about. [Any questions children ask regarding what specific things are you talking about, answer as simply as you can, "violence", or "not age appropriate" material. Or let them know that they can speak with their parents about this subject.]
Just like you return your books to the library, there will be a day that we return our bodies to God. And we want to return them to God in good condition.
OPTIONAL: Donate a christian book or video to your Sunday School class with the sermon demonstrating good things that you are trying to convey.
